Written by Tim Nagle
Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing
With UK Affiliate Marketing income predicted to increase by 60% to nearly £2.16 billion in 2006, Affiliate marketing is real marketing channel for your business.
If you do not know what Affiliate Marketing is then here is a brief definition:
According to WikiPedia , Affiliate Marketing is a widespread method of promoting a website, in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder's-fees to individuals who introduce new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay-per-click), registrant (Pay-per-lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay-per-Sale).
You may be familiar with this kind of business, you may have a partner program, referral or reseller program. In essence, Affiliate Marketing is the same thing. The only difference is that Affiliate Marketing is totally managed ONLINE and can be totally automated to handle sign ups, real-time stats reporting, and even payment of Affiliates (This becomes important when you have 1,000 affiliates!)
So why should you be using Affiliate Marketing as part of your Marketing mix? Well here are my top 5 reasons for recommending you get involved in Affiliate Marketing.
Low Cost
Affiliate Marketing is relatively low cost to start if you already have e-commerce store. Some Shopping Cart will already have affiliate programs built in or as upgrades. This software will then manage all sales tracking, affiliate signups and much, much more....
Low Risk
Depending on what your commission payment model is, Affiliate Marketing removes the risk in paid offline advertising as you are only paying the affiliate when the sales has been made.
Large Skilled Sales Force
If you join a large affiliate network to use as your affiliate management program, you will have access to a ready made Army of Affiliates. Some of these networks have over 100,000 affiliates. Imagine these all working to promote your products. I have mentioned that these guys are also skilled. Affiliate marketers are some of the smartest guys around and know all the best ways to promote a product online. They will have being doing this for years and it is a good thing to tap into this knowledge.
If you are worried about spending money on PPC advertising for example, you could let your affiliates do this for you. There are guys out there that would be 100 times better at that than you so why worry about it and let them do it. You will still earn money but with out the risks...
Free Branding
Having your banners, text links, product logos etc all over these affiliate sites, you are getting your business some great free exposure and this should not be overlooked. While you should benefit from this do not exploit your affiliates. Do not add direct urls or phone numbers to your banners. This will cause lots of affiliates to leave your program and also give you a bad name in the industry.
International Sales
Your affiliate program can truly turn your local business into an international sales machine very quickly. Larger affiliate networks have affiliates around the world and not just English speaking parts. An affiliate program will also be able to soft launch your product into Asia, or into Europe.
As you can see these are just a few of the major benefits of running an affiliate program, be it in house or outsourced. What ever option you choose, you should consider adding an Affiliate Program to your Web Business to explode sales and exposure around the World.
In Summary..
An Affiliate Program is a fantastic way of driving sales of your products and you should be looking into running one for your business. Remember though that your affiliate program will be a legitimate part of your business, spend time on it and that you treat your affiliates like your business partners. Best of Luck!
Jason Hulott is an Author, Affiliate Program Manager, and creator of “Affiliate Communicator”, a new tool which allows the user to create Affiliate Marketing newsletters at the push of a button. Auto loaded with articles, products tips and useful Resources, Affiliate Communicator is THE tool affiliate marketing managers can’t live without! To receive a free UNIQUE report on the best ways to attract new affiliates and get them to put your links live click here