When a company has a
product or a service that they wish to sell they will often enlist 'affiliates'
to do the job of finding customers for them.
You may know an
affiliate by another name, for example: agent, reseller, associate,
communicator.
Once the affiliate has
managed to get the customer to make an order his job ends. The whole process of
handling the order, the collection of payment, the shipping of goods, is done
by the company (or distributor).
Who benefits?
This is a tremendous
arrangement for both sides.
The distributor simply
waits for orders to arrive and has no involvement in the marketing phase. The
affiliate simply gets a customer, for example, to visit a website and takes no
further part.
Commission is paid to
the affiliate on the value of orders made.
It is the power of the Internet with the possibility of cheap or free
advertising for a vast audience which makes reselling such an outstanding
business opportunity.
And if you have your own
website, where you have the luxury of posting your own ads for free, then you
have an effortless income-producing system.
Two things which make reselling even more exciting
If the product can earn
you residual income, for example a monthly commission all the while that the
customer continues to renew it. If you can recruit your own affiliates and
collect commission either for each affiliate or for the products that they
sell.
What should you look out
for?
Here are some rules for
checking out affiliate opportunities:
#1 The company
First, there would be no
point in generating massive commission on 'paper' only to find that the company
are unreliable, don't pay up on time, or eventually fold.
Test out the company
first.
Make an inquiry as if
you were a potential customer. Study the quality of their reply and of their literature
or website.
How quickly do they
respond? If their customer service is poor this does not give much hope for the
way they will handle their affiliates.
Are they an ethical
company, what guarantees do they provide for refunds?
#2 The product
Is the product an item
which is in good demand?
What is the rate of
commission?
These two factors will
determine your potential earnings.
As a guide commission
should range from 25 to 50%.
#3 Assistance with
promotion
Does the company provide
advertising material for their affiliates?
In particular do they
provide a personalised website?
#4 The cost
What is the cost of
becoming an affiliate?
This can vary from
completely free paying an initial one off payment to paying a monthly
subscription.
You don't have to be
deterred by affiliate opportunities where payment is involved. These may offer
greater benefits such as advanced promotion techniques and commission which
will quickly outweigh the payments.
For example $30 per
month may seem a high figure but if you regard it as one dollar a day to have
the company's products displayed 24 hours a day to the whole world on your own
personalised website it could be viewed as the bargain of the century.
Can anyone become an
affiliate?
Affiliate opportunities
are ideal for both experienced online marketeers and for newcomers to the
Internet. Here's why:
#1 Experienced online
marketeers
If you have an
established website the minimum that you need to do is post an ad on your own
site.
And there's no need to
stop at one product.
Providing that you don't
overload your website with ads you could have many - and you can monitor how
they perform so that you can judge which ones to give prominence to.
#2 Newcomers
One of the first and
most important skills you will need to use for any online business is how to
place adverts.
Here are some of the
things that you start to learn when you submit ads:
The various locations
where you can place an ad such as newsgroups, forums, ezines, websites: and
the different rules and methods used for each one such as frequency of posting
and size of ads.
How to post information
to a mailing list or newsgroup for free but using a signature file to promote
your products.
How to code your adverts
so that you can identify where the response originates.
How to organise your
mail files to handle responses.
How to simplify your own
systems so that you have standard replies to common questions.
How to set up
autoresponders if necessary to take away the chore of responding manually.
How to deal with the
unexpected (for example, even though you may clearly spell out in your ad that
a reply should be made to an autoresponder many people will still reply
directly to you).
By taking on an
affiliate operation you have an ideal opportunity to practice these methods.
This will provide the experience for whatever online venture you plan as well
as an excellent source of additional income.
Don't miss Harvey's FREE
book
Guru Magic: the Internet
marketing book with a UNIQUE twist
No comments:
Post a Comment