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In
this holiday season online shopping is hotter than ever! According to US Commerce
Department online sales continue to grow with a robust 25-27 percent this year
over 1992. Online holiday shopping at a rate of 10 percent is also considerably
outpacing the 5.7 percent growth of overall retail sales. Goldman Sachs predicts
23 percent of all gift-buying this holiday season will take place online!
So,
if you dont have a product of your own to sell online, how can you profit from
this exciting trend?
One of the finest ways of making money online is to
promote other peoples products or services by becoming their affiliates. Affiliate
is a term used for a website that drives traffic to another website in exchange
for a predetermined commission.
Thanks to the success of several affiliate
programs in the early days of online business, most merchant websites, today,
use some kind of affiliate programs to promote their sites and generate sales.
Considering
the sheer numbers of affiliate programs available on the Internet, you may feel
overwhelmed. However, if you set some basic criteria, it would be lot easier to
find a good program that suits your need.
Free sign up
The affiliate
program that you are planning to join must be absolutely free. There are way too
many good programs available for free, why should you pay for one? Moreover, the
programs that require payments to join are mostly multi Level Marketing (MLM)
programs. Although, there may be many good MLM programs existing on the Internet,
I dont think its a viable option for an average person.
Good commission
You
deserve handsome compensation for all your hard work! No matter, how you look
into it, in most of the cases, promoting a product or service is not an easy job.
Since you are doing the uphill struggle of bringing the client to the merchants
door, your commission should be real good one. What is an acceptable commission
anyway? If you are promoting an information product, dont go for less than 50
percent. For more tangible products and services your bare minimum commission
should be 15 percent of the sale. If you are promoting monthly subscription, choose
a program that pays a portion of subscription fee as recurring commission to you
as long as the client referred by you stays subscribed.
Tow-tier affiliate
program
An affiliate program which pays certain percent as a commission
from the sale for bringing in a client and another if that client brings in other
clients. Two-tier affiliate programs are more preferable since once a client base
is built, it becomes a great source of residual income.
Quality affiliate
tracking system
The merchant should have a very good and well-organized
affiliate sales tracking management software system. You have to be absolutely
comfortable with the statistics generated by the affiliate program. The program
should show such important aspects as repurchase, if any, by the client referred
by you, your second tier affiliates, activities by your second tier clients, etc.If
you do not feel comfortable with the tracking system provided by a merchant, better
stick to the merchants, who use third party affiliate managing system. At least,
you will know that a dishonest merchant wont be able to defraud you.
Efficient
customer support
You should feel satisfied with the service and support
you get from your affiliate program owner. A good program highly values its affiliates
and gives priority to its customer support system. As the clients that you are
sending to the merchant are primarily your sites visitors, you should be extremely
picky about the quality of customer service the program renders. After all, your
own sites reputation is also at stake here!
Promotional materials
If
you are planning to promote an affiliate program, you will need more materials
then mere banners. Unfortunately, even many high-end affiliate programs do not
carry enough promotional materials to satisfy the need of the affiliates. Promotional
material should include: contents to build mini-sites, various ad articles, different
kind of text links, product brochures or presentation, etc.
Commission
payment policy
The affiliate program should have a sort of minimum payment
policy, where you can receive commissions if even you have made just one or two
sales. A reasonable amount is US $25. Less than that is not viable due to processing
costs. Commission should be paid each month. If you are located outside of US,
see if the merchant makes payment through Paypal or other similar services or
not. For most of the countries checks issued in other countries are not a good
option.
If an affiliate program meets all these above mentioned criteria,
you can consider joining in this program. However, to get best result from your
efforts, before signing up, you should also consider the following rules:
You
have to like the product you are promoting Any salesman will confirm you that
this is one of the fundamental rules of selling. If you are selling a product
or service you must have confidence in it. If you like the product and will use
it yourself gladly, you found a product to promote! Dont waste your time with
a product that is not
up to your taste!
Promote a product or service
consistent to your websites subject matter If your site is all about soccer, you
will be better off with products and service related to soccer. If this same site
promotes,for example: pesticides, no matter how hard you try your success will
be very limited! Before joining in any affiliate program first you should identify
who your visitors are, what do they like and which products they will probably
buy online. Once you know your niche market its lot easier to find products or
services for it.
Many webmasters think that in order to make money through
affiliate programs, all you have to do is to come up with a site and fill up the
site with affiliate links. Sooner all later people will click on them. Unfortunately
this does not work! Making money through affiliate programs is also a business
and like any business you have to have a proper business plan. Only a well prepared
businessplan followed by its meticulous implementation can bring success to your
affiliate endeavor. Nowshade
Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com.
A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he has wide experience in Business Consulting,
International Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace with
solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
ezine.rusbiz.com, |
