How To Profit From Affiliate Programs

The beauty of the Internet is you can own your own business andearn good money without spending much time at it. You don't haveto mind the store or keep office hours. You don't even have tobe there to answer the phone.I've known any number of successful Internet entrepreneurs whogot started earning profits online while still working demandingfull-time jobs. Kevin Needham of Memail.com became a major nameon the Web while still holding down his government job. Themedia often tells the story of Jim Daniels who started his onlinepublishing empire while working as a middle-manager for a techfirm.Kevin Nunley was a DJ at an oldies station when his articlesstarted appearing on AOL. Superstar Internet biz person and techconsultant Kate Schultz was a corporate manager when shebegan posting her own ads online.The moral of these stories is don't let your busy life stand inthe way of your desire to earn extra money or even a good livingonline. The Internet will bend, twist, and adapt for you morethan any other kind of business.But you have to go at it the right way or you will wind upspending way more time and money than you intended. Here is asimple plan to get you earning online while working at it just 10to 20 minutes each day.1. Choose your affiliate program wisely. You will want one mainprogram you can promote intensively. It is much easier to makean impact with one good program you market heavily than spreadingyourself too thin over a dozen or more programs.Right now affiliates report their biggest earners are informationproducts that tell affiliate program members and others how toearn better profits. Ken Envoy's "Make Your Site Sell" course,Corey Rudl's "Insider Secrets," and Jim Daniels' big "Make ALiving Online" are real winners in this category.You can also do well working with a company that represents manyproducts and other affiliate programs. Check the many affiliateproducts and services housed under the ClickBank.com umbrella.QuinStreet.com features direct marketing services and ecommercetechnology.2. Market to friends and associates using a simple signaturefile in your email. This is dirt simple yet incredibly powerful.Email messages have a very personal quality that sells. Youremail program will let you set this up.Your sig file should start with a headline that tweaks thereader's interest. Then follow with your web site address andyour autoresponder address (more on this later.) Here's whatyour "sig" might look like.------------I made $500 with this program last month. Wantto know more? See http://DrNunley.com/affilates.htmor write to mailto:bizguru@aweber.com------------3. Remember how I promised you would only have to work 10 to 20minutes per day? The key to this is using the Internet's abilityto automate tasks.No question about it, you will want a series of canned emailmessages you can send to people who are interested. Use amultiple autoresponder to do this (freeautobot.com is a goodone.) When someone emails your autoresponder address, they getyour messages, one each day.Chances are the affiliate program offers sales letters you canuse. If not, get a professional writer to help you put togetherthree sales letters. A set of three often works as well as themore common seven messages.4. Finally, get your own web site. It is super easy to build anice page or two using the free systems at Tripod.com andHomestead.com.While most marketing on the Net is done with email, customersexpect you have a web site with additional information.Rather than using the free site the affiliate program gives you,create your own site. Your site can tell your story, help peopleget to know you, tell why you support the affiliate product, thenlink to your affiliate member site.There are two reasons for this. Starting prospects with your ownsite gives you a lot more power to sell. You can tell the storyof how you used the product and succeeded (very powerful!) anddisplay additional products or services that compliment your mainaffiliate offer.Most search engines won't list a canned affiliate site, but theyWILL list the original site you create. Search engines can be animmense automated source of free visitors.That's all it takes! Do these four things 10 to 20 minutes perday and you will be well on your way to earning with affiliateprograms.Recent stats show the average person spends 20 hours per weekonline. If you get organized, there is no reason you can't useat least a little of your weekly Internet time to work your ownsmall business.

12 Tips For A Successful Affiliate Program

1. Look around at other competing businesses that offer affiliate programs, and think of ways that you can make youraffiliate program more attractive.2. Pay your affiliates well for their efforts.If you're thinking about offering a 10% commission for sales of your product and a competing business is paying a 50% commission for referrals, you'll lose affiliates to your competitor.3. Make your affiliate program more lucrative by offering residual commissions. This is an excellent choice if you offer a product that is paid for on a residual basis such as webhosting or access to your membership site.4. Offer lifetime commissions.Your affiliates will see the power of lifetime commissions, and work hard to promote your business and send you more sales.5. Make your affiliate program two-tier.Reward your affiliates by giving them a commission on the sales of people they refer to your affiliate program.6. Don't leave your affiliates out in the cold.Provide your affiliates with lots of sales items that they can use to successfully promote your products. Some items you could offer your affiliates:- e-zine ads (sponsor ads, classified ads, 2 liners)- signature file ads- sales letters/solo ads- brandable ebooks- sample recommendations- email courses- your articles that they can reprint with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.7. Be quick to respond to your affiliates' emails.An easy way to lose your affiliates is to not respond to their questions in a timely manner, or to not respond to their e-mails at all. It shows that you don't value them, and since their are tons of other affiliate programs, you would be losing potentially very good affiliates to other businesses.8. Provide your own tips and advice.Follow up with your affiliates with tips and strategies that they can use to increase their commissions.9. Reward your top affiliates with higher commissions and bonuses. You'll be able to achieve more sales over the long term because your top affiliates won't jump to another affiliate program where their efforts are more appreciated.10. Publish an affiliate's newsletter.Your affiliate's newsletter will help you to share your tips with your affiliates, and keep them going in the right direction.You could also use your newsletter to keep your top affiliates excited about your program. Some effective ways to do this are:- Share what your top affiliates do to earn big commission checks. - Showcase their sites and tell why their sites sell. - List your 5 or 10 highest earning affiliates for the month.11. Track your affiliates' sales accurately.Your affiliates will find out if they send you customers and you don't credit them with their commissions. Your affiliate program will lose credibility and you'll end up losing your affiliates as word gets around.12. Participate in affiliate marketing forums.Share your valuable advice and expertise with the members of the forums you participate in. Include your signature file that promotes your affiliate program, and always follow the rules of the forums you join.

Why Two-Tier Affiliate Programs are Best

When you join an affiliate program or start an affiliate program of your own, you have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. With a single tier program you earn a commission on any sales you make and that is it. If you are running your own affiliate program, you pay your affiliates a commission for any sales they refer and that is all. However, with a two-tier program, affiliates are allowed to recruit sub-affiliates and are paid a small percentage of the sales these sub-affiliates generate. For example, the affiliates may earn a 30% commission for selling product X himself; and when one of the sub-affiliates makes a sale, the affiliate may get a 10% commission as well. This is very profitable for the affiliate as he can recruit an army of sub-affiliates, all earning commissions for him without any effort on his part except for the initial recruiting process. If you are starting an affiliate program of your own should it be two-tier or single tier? Some might shy away from the seeming expense of a two-tier program. But is it really that expensive? Many affiliate program managers make the wrong decision on this. Let’s look at an example. You have an affiliate program up and running and an average affiliate joins your program. Mr.Average has a web site that receives average traffic. He also has an ezine with thousands of subscribers published monthly. Mr. Average posts your affiliate links to his web site and promotes your product to his ezine list. Initially, he generates good sales. However, a point comes when he saturates his market with your product and his sales begin to drop. He begins to lose interest in your program and your sales remain small. What happens if you set up a two-tier program? Rather than trying to keep your commission pay outs small, you motivate your existing affiliates to recruit other people to your program. This will exponentially increase your affiliate sales. Would it not be worth paying the referring affiliate a percentage of their sub-affiliates’ sales? Now when Mr.Average joins your affiliate program this is what would happen. When he has saturated his market with your product, he would now promote your affiliate program to his customers and ezine subscribers. Many of Mr.Average’s customers and subscribers decide to join the affiliate program. This in turn will motivate Mr.Average to continue promoting your products and recruiting affiliates. Now what is the situation? 1) Your income increases because of increased sales. 2) You have a much larger customer base to which you can sell ‘backend’ products. 3) An increase in your income because of the life time loyalty of the customers referred by your affiliate. 4) An army of sub-affiliates who will sell your products, and in turn promote your affiliate program to their customers and subscribers. The little extra in affiliate sales commission pay outs will be more than compensated for by the exponential sales increase. This is why the two-tier affiliate program is a guaranteed winner and should be the automatic choice for potential affiliates and affiliate program managers.

Why Two-Tier Affiliate Programs are Best

When you join an affiliate program or start an affiliate program of your own, you have to decide whether it will be a single tier or two-tier affiliate program. With a single tier program you earn a commission on any sales you make and that is it. If you are running your own affiliate program, you pay your affiliates a commission for any sales they refer and that is all. However, with a two-tier program, affiliates are allowed to recruit sub-affiliates and are paid a small percentage of the sales these sub-affiliates generate. For example, the affiliates may earn a 30% commission for selling product X himself; and when one of the sub-affiliates makes a sale, the affiliate may get a 10% commission as well. This is very profitable for the affiliate as he can recruit an army of sub-affiliates, all earning commissions for him without any effort on his part except for the initial recruiting process. If you are starting an affiliate program of your own should it be two-tier or single tier? Some might shy away from the seeming expense of a two-tier program. But is it really that expensive? Many affiliate program managers make the wrong decision on this. Let’s look at an example. You have an affiliate program up and running and an average affiliate joins your program. Mr.Average has a web site that receives average traffic. He also has an ezine with thousands of subscribers published monthly. Mr. Average posts your affiliate links to his web site and promotes your product to his ezine list. Initially, he generates good sales. However, a point comes when he saturates his market with your product and his sales begin to drop. He begins to lose interest in your program and your sales remain small. What happens if you set up a two-tier program? Rather than trying to keep your commission pay outs small, you motivate your existing affiliates to recruit other people to your program. This will exponentially increase your affiliate sales. Would it not be worth paying the referring affiliate a percentage of their sub-affiliates’ sales? Now when Mr.Average joins your affiliate program this is what would happen. When he has saturated his market with your product, he would now promote your affiliate program to his customers and ezine subscribers. Many of Mr.Average’s customers and subscribers decide to join the affiliate program. This in turn will motivate Mr.Average to continue promoting your products and recruiting affiliates. Now what is the situation? 1) Your income increases because of increased sales. 2) You have a much larger customer base to which you can sell ‘backend’ products. 3) An increase in your income because of the life time loyalty of the customers referred by your affiliate. 4) An army of sub-affiliates who will sell your products, and in turn promote your affiliate program to their customers and subscribers. The little extra in affiliate sales commission pay outs will be more than compensated for by the exponential sales increase. This is why the two-tier affiliate program is a guaranteed winner and should be the automatic choice for potential affiliates and affiliate program managers.

Choosing the Best Affiliate Program - What You Absolutely Mu

Choosing the best affiliate program means that you are aware of what affiliate programs are and what their ultimate benefits and drawbacks are. To choose the best affiliate program, you will want to decide on one that has the most benefits with the least drawbacks. There are many affiliate programs available online, many of them which are not worth even reading about. Because of this fact, you will need to do your research, talk to other affiliate members, and be 100% sure about the type of affiliate program you are looking for. There are some really good programs available, you just need to be persistent, patient, and ask a lot of questions. The following suggestions will help you choose the best possible affiliate program for you.* CommissionOf course, if you are joining an affiliate program you are doing so for the commissions. There are affiliate programs available online that offer great commissions to their affiliates in order to keep them active and working hard. Then there are other programs that do not pay well, do not keep up with referrals, and basically cheat the affiliate out of hard earned money. Make sure you know exactly what kind of program you are getting involved with and that you will make good money for your time and effort.* Good ProductsAnother important aspect of the affiliate programs you are looking at are the products. You might see an affiliate program that has the equivalent of a mall with links to thousands of products. The thought might enter your head that more links equals more business, but in this scenario it is not necessarily true. Generally, the affiliate programs that recognize the most success sell one quality product that a large percentage of the population can use, need, afford, and will actually want. This is the best type of affiliate program to associate yourself with and what you should be looking for.* ExperienceExperience is also important when it comes to affiliate programs. You want to work for an affiliate program that is settled in the market, that knows how to handle the business it is involved in as well as its employees, and is concerned with treating workers fairly and rewarding them for hard work. An experienced affiliate program knows what works and what doesn’t, so don’t be tempted to sign up for a brand new affiliate program just because you want to be one of the first people to join... this might not work to your advantage. It is very important to always do your research before jumping in!

Working With Affiliate Programs

Everywhere you look you see affiliate program offers forevery product or service that you can think of. Some havefully automated systems that sell high volumes of hardproducts all over the world. In case you don't know, "hard"products are those that you can touch...unlike an ebook ordownloadable web template. Many affiliate programs haveseveral thousand affiliates and one or two of the biggercompanies have over one million affiliates.
What are the advantages of joining an affiliate program?
They provide a ready-made business. This is a very big plusfor those people who want to earn some kind of living offthe Internet but lack the knowledge or inclination to set upa business by themselves.
Commissions and rewards are generally good, and the moreestablished programs offer a real chance of advancement tohigher and better-paid levels.
Other affiliates are usually on hand to offer practicalsupport.
What are the limitations?
You are restricted in your promotional activities due to thefact that you do not actually own the affiliate site theygive you. You won't be able to put such things as banners,images, links, meta tags, etc. onto your page.The URL of your affiliate page is often either too long orcontains such awkward things as question marks, which manySearch Engines will not index.
Any promotional ads or articles have probably already beenused by thousands of other people and consequently may havelost its impact, making it more difficult to achieve salesor referrals.
If the program you have joined has not yet establisheditself (or in some cases even if it has), then you mayencounter problems with payments owed to you not beinghonored. You also run the risk of low quality products orsub-standard statistics that do not accurately record howmany referrals or sales you have made.
You may be required to purchase a minimum quantity of theproduct on a regular basis before you start to qualify forcommissions or even before you can become an affiliate.You may not get the technical or affiliate support you mightexpect from the company. This may be due to inadequatestaffing, or the company's negligence.
Other people in your downline do nothing to promote theprogram.
At least four of the above limitations can be overcome witha little time and effort. You could, for example, come upwith fresher ads to promote the program (provided this isallowed).
If the company supplies the email addresses of people inyour downline, then you could offer to help the less activemembers. Very often these people are passive not becausethey are lazy or apathetic but merely because they don'tknow HOW to promote effectively! your guidance could meanthe difference between no sales or referrals and healthydownlines and residual incomes.
As regards promoting your actual page, here are a couple oflittle tricks that should overcome a number ofrestrictions:
Cloak your Affiliate URL to stop hijackers Affiliate MaskerWhile this will not help you to get listed on the majorSearch Engines, it will make your web page easier forprospects to remember and type into their browser's addressbar.
Go to your affiliate page. Place your mouse pointer anywhereon the page and right click once. In the drop-down boxchoose "View Source". This will display the HTML for thepage. Save this to your hard drive as a HTML document usingthe "Save As" function. Upload the page to your web site.If you don't have a web site then get some free web spacefrom one of these:
http://www.tripod.com/http://www.fortunecity.com/http://www.hypermart.net/index.gsphttp://www.coolchat.com/http://www.crosswinds.net/http://www.htmlpublishing.com/http://www.freehomepages.com/http://www.pageproducer.com/
Submit your 'new' page to the Search Engines. You are alsonow able to place banner codes, links, images, testimonials,in fact anything you want onto these pages, because you arein control of the HTML. A word of caution, though. Don'tchange the actual HTML of your original affiliate page. Justput the other stuff, like banners etc, around it.
Making this "mirror page" of your affiliate page willdramatically improve your advertising options.

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---------------------------------Working With Affiliate Programsby Jude Wright (c) 2004
-----------------------------------------------------Jude Wright has been an Internet Marketer for threeyears. She has just created a product that will helpother Internet Marketers keep all their marketinginformation in one database. Check it out at:http://i-marketingorganizer.com/organizer.htm