Affiliate Marketing Overview (cont)


Could you make more money selling a product that you developed yourself?
Probably, but unless you have some experience with running a business already
you might want to start out with an Affiliate program. By promoting an existing
product you will keep both your site development costs and your ongoing
overhead to a minimum while you learn the ropes of marketing and getting traffic
to your site. By working with an Affiliate program, you will be able to take
advantage of their sales tools and experience start generating some income
while you are learning.

With an affiliate program, you don’t have the headaches of getting a merchant
account or dealing with unhappy or even fraudulent customers - this all falls
under the responsibility of the merchant. And with the wide variety of Affiliate
programs available, if you already have a web site - it is very easy to find
products or services that will complement your existing business. If you don’t
have your own business yet - but it is your ultimate goal to have one eventually -
then choose programs that will appeal to the target market you want to cultivate.

One strong word of advice here - most Affiliate programs will give you a sales
page or website for the product (called a replicated site). This is a great way
to get your website live quickly - but I strongly encourage you to pay the small
fee to get your OWN domain name. Your own domain name gives you instant
credibility as a serious business person - and, when you really stop to think
about this logically - how can you honestly ask a customer to spend money for
the product you are promoting if you do not believe it enough to invest a few
dollars into the business yourself??

There is one truly wonderful advantage to Affiliate Marketing that few people ever
really stop to think about - but it is a big one! Simply put - if you don't like the
results that you are getting with one product, you can quickly dump it and
substitute another one. If you are creative enough - and generic enough! - with
your domain name - it will be something that is enticing enough to bring in traffic
but not necessarily tied to a specific product! By doing this, you can easily &
successfully switch products without having to interrupt or change any of your
outstanding ads or promotional campaigns. Clever, huh??

Starting to see why Affiliate Marketing can be so attractive? For sheer ease of
starting an online buiness, and with a lot less money than a full blown website
with lots of content and goodies....you can quickly be online with products and
websites - leaving you to devote yourself to the more important things...like
marketing and figuring out what on earth Google is up to this week <sigh>.

Now that you have an idea as to what Affiliate Marketing is....I can hear your
next question already.....