What if I told you that with very little outlay in time or money
you could get others to promote your website? And what if I said
that these people would post your banners and links on their
sites *for free* and would actively seek sales on your behalf?
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?
Luckily for those of us who make our living online, affiliate
programs are the real deal and they're helping to sell products
on all kinds of sites, from the smallest sole proprietorships to
the largest conglomerates.
People use affiliates because they're a win-win situation for
all concerned; others promote your site and get a cut of each
sale and you get more sales overall.
Let's say you sell cute products for pets on your website and
you also run a monthly ezine that features pet news and sales.
You want to increase your sales by letting your "affiliates"
promote your site.
Here's how it works...
1. You sign up with an affiliate tracking program.
2. You decide how much you're going to pay your affiliates for
each sale; it could be a percentage or a straight figure, and it
can vary for each item.
3. You work with the affiliate program to set up a system
tailored to your needs; for example, you may want to write the
checks to your affiliates yourself or you may want the affiliate
tracking company to write them.
4. You design a page on your site and write a blurb for your
newsletter that describes how your affiliates can make money
promoting your site.
5. You design some buttons, banners and text links that your
affiliates can use to promote your site.
6. You sit back and wait for the affiliates to sign up and start
selling your products!
The tracking program takes care of the rest, and you or your
affiliates can look up your stats at any time.
So, how do you find affiliates? You have several options when it
comes to promoting your program.
1. Your customer base: Your site and your newsletter are good
starting points, after all, these people already like your
products. Put a link on your homepage that says "Webmasters:
Make Money!" and talk up your affiliate program in the
newsletter on a regular basis, stressing that your affiliates
can sign up for free and start making money right away.
2. Other businesses: Target business that, say, focus on pets,
but that are not your direct competition. Send an email to each
business inviting them to join and put "Affiliate invitation" in
the subject line of your email. Also mention each business
and/or business owner by name in the body of your message to
lessen the chances that it will be deleted as spam.
3. Your friends and acquaintances. Come up with a short blurb
that talks about your affiliate program and ask everyone in your
address book to send it to everyone in their address book.
4. Professionals: Veterinarians, breeders, etc. Anyone who deals
with pets is a potential affiliate.
Which program should you use?
There are so many affiliate programs that choosing one can be a
daunting task.
I use AffiliateTracking.net (
http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854
) for all of my sites, mainly because their customer service and
support is phenomenal - they had my first affiliate program up
and running in just days - and they're also very reasonably
priced. In addition, multiple sites can be promoted in the same
basic package; there's no need to spend extra for every site.
I heartily recommend AffiliateTracking.net, (
http://wetrack.it/az/af.cgi?36854 ) but you can find other
similar companies by doing a simple search for "affiliate
tracking" in your favorite search engine.
No matter which company you go with, you could have others
promoting your site and making sales for you in just a couple of
days!
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