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The Right Product Affiliate Programs

 

To be truly successful in Internet Marketing, your product must solve a problem for most people, at the time they are thinking about it, and do

it easily and quickly!"

 

The Right Product:  Before you commit yourself to any Internet income-generating opportunity you must believe you will have a product that most people from all walks of life want. Can your product fulfill their needs and desires?  For example: job security is fast becoming a dinosaur, downsizing is the buzzword of the corporate world of today, job loss and retrenchment is common, look around you, how many of your associates, friends and family have suffered the same? Recent statistics show that the average working male will probably endure 3 retrenchments during his working life. The critical cut-off age for most employers is 45?  Who doesn't want money, financial security and a higher income? We live in a high-tech demanding, unforgiving society. The breakthroughs in modern day communication have led to dramatic changes in lifestyles. We know what's happening on the other side of the world on tonight's news! We are bombarded by advertising campaigns which tell us what we should eat and drink, sleep on, the car we should drive, the house we should buy, the neighborhood we should live in. Society is dictating more and more what we believe we need or should have! And guess what! it all takes money. Your product should be the means to satisfy the needs and wants of virtually every person on this planet. But, also remember you may not simply be offering a product, you may be providing a life-time opportunity, freedom and better lifestyle.   If you approach anyone and ask the following questions:   are you interested in making money on the Internet? are you interested in improving your lifestyle and having the things  that you and your family deserve? Are you tired of working for 9 hours a day and being paid for 8? Is your job secure? where will you be in 1 year or 5 years time? are you interested in having your own self-paced, on-line business where YOU are rewarded for your effort and commitment? do you want self-perpetuating true residual income for life? What sort of response do you think you'll get? We all have a burning desire to improve our current situation and to fulfill our dreams, whatever they may be - a comfortable or exciting lifestyle, self-fulfillment, realistic income, freedom, no boss...... Yes, it's a cold, hard fact that around 95% of Internet marketers do not succeed as planned, however, the reason many fail is that they become disillusioned at the lack of immediate growth or return for their efforts. Internet marketing is long-term, don't believe that you will succeed overnight as some suggest or promise. This is a complete fallacy! Give yourself adequate time to plan and develop your business, don't rush it and patience and persistence will reward you in the end. If you believe in yourself and your product, you'll virtually be guaranteed success.   Unfortunately a major proportion of the many marketers who "drop-out" are generally one step away from realizing some initial success, they just don't see it at the time! Questions?   Is  online marketing easy, can I really do it? - many people from all walks of life are becoming part of the e-business revolution without previous experience or know-how. It's not rocket science. Initially it may not seem "easy", but certainly "do-able". Never be too embarrassed to put up your hand for help!   Will I enjoy doing it?  if you welcome the challenge of exploring the boundless resources of the internet and interacting with others either on the net or in one-on-one relationships, yes, you'll enjoy yourself while you build your business.   Will I really make money doing this? people from many diverse backgrounds are generating substantial incomes from network marketing, particularly from Internet marketing.   Will they help me promote my business? any business venture worth joining will offer professional training tools and resources online to help promote and build your business. Expect to receive additional training and support from your mentor also.   Is now the right time to get involved? now is the time with 100,000+? new users on the net daily, coupled with the phenomenal growth of online commerce. NOW is definitely the right time. The Internet is STILL in it's infancy. Current predictions are that the Internet will not reach saturation point for the next five years.

 

The Internet is not a static market-place, it is continually going through an evolutionary  process, yet it is still in it's adolescence!

 

Affiliate Programs:   Affiliate, Associate, Referrer, Reseller, Partner programs are not all the same and their structure will vary between Companies. There are several basic types of revenue-sharing  programs, however, because of the phenomenal success enjoyed by many organizations, new and innovative variations to the basic concepts are continually being created.   The Simple Referral Affiliate System:   you are paid for every visitor that you refer to the program through an Affiliate Link. Probably the easiest and most lucrative form of affiliation program, but the downside is that the referral fee paid is generally small. The Commission Affiliate Program: You are paid a pre-determined fee (either fixed or a percentage) for each purchase made by a visitor who becomes a customer referred via your affiliate link. Success rates will vary as you are only paid for the purchasing customers, not solely on referrals and this depends on the conversation rate that is achieved. For example: you may refer 100 visitors to find that only 10 have made a purchase (10%). Conversation rates can be useful as your own bench-mark, or compared to Industry standards, - if you analyze the results of a particular ad or placement (possible if you are using ad-tracking)  and see that 100 visitors signed up for your free offer or affiliation but  only 5 joined as paying members or purchasing customers, your conversion rate is 5%. If the ad had been placed in a more targeted circulation, could the results have been a lot better, for example? The Sign-Up Affiliate Program:  This segment of the Affiliate Program market is growing rapidly and significantly for several reason: you are paid a fixed amount, generally more than the Simple Referral System, for referrals that sign-up for their service, product or newsletter. Reseller Programs:   where you are directly re-selling a product or service and paid a commission or compensation on your sales to customers. Affiliate Clubs or networks:  An Affiliate Network is a group of people who are networked together using Internet technologies to leverage the size of the network in order to benefit the individual. Through Affiliate Marketing, merchants can place their advertising banners and links on content sites worldwide and only pay a commission when those links generate a sale or qualified lead. Affiliated content sites can easily convert their online content into e-commerce by populating it with these revenue-generating links.    Quickly join and set up a program with a Web-based application  Work with an experienced and professional customer service team  Partner with hundreds of thousands of Web sites worldwide  Manage all of these marketing relationships seamlessly online  Receive payments in your currency in a monthly check or bank credit Rely on a trusted third-party tracking and reporting system  Access advanced ASP technology with one password and i.d.  Find answers to all of your affiliate marketing questions online  Focus on your core business while the tools are provided to manage your affiliate program  Start making your online profits immediately  Create Buying Opportunities on Your Web site When you sign up with a program, you can turn your content or entertainment Web site into a revenue generator in just a few minutes. All you need is a Web site and a free affiliate account. You can promote the name brand products and services of several merchants through banner ads, text links, and product links they provide and receive a consolidated commissions check each month. Get Paid for Every Click, Lead and Sale With an affiliate program, you have a trusted third-party provider tracking and reporting each transaction from every link on your site and for each merchant you choose to partner with. You receive a monthly paycheck that consolidates all of your earnings in your own currency. Check your balance and your payment status from home or work, any time of day, through your Web-based account. With these online tools, anyone can succeed with affiliate marketing. Optimize Your Ad space  Promote merchant affiliations using banners, text links, and products online. Ad tracking software gives you the capability to test and adjust your merchant banners and links to promote the highest performing links and make the most money possible from your site. Work with  Merchants With a host of merchants to select from, you can easily find ads and products to fit the content of your Web site. Top-quality e-commerce sites have  made their entire product catalog available for placement on your Web site, and are offering top commissions on clicks, leads, and sales of their products and services.  Earn a Residual Income You can recruit new affiliates, merchants or advertisers to the network and receive residual commissions. This means that you receive a percentage of every commission your referral earns. Earn income for every click-through on an affiliate link, $'s for each new referral that generates a transaction, and a % of the commissions your referral earns for as long as they are a member. Choose new affiliations that will blend and relate to your existing business if you have one. Would you sign up for a pet suppliers affiliation program if you are promoting computers for example? You will have to advertise in totally new categories (pet lovers, owners, breeders, boarding kennels etc.) and perhaps make changes to your Web site. Will the exercise be worth it? Will your visitors go to a link  on your site for Pet Supplies if your focus, web page and content is promoting computers? (your computer buff visitor will probably have a virtual pet instead.)   Affiliate program banners are generally located at the top of your affiliate page, however, you may intend to have several affiliations on your own web pages - do you really want to have banners and links in key positions detracting from your site's overall appearance or theme? If possible, place them in carefully selected areas of your page that have relevance or are a lead-in to the affiliate link or banner offer.  If your affiliate link or banner is placed at the top of a page, your visitor may click on the link and be lost to you right from the word go. You would surely prefer to have your visitor leave your site via a strategically placed link or banner after viewing and perhaps responding to your offer. Don't have your visitor guessing as to "where do I go next?" Keep your navigation simple and easy to follow.  Affiliate banners provided by most organizations (usually HTML script) are cut and pasted by you on to your page directly or via a text editor, or they may be hosted on the Affiliate server. You generally set the rules as to where they should go. The same basic principals also apply to advertising you want to run on your web. Caution; If you plaster links and banners all over your site will your visitors perceive that your page is nothing but an advertising bill-board. Will they conclude that your product is pretty mediocre and performing poorly for you, perhaps to the extent that you have to subsidize your core business with advertising income?  Pages that appear too "busy" are also confusing and unattractive, the end result is that your content and message become lost - along with your  prospect or customer. An alternative, if you are planning to have numerous banners and links in your Web - have a page/s dedicated to them (free links pages are available too, they are independently hosted and visitors click a link or button to go to your links page). This will keep your Web theme intact, your pages clutter-free and enable easier navigation by your visitors.   Never, overload your home page with advertising banners and links.