How to Run A Successful Affiliate Program
by Adam Waxler
There are many people who log onto the internet everyday looking for a way to make money online.
They start with all the best intentions, but unfortunately, before they know it they are getting bombarded with information and are simply spinning their wheels.
I completely understand this. There is so much internet marketing information online and once you get started it seems like “information overload”.
Therefore, I will try to keep this as simple and short as possible.
Many people will sign up with an affiliate program promoting the affiliate’s product or program. This makes sense. Starting as an affiliate marketer is probably the easiest way to get started online. There are many affiliate programs out there that will give you everything you need to promote their products or program…Well almost everything.
You see, many of these affiliate sites will give you a website, but you don’t own the site. It is a gateway site. You don’t even own the domain name for that matter.
Being part of one of these programs is not bad though. I belong to several. SFI is a perfect example. I joined their program and have several sites that they gave me to promote their products and their affiliate program.
But if you are truly going to make money with these types of sites you are going to have to do a lot more than simply sign up for their program.
It is simply unreasonable to think that people are going to just stumble upon your site and sign up for your program and start making you money.
There are a few things you need to do if you truly want to make an affiliate program work.
First of all, you must have your “own” web page with your “own” domain name and your “own” host. You will then have links from your “own” site to the other “gateway” site(s). You will promote your gateway site it, but you will promote it through your own site.
There are so many reasons for this I couldn’t possible fit it into this one article, but basically the site is yours to run the way you want to. Think of it this way…it is “your” store and you are selling “their” product.
Your web page could be designed as a short sales letter that focuses primarily on this one program if that is what you choose. Or, you could focus on several affiliate programs and products within the same market. For example, a sales letter with the top 3-5 money making opportunities.
THIS IS IMPORTANT: Either way, promoting one program/product or promoting several, you will not only want to own your own site, you definitely want to be able to “drop in” on potential customers from time to time. What I mean by that is you want to capture email addresses of people who visit your site.
To do so you need to give something away that is of enough value that people are willing to give up their email address and receive something from you week after week or at least month after month.
A newsletter/ezine is perfect for this. Send out a weekly or monthly newsletter on your topic that includes articles, tips, e-courses, bonuses etc. This way you can plug your programs over and over again (not just once).
I know this sounds like a lot…design your own web site and your own newsletter.
However, there are programs available that actually set everything up for you, including a website, an autoresponder, a pre-written newsletter, and even unlimited support.
Plug-in-Profit (PIPS) (http://www.money-teacher.com/pluginprofitsite.htm) is a perfect example. You can have a web site that site is 100% yours to change however you wish. The site comes ready to promote 5 different programs. You could work with as many of them as you want and you can also add your own.
You also get a pre-written newsletter and autoresponder that is also 100% customizable. The newsletter is obviously designed to promote the programs that come with the web site, but you can change it however you wish.
PIPS may or may not be what you are looking for; however, if you truly want to be successful online you will definitely need your own web site and your own newsletter.
Adam Waxler owns and operates The Money Teacher web site and publishes The Money Teacher’s Home Business Tips Newsletter teaching others how to reach online success. To get your free newsletter subscription send a blank email to: newsletter@money-teacher.com or visit our web site at http://www.money-teacher.com
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
More Affiliate Promotion Articles
More By Developer Shed
 developerWorks - FREE Tools!
|
This demonstration gives you an overview of IBM® Rational® Build Forge Express Edition, a global offering that provides a framework to automate and execute software processes. Rational Build Forge provides a software assembly line that can support all of your tools, technologies, and platforms so you can achieve a repeatable, reliable, and traceable build and release process.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
You'll get answers to many questions and more from David Barnes, Lead Evangelist for IBM Emerging Internet Technologies. David will discuss aspects of Web 2.0 that bring value to corporations, academia, and government. He'll also discuss IBM's vision around Web 2.0, including the importance of remixability and consumability. The discussion will culminate with examples of various IBM Software Group solutions you can use to get ahead of the Web 2.0 adoption curve.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Visit IBM developerWorks to download a free trial version of Lotus Quickr 8.0, which enables collaboration by transforming the way everyday business content such as documents, rich media, photos, and video can be shared. Lotus Quickr makes it faster and easier to share content of all types (not just documents) within virtual teams. It is designed to make it easier to collaborate across organizational boundaries, while continuing to work within the context of familiar desktop applications.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Join us for this web seminar to learn how you can defend your web applications from attack. Learn about the 3 most common web application attacks, including how they occur and what can be done to prevent them. We’ll also discuss manual versus automated approaches for scanning and identifying web application vulnerabilities and how IBM Rational AppScan, an automated vulnerability scanner, can help you automate more of what you are doing manually today.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Join this webcast to see how IBM Data Studio Developer and pureQuery can take the pain out of Java data access. uApplications developed using both Java and SQL have become a common requirement. Database connectivity using Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) to create an application is a multi-step tedious process, and tooling that covers both SQL and Java has been unavailable, until now. IBM Data Studio introduces the pureQuery platform: a high-performance, Java data access platform focused on simplifying the tasks of developing, managing, and optimizing database applications and services.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Portfolio Management is about effectively managing portfolio value by aligning portfolio investments with business goals. This complimentary e-kit provides a collection of materials that can help you understand how IBM Rational enables and automates best practices for improved governance and clear visibility into portfolio and project performance across the entire IT project lifecycle.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Discover how Rational tools and best practices for testing can make your job easier. The new Rational Testing eKits provide you with valuable resources – including demos, webcasts, tutorials, and articles – that help you address your specific testing needs across the software lifecycle. Five new eKits are available covering the topics of Requirements and Test Management, Functional Testing, Performance Testing, Code Quality and Embedded Systems, and SOA and Web Services Testing.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
This paper is about the critical role that a discipline called integrated requirements management can play in helping to ensure that your business goals and IT investments are continuously aligned—whether you are sourcing, integrating, building or maintaining software. It also looks at ways that automated IBM Rational® products can work together to help you use requirements in the very best way.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
Join the IBM Watchfire team for an informative discussion on techniques and best practices to proactively manage Web application security and how to effectively build application security testing into the software development lifecycle (SDLC). In this Software Delivery Platform webcast you will learn: How to better understand potential web application security vulnerabilities, best practices and how to effectively integrate application security testing into the software development lifecycle, the importance of detecting and removing software vulnerabilities during application development.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
In this webcast, IBM Rational will discuss the importance of Web application security and will share techniques and best practices to introduce application security testing into current QA processes including: understanding common security vulnerabilities and techniques to integrate security testing with defect tracking and remediation systems in an effort to safeguard sensitive online information.
FREE! Go There Now!
|
|
|
|
All FREE IBM® developerWorks Tools!
|
