How Affiliate Marketing works :

You might be thinking only businessmen can make much money out of the Internet, don’t you? Think again. 

You too can earn big bucks through the Internet even if you don’t have products to sell and high-profile and established company. How? 

That is through affiliate marketing…...Affiliate marketing is a good way to get started with online earnings.

The idea behind it is that you promote other people’s products, earning a commission if people make sales through your channel.

What is Affiliate Marketing:

The best definition of what affiliate marketing is can be found on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income:

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

In affiliate marketing three different parties must be involved to complete the earning process.

• .Merchant or Product seller

• The Affiliate Marketer

• The clients

Merchant or Product seller : 

The product seller is a vendor, merchant, product creator or brand with a product to market. The product can be a physical( home appliances ,computer ,laptop, baby stuff,clothing )or a service ( web hosting , softwares,  )

The Affiliate Marketer

The affiliate is an individual or company that promotes the product to persuade consumers that it is valuable or beneficial to them and convince them to purchase the product.Affiliate marketer then  gets his fixed commission from merchant.

The client or purchaser 

When a client clicks on the link in the affiliate website, purchases the product, recommends it to others who look for the same item or buys it again, the merchant multiplies his chances of earning

 On the other hand, the affiliate marketer benefits from each customer who clicks on the link in his website and who actually purchases the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant.

 In most cases, the affiliate gets commision per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.

 4 steps  to boost your affiliate sales 

If you want your affiliate program commissions to take off, literally overnight, these are the steps you need to seriously consider;

1.Deep Research On Promoting programs 

Do your research and check out the programs you’re thinking about promoting. It’s pretty obvious that you only want to promote a product that will give you the maximum paycheck in the shortest possible time.

Factor to consider while selecting affiliate program

While selecting affiliate programs do consider following factors :

Commission structure 

The main factors to consider when doing this are to check the commission structure and make sure it pays well. 

Select product that match target audience 

Also, try to find products that match your target audience and are already paying well to other affiliates. You soon know when a program isn’t meeting up to it’s promises – that’s the time to reconsider its worth and move on to the next.

Establish your USP 

As you’re probably going to be one of many affiliates promoting the same product, especially if it’s a good one, establish your USP – or ‘Unique Selling Position’. Set yourself up as offering that little something extra that makes you stand out above the crowd.

Write short articles

Write a short article to give away as an incentive to potential buyers. This gives you both greater credibility and extra drawing power.

Make recommendations about the product within the report if you can, and try to give just enough information to make people need the actual product.

2.Build email list 

 When giving away free reports or ebooks, save and collect, at the very least, the name and email addresses of all those who download your gift. 

It’s now widely known that very few people make a purchase on their first introduction to a product.

.Anywhere between 6 and 10 messages are needed to finally clinch the sale, so automate this process and capitalize on the free report.

Once you have these prospects details, they are yours until the person unsubscribes. This means that you can send them information in the months ahead about other products you’re promoting, long after they’ve bought the original item.

But when you get their email, you can always send other marketing messages to them to be able to earn an ongoing commission instead of a one-time sale only.

If you develop an ezine, you are in a perfect position to send more valuable, and occasional free, information to these prospects who now value you as a source of knowledge and useful recommendations. 

You develop a relationship with them and they may stay with you for years to come. They begin to trust you and your recommendations and eventually, are likely to buy from you again.

3.Power of Negotiation

 Never underestimate the power of negotiation. Be prepared to haggle with a seller whose goods you wish to promote. 

Remember that all merchants need affiliates to market and sell their goods and will be more inclined to change their payment structure than potentially loose business if they see you as a good source of income.

 Ask for higher than normal commission from merchants. If you are already successful with a particular promotion, you should try and approach the merchant and negotiate a percentage commission for your sales.

If the merchant is smart, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a valuable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a zero-risk investment to your merchant; so do not be shy about requesting for addition in your commissions. Just try to be reasonable about it.

Be bold and you could find yourself receiving a greater slice of the pie for all your advertising efforts. 

4.Affiliate marketing strategies to follow 

Affiliate marketing needs promotion on different channels and platforms .In order to boost your promotion 4 strategies must be followed  : 

• PPC

• Advertisement

• Blog

• Email marketing

 

PPC :  Write strong pay Per Click ads. PPC search engine is the most effective means of advertising online. 

 Advertising campaigns :   As an affiliate, you can make a small income just by managing PPC campaigns such as Google AdWords and Overture. 

Blogging is one of the most effective affiliate marketing promotion methods for brands.

 Email Marketing : Brands can use mail marketing to share  offers, promote trending blog content, and send customers to their product pages

Track your Advertising  results :

And as with any advertising campaigns – track your results. If you don’t know who’s clicking what, you’ll never know which ads are working.

Use these techniques and you’ll soon see an immediate improvement in your affiliate sales. Build on your successes and expansion and growth will follow.