How to Start Your Own Affiliate Marketing Program

If you are looking for an affiliate marketing program that you can join, this is the place to visit. If you want to start your own program, the article below is for you.

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Traffic is the most important thing in any online business. Lack of traffic that converts into buyers can kill the hopes of ANY internet marketer.

So it will not come as a surprise to you that no internet marketing topic attracts more attention than traffic generation. Every internet marketer and his pet have something to say about this topic and have their own views as to which traffic generation methods work best.

But while we could debate about which methods are the most effective until the cows come home, no one can deny the fact that it really feels great to have an army of other people promoting your products for you.

It feels wonderful to have your income generated by the efforts of several other people rather than your own efforts alone.

So the crucial question is how can you build an army of people who are dedicated to promoting your products for you?

You guessed it!  

By starting your own affiliate marketing program. Many internet marketers will tell you that the number one way they get traffic to their product sales page is through their own army of dedicated affiliates.

So it should come as great news to know that it is super easy to start an affiliate marketing program. All you have to do it is join an affiliate network like Clickbank and create an account. It costs a onetime payment of $49 or so to create an account that you can use to sell your own products.

Once your product is all set up on Clickbank, affiliates who are searching for products to promote will find it and may choose to promote it. But in order to efficiently create an army of affiliates, you need to take a proactive approach in attracting them.

How to attract affiliates

So for example, you need to offer them a worthwhile commission. This means that you have to do two things. Firstly, you need to make sure the commission is fair percentage wise. In other words, try to pay your affiliates at least 50% of the price of the product.

Anything less and they might feel that you are not playing fair.

Secondly, you need to make sure the commission is large enough in terms of how much money your affiliates make.

For instance, I would hesitate to join an affiliate marketing program that paid me 80% of $10 for every sale I made. Quite alright, the 80% sounds great, but that is only $8 per sale. I suggest that you could go broke FAST! promoting such products.

You would rather promote a product that paid you 50% of say, $197. And so would your affiliates. That would put $98.50 in their pockets for every sale they made. Even 50% of a $47 product is not too bad as long as it is not the only product you have for affiliates to promote.

So you need to price your products in a way that makes sharing the profits with your affiliates a win win situation. You will attract more affiliates that way.

Another thing you need to do in order to create a successful affiliate marketing program is to provide your affiliates with tools that they can use to promote your product.

So for example, provide them with reports that they can give away to promote your product. Write several articles that they can distribute as is or edit a little. They will include their affiliate links within your articles.

You can also write ads, create banner ads and provide forum signatures for affiliates to promote your product with. You are only limited by your imagination. But the point is that the more help you provide your affiliates with, the more successful your affiliate marketing program will be.

Here’s golden nugget about affiliate programs. From experience, I can tell you that affiliates love products that pay recurring commissions. That is because they make the sale once but get paid over and over again, month in month out. They also love lifetime commissions.

Lifetime commissions mean that when you refer a prospect to a merchant’s site, you get paid for every purchase that prospect makes from that merchant for the rest of that prospects life! Hence the phrase, “lifetime commission”.

So if you can provide recurring products and lifetime commissions, you WILL attract affiliates to your program.

If you have digital products for sale, you can easily start an affiliate marketing program using Clickbank. If you have physical products, you can use affiliate networks like Commission Junction or Share A Sale.

One last thing about using affiliates to promote your products is that it really motivates them when you offer bonuses and prizes to top performing affiliates. Offering me bonuses kept me motivated enough to continue selling cable TV subscriptions while still studying in law school! Why? Because those bonuses helped me cover my rent, bills and food!

Remember, if you keep them motivated, they will remain dedicated.

So start using affiliates to promote your products. It costs virtually nothing to get started compared to the profits you could make if you follow the suggestions in this article.

But it is not just about the profits. It is also about the free time you will have to do other things that you love while your affiliates do the marketing for you!



To Your Success,

Bruce

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