Is Affiliate Marketing For Me?
There is a proliferation of products, literature, and courses out there related to affiliate marketing. Unless you have a basic knowledge of what affiliate marketing and what an affiliate business is, it might be difficult to discern the bunk from the legit, and the junk from the jewels. So here is a little primer for those of you who might be interested in learning more about this growing business model.
The affiliate segment is estimated to be a more than a 7 billion dollar (US) per year industry, and it continues to grow each and every year. The affiliate concept is rather simple; companies pay a commission to “affiliates” for sales of their products generated from leads coming from those affiliates. Many companies have adopted this formula to complement their regular sales and marketing strategies and in the last few years, there has been a literal boom in small and medium-sized companies that have turned to affiliates to boost their sales to touch customers they would not otherwise be able reach. Affiliate marketing is a cheap and effective way to increase exposure for companies that don’t have the means to manage elaborate sales campaigns. But it is not the exclusive domain of SMEs either as many of the worlds largest companies and brands have also turned to affiliates to boost their ecommerce sales.
So how does it work? Well, basically, affiliates refer potential clients to an online or offline merchant. If these leads result in sales, the merchant then pays the affiliate a commission for the lead. Of course, the commission is pre-established between the merchant and the affiliate. The mechanism by which this is done varies but generally, for online referrals, the affiliates usually have a predesignated and unique identifier in the link to the merchant’s website. That way, referred sales coming from the unique link can easily be tracked back to the affiliate. There are some obvious advantages to becoming an affiliate marketer; it has relatively little startup costs, it can be done part time or full time, you don’t need to carry or manage inventory and you don’t have to close sales – that is the merchant’s job!
There are also some less-obvious benefits to becoming an affiliate marketer; it can complement your existing business if you already have one. For example, one of our clients has a veterinary clinic, she has a website portal for her clinic that also contains her affiliate links for related pet products. This formula drives targeted traffic to her partner merchants, supplements and diversifies her revenue, and at the same time, provides a convenient service to her clients. There are so many merchants who have affiliate programs that marketers can literally pick and choose the products and services to promote that make the most sense for them. There are even services available to facilitate the marriage between merchants and affiliates. In addition, for affiliates, the cost of sales is extremely low as there is no, or very little customer service involved, and the shipping and payment process is handled by the merchant.
Finally, for those considering starting a business, affiliate marketing is very flexible, it can be done part time at first, and then progress to full time as the business grows, so it is a very good fit for someone seeking to transition out of the rat race. Since you need very little to start and run an affiliate business, it can be done from virtually anywhere. It is the ultimate virtual office type of business. In addition, it is a particularly appealing springboard to self-employment because there is no pressure to meet quotas or sales minimums and you don’t have the pressure normally associated with network marketing ventures so you could put however much time into developing your business as you want or can afford spare (we’ll discuss network marketing-type businesses in another article).
So with all these advantages, what are the disadvantages to being an affiliate marketer? Firstly, affiliate marketing success is dependent on your ability to reach prospects and direct them to the desired merchants. In order to be successful, there are many factors at play; you have to target the right segment, they have to be willing to purchase, and they have to purchase what the merchant is offering. While there are many techniques and strategies to make chain of events happen, an affiliate marketer has to develop the skills to channel their efforts in the right place. There is a huge benefit to economy of effort and in making wise investments, as it is very easy to lose focus. Also, effective affiliates can reach out to significant numbers of potential customers. This is accomplished either through established lists or by attracting traffic to their own website. This is not easily accomplished and must be a focus of developing an affiliate business. One cannot expect overnight success; it has to be worked on just like building any other legitimate business. Any “secret formula” or “proven plan” that claims otherwise is pure fabrication and should be a huge red flag. On the other hand, once the traffic or the customer base is established, the possibility of leveraging the affiliate business is exponentially bigger.
So to conclude, affiliate marketing is a growing and legitimate business model and has enormous potential. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme and it requires an investment in time to set up and grow the business. Success as an affiliate marketer is entirely dependent on the ability to attract and drive pre-sold traffic to the merchant. Anyone who is considering affiliate marketing should therefore make an effort to develop the skills and means to ensure these two conditions are met.
Groupe Synergos – custom business solutions to move you forward. Groupe Synergos is dedicated to helping home-based businesses ans SMEs achieve new performance levels. http://www.groupesynergos.com
Author: Patrick Pressoir
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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