Affiliate programs are the most common starting place for the new entrepreneur.
The reason is that affiliate programs build on
experienced entrepreneurs sharing their success with many distributors.
Affiliate programs can pay extremely generous commissions to their
affiliates, because eproducts are so low cost to deliver,
The main characteristics you should look for in
affiliate programs are:
1st, the product you offer is of real value to
the customer.
We all owe ourselves to our customers.
We must choose products or services that render true value at a reasonable
price.
You must truly believe in the product you are selling to
promote it effectively.
In many cases, you should purchase the
product from the merchant before you join their
affiliate program.
This will help you in two ways:
It will
involve you in the product you sell, and,
it will insure you do not join
way too many programs and lose focus.
2nd, The merchant should be well
established and successful in the market. A proven track record will
help you get your business to a good start. Look around, ask
questions, join discussion groups, write to the owner and measure his
involvement in the business.
3rd, The affiliate program should allow you to earn money from the people you recruit
for the team -your downline.
4th, The affiliate program should provide you with effective
support, that includes personal response by the owner, articles, and
an ezine that will follow up on your behalf; ad copy is best developed by
you, and banner ads are provided by most merchants.
It is strongly recommend you request articles by the
author if you are promoting knowledge based products, or you are promoting
through your own ezine.
Finally, the affiliate program should provide reliable,
up to date statistics on your performance, preferably with ad and link
tracking.
The true test for any affiliate program or business, is how much
YOU sell for a given investment.
My suggestion is that you sign up for
at most five affiliate programs, test them first, promote them in earnest,
measure return on investment, and then pick the best results.
For a
great ebook on how to do this in earnest, try the Number 1
recommendation: "Scientific Advertising", by Claude
Hopkins and Terry Dean
Click
here
