Promoting your Business Using Affiliate Marketing
You started your own online business, everything’s there; your website’s running, every link in it is functioning as it should be, the products or services you’re selling are there, but your sales are at an all time low.
Why? You probably thought that starting an online business just requires you to put up a functioning website; this is where you are wrong.
Starting an online business is not as easy as it seems. As with other businesses, you have to advertise your products in order to lure people in and start buying your products.
So just how do you advertise in the internet?
Simple
There are a number of ways to promote your online business in the internet. One of them is through affiliate programs.
Affiliate programs works by posting your banners and links to other websites. Most of these are free; you only pay affiliates for every customer referrals from their website who buys your product.
For example, Customer “A” visits your affiliate’s website, then customer “A” gets interested in the product you are selling, and then customer “A” clicks on your link or banner in your affiliate’s website. Customer “A” is then redirected to your website so that he/she can buy the product you are selling.
You then pay your affiliate with a specified amount of commission for that product.
How would you find affiliates who would want to post your links and banners free?
There are so many people in the internet willing to post your links and banners free. People like to use affiliate programs because they practically do not have to do anything hard through this form of advertising.
All they do is promote their website in order to generate targeted internet traffic to their website, therefore, generating targeted traffic to your website and produce more sales.
All they do is hope and pray that a visitor from their website will buy your product in order to get a commission.
To find a good number of affiliates who are willing to promote your products free, you first have to sign up with an affiliate-tracking program.
After signing up, you now have to make a decision on how much you are going to pay your affiliate for each sold product.
You then design some banners or text link that your affiliates can use to post in their website.
Now you are set. All you have to do is wait for affiliates to sign up in the affiliate tracking program and start promoting your products.
Although affiliates can promote your products or services free, you still have to take care of your affiliates in order to promote your product more diligently and with loyalty.
To get affiliate’s loyalty and get them to work harder in promoting your products, pay them well. Give your affiliates a high commission rate for every products sold with their referrals. Not only that it will keep your affiliates from leaving you but it will also attract more affiliates to sign up for you.
You also have to track the sales generated by each and every affiliates referred to you. If you have lots of affiliate, you can easily track their referrals and sales through the affiliate tracking company you signed up for.
You also have to pay your affiliates as early as possible for their sales. Letting them wait for months will discourage them to promote your products and leave you. For this, you have to set up a minimum payment requirement in order to track which affiliate you have to pay.
Be professional, answer questions from emails from your affiliates regarding your affiliate program as soon as you can. Do this in a friendly and professional manner.
Create an affiliate’s newsletter. This is a great way to show your support your affiliate and a great way to give them tips on how to market your products more effectively.
Give your top affiliates bonuses for the sales they bring you and include them in your newsletter for your affiliates. This will get your other affiliates to work harder in promoting your products, and a little competition is good for your affiliates.
Create an affiliate’s only chat room. This will enable your affiliates to speak with each other and discuss about how to make your products to sell more. Providing them with chat rooms or discussion boards will show how much you support them. It is also a good way to give tips and advice on how to market your products.
Affiliate programs are a great and cheap way to advertise your products. Your affiliates will work hard if you give them enough benefits and bonuses for promoting your products or services.
