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Even More Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing should never be confused with referral marketing as is often the case because the two are very different.
The main motivation behind affiliate programs is financial gain as a way of driving sales while referral marketing uses personal relationships and trust to increase the amount of sales. By relying on loyal existing customers and business connections, a business can use referrals to increase revenue generation. In affiliate marketing, you only get paid commissions when you bring in customers and they actually make purchases.
This marketing program requires the affiliate or publisher to use an affiliate link anytime that they mention the advertiser or merchant on their website. When a potential customer visits the affiliate’s website and clicks on the link, he or she is taken to the merchant’s website. At the same time, a cookie gets dropped on the customer’s computer. The customer then makes a purchase from the merchant’s website. As he logs out, the merchant finds a cookie that belongs to a specific affiliate and thereafter makes a credit for the sale in accordance with the initial agreement.
For transparency purposes, the merchant avails reports showing breakdowns of the amount of traffic from the affiliate’s link and the sales made. This ensures that the publisher is paid his rightful dues without being taken advantage of by the merchant. The commission payments are usually made after certain durations, on most occasions on a monthly basis. At least that allows the merchant to receive a reasonable amount as opposed to the payments coming in small bits.
The most common compensation method is the one described above where the affiliate is only paid commissions for actual sales made. The cost per click method of compensation is not favored by many merchants because there is always the danger of the marketing program not resulting into reasonable sales numbers. An affiliate can also just sit around and earn money for actually doing nothing.
Affiliate marketing is sometimes referred to as performance marketing because of the compensation method.
Affiliate Marketing And The Benefits
Every business desires to make profits by getting as many customers as possible and in the process increasing sales. There are many ways to drive sales, and one of them that is very convenient and preferable to many entrepreneurs is affiliate marketing. Some people are familiar with the term because they’ve probably heard it thrown around from different quarters. So what really is this type of marketing and what does it entail?
In simple terms, it is a form of internet marketing where the affiliate (person referring customers), signs up for a merchant’s affiliate marketing program. The affiliate then recommends the merchant’s products to customers and earns a commission on every sale made.
It’s similar to what used to exist before internet marketing became mainstream; where sales representatives would go out and get customers and then be paid a commission for every sale made. To some extent, this type of marketing also intertwines with some internet marketing methods because affiliates use conventional advertising methods to create product awareness.
Some of these methods include making use of search engine optimization tools, email marketing and pay per click.
Of course, the major benefit of this type of marketing is that you don’t need to create your own products before making money as you can just promote other people’s products 🙂
Give Value And Wealth Will Follow
The way to become successful is to NOT worry about the money you can make but rather on what you can do to help others to reach their own goals.
By being a person who gives value, you will find that the money will follow. For money is proportional to the value you give to the world. In other words; give more value and the cash will follow.
It is an easy mistake to make; thinking about how much money you can make and I bet many new marketers make it even if they don’t admit it. But the sooner you move your focus away from YOU and on to your customers/prospects, the sooner you will become successful.
What can you do today that will give value to your subscribers? Try it for a few weeks and you should be pleasantly surprised with the results.
What do you think about this; are you a value giver and has it worked for you?
Avoiding All The Scams In Affiliate Marketing
The internet is filled with people trying to get rich as quickly as possible. That said, there are numerous unscrupulous users on the internet who wake up on a daily basis to take advantage of those people looking to make easy money and they do this by promising them things that are nearly impossible to deliver on.
Don’t be that person who thinks that the internet has all the solutions to your money problems and that you can get something for nothing. As they say, hard work forever pays so be prepared to earn your pay; after all it is a business so treat it as such.
Affiliate marketing has presented a new frontier for internet scammers to prey on the unsuspecting public. How then can you spot these scams and avoid the stress of losing your hard-earned money to people who only want to take advantage of you?
Genuine programs do not require joining fees.
Look at the bigger networks such as Clickbank and JV Zoo; they do NOT ask for a joining fee as they make their money by taking a commission when, and only when, you make sales.
Promises of big income with little work
Some merchants will try to show you how you can be a millionaire within a few days. If that were the case then they’d be relaxing somewhere on a beach enjoying their wealth instead of trying to convince people to join their programs on the internet.
Educate yourself and always do your due diligence before jumping into any affiliate program and you should be ok.
Anyone can make a career out of affiliate marketing but not everyone who attempts to will succeed. You should be ready to work hard and choose those programs that are genuine and that will provide you with an opportunity to grow.
Evaluate Your Dreams And Wants
So what is the perfect formula for getting everything you want in life? Well, I am sure that there is no definitive answer but I am pretty sure it will be something like:
You x Your Actions + Your Thoughts = Desired Result.
Now, when following this formula you need to be very clear about what you want. So, how do you determine what you REALLY want?
Well, just relax, sit back in your favourite chair, take a deep breath, close your eyes and simply ask yourself what you truly desire or want from life. I’m pretty sure that a lot of things will pass through your mind and you will be perplexed as to which one to choose, but be calm and take your time. Look for things that you really want or need and they will be your inspiration to achieve everything you want from life. By zeroing in on what you truly want, this will give you laser focus and then you can figure out how to get them.
Now where’s that comfy chair…?