Affiliate Marketing: A Closer Look

I've noticed that Affiliate Marketing is increasingly becoming the most popular way to work from home and gain an income so I have decided to take a closer look at what it is and how people can be successful at it.

Affiliate Marketing can best be described from their Wikipedia definition as "an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts."

Affiliate marketers team together with an already established company to sell a product or service. The appeal to people like us who work at home is that there is no direct selling, cold calling, or inventory on our part.

To get started you will need your own website that features their products or services. You can then earn commission off of any sale that is made from your website. Usually the affiliate company will provide a site for you however if you want to have someone create it (which is great for people who are not to computer savvy) you can have a company like Ekoh Group make one for you for a nominal fee.

The parent company benefits from having affiliate marketers because it expands their reach, in turn for you work, they pay you a portion of the sales that you generate. It benefits you, the affiliate marketer, because for very little to no start up fees you can essentially start your own online business with out needing a product of your own.  Its a Win-Win for both the marketer and the company.

There are many instances with people having success as an affiliate marketer. One of the best aspects of it is that you don't have to be an affiliate for just one company. Because there are no non-compete contracts and so many affiliate marketing programs its easy to be an affiliate marketer for more than one company.

Its very easy to get started with an affiliate program but there are some things you should know before you begin an affiliate marketing relationship with a company:

1.  Not all programs are reliable, try to establish a relationship with a top rated company. Usually these will have a Vericorp seal on their site or some form of verification.

2.  As an affiliate marketer it is your responsibility to present the merchandise to the target market. For instance, if you are a marketer for an online meat company, you would not try to advertise their product on vegetarian or vegan sites. 

3. Choose an affiliate company that has a specific focus. If they are trying to sell anything and everything it will be hard to generate specific traffic to your site.

4. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the commission structure and expected payment methods.

It is in the best interest for the company for you to be successful so they often provide targeted, best-seller items and personal support to their affiliate. They often offer sales promotions that will benefit you in your sales efforts.

One of the top affiliate programs that I have found to date is Cash Power Course This program goes in depth to teach you all the ins and outs to get you started with affiliate marketing. They even show you how to generate traffic to your site which is important to ANY and ALL internet businesses. I also like this company because they have customer support and you can get a discount through them on an Ekoh Group site, which is the company I mentioned earlier.