Affiliate marketing is a powerful way to work from home, and has laid the foundation for my career in creating multiple income streams from the comfort of home. When I first began to work from home I endorsed a single company, and having a single income stream didn't really work out for me as I felt like I had "all of my eggs in one basket". Being someone who works freelance, I was able to expand my income streams by taking on more situations similar to what I had going with this particular company. What appealed to me was the business model based on word of mouth referrals resulting in a revenue sharing situation. Basically, as a customer of the company sending new customers to the company, I was entitled to a share of that customer's revenue every time they shopped. To expand my income I sought to find more companies in existence with customer referral programs or revenue sharing programs that I could participate in. What I found is an entire industry dedicated to connecting advertisers with 'affiliates' to endorse their brand, called Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Marketing is also known as 'performance marketing', because your income is directly related to how you perform in bringing new customers and increased sales to the company. There are many companies offering an 'affiliate program' with an opportunity to revenue share by endorsing their product or service.
There are also Affiliate Networks, which are websites that represent many different companies that offer a revenue sharing program.
With an affiliate network, you can join one website and have access to many different company programs, choosing to refer customers to the products and services of your choice. I make it a policy to participate in affiliate programs for products and services that I would use myself, never anything that I would not. This makes affiliate marketing fun because you have a chance to customize your home business to your personality. There are affiliate programs for products and services in most markets, and you can find most of your favorites participating. You can even become an affiliate for the Playboy Store! Each company that participates in an affiliate program offers a unique situation - sharing revenue of sales, offering a flat fee for sending a new customer who makes a purchase, simply paying for each new visitor you send to their website, or possibly a flat fee for displaying their banner ad or logo on your site or blog. Many companies and affiliate networks offer to pay your commissions via PayPal, which is an extremely efficient way to get paid online. You can also request to be paid via check, or direct deposit in some cases. If you have a website or blog, it would be extremely simple to integrate Affiliate Marketing as an added source of income, and you could also do this from home.
Now, here are my 5 Reasons Someone Would Succeed With a Home Based Business with Affiliate Networks:
1. First and foremost, you select the programs you want to participate in. You can apply to any affiliate program that you choose, with no pressure to participate in those you don't choose. You have complete control over the products and services that you endorse, and for how long.
2. You have complete creative control of the advertisements displayed on your site or blog, as long as you follow the guidelines of each affiliate program. Most programs provide a variety of creative banner ads in different sizes and colors, with new sales and promotions being released all the time. There is usually a good selection of advertisements to use when endorsing your favorite companies with affiliate networks.
3. You choose which advertising methods would work best for your audience. You can promote offers via email if you have an email newsletter, with a link in an article, via online word of mouth, or on your website or blog (as long as you are allowed to use it for commercial purposes).
4. When you sign up with an affiliate network you have a trusted and secure source of income. You are also provided with tracking and earnings statistics by most programs to help you succeed with your business.
5. You can customize your own promotions, pushing specific products or releasing new additions to your audience. With control over placement, frequency, and dominance of each advertisement you are put in a direct position to influence the market towards worthy products and services of your choosing.
Here are My 5 Reasons Someone Would NOT Succeed With A Home Based Business with Affiliate Networks:
1. In order to promote other companies you must have a 'platform' to do this from. This means that you will have to have your own website, blog, e-mail newsletter, or landing page where you have creative control to add and remove ads as you see fit for the purpose of earning income.
2. Some of the companies that offer an affiliate program are picky when it comes to approving new affiliates for membership. Big names like MTV, FOX, and Yahoo! have strict criteria for affiliates. Be prepared for some of your favorite products and services to offer affiliate programs that you cannot gain membership to unless you have a very large audience to begin with.
3. Anyone interested in a career in Affiliate Marketing must take the time to get to know all of the rules of each of the affiliate programs that they participate in, and sites they display ads on. Ads are only allowed on websites that you have the right to display commercial advertisements upon, and programs will not allow you to advertise their products and services using questionable methods.
4. One of the biggest reasons you won't make any money as an affiliate marketer is if you do not maintain integrity by matching your products to your customer. It is very enticing to join a program which offers a high commission to push onto your audience. I make it a point only to join programs for companies with a product or service that I have used before myself or would possibly use in the future. I will not endorse companies that offer products I don't like, or that I know my audience wouldn't like. It is also tempting to jump on the band wagon and display every sale or promotion or new product that is released. This might work for your particular niche, but again, if you haven't used a product or wouldn't use it yourself, then I don't suggest pushing it onto your audience to purchase. Only display ads for companies with products you know your audience is not only going to like but L-O-V-E. This is the best way to give your audience a good experience with your sponsors, which will invite them to shop with them again and again. If you are not able to match your sponsors programs with customers in your audience, you will have a hard time bringing in much income as an affiliate marketer.
5. The biggest reasons you might not be able to penetrate the world of affiliate marketing stems from factors somewhat beyond your control. Timing and relevance are critical factors in the world of advertising, plus personal credibility and reputation take a role too. Success in marketing (especially affiliate marketing) is a tricky mix of all of these factors in balance and harmony. You'll have to factor in whether you are in an unstable (or even too stable!) market, and sometimes with everything planned and executed perfectly you can still miss your mark. Knowing what products and services people want, and then giving it to them precisely when they want it is a very, very tricky thing to manage; and this is what affiliate marketing is all about.
Where to Sign Up if You Are Interested in Becoming an Affiliate Marketer:
My favorites are Share Results, Share a Sale, and LinkShare. I also found that some of the websites that I was already using have their own independent affiliate programs such as PayPal.com, and Tarot.com. There were also products I had purchased online from websites with their own affiliate program as well such as Amazon.com, Legal Zoom, and Art.com. Since I was already a satisfied customer, endorsing them was easy. At this point, there are many resources online for those who are interested in working from home as an internet affiliate.
You can find plenty of how-to articles for affiliate marketers at eHow.com, plus you can find detailed information with everything you need to know about affiliate marketing on Wikipedia. There are a lot of people who see the big picture and income potential of being an affiliate marketer. Many choose to 'meet up' offline, and there are many conventions and seminars available to those who intend to make a career of affiliate marketing. I recommend using Google to search for all things related to affiliate marketing, because there is a wealth of information available online to those who are interested in knowing more about it. There are a handful of books that you can find on Amazon as well for more detailed information on affiliate marketing that I put together for you in the widget below:
I wish you the best as you explore the world of affiliate marketing and earning an income from home with affiliate networks.
This business opportunity gives you a true opportunity to earn what you are worth, and perform at your own comfort level too. Since earnings are based on referrals, you have the freedom to refer and earn as you much or little as you please. Partnering with high quality companies offering great products and deals can secure your financial future and your family's too. As always if you have any questions you can visit the blog community to discuss this topic further with other readers of this blog. Feel free to post a comment with your favorite affiliate networks and programs that might not be listed here, so that we can join them too! (Keep in mind that I moderate comments here so only quality programs will make the cut!) Thanks a lot for reading this post, and I hope that you come back again soon for the next Featured Work at Home Op post. Stay well in the meantime!
About the Author: Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her and view her photos by visiting her page on MySpace.
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