What Is Affiliate Marketing? Part 2

On Thursday, I did a post entitled, What Is Affiliate Marketing? In that post, we introduced the concept of affiliate marketing and identified the two sides of affiliate marketing:

1. Recruiting Affiliates to sell your products
2. Becoming an affiliate to sell other people's products.

For the rest of the post, we then focused on looking at affiliate marketing from the standpoint of recruiting affiliates. In today's post, we will look at affiliate marketing from the standpoint of becoming an affiliate.

Before we get to today's post, I want to encourage you to sign up for free webcasts on writing, publishing and marketing your books. This free event is going on all this week, starting today. 18 book marketing and publishing experts will be on various panels to answer all of your questions. I will be on the Tuesday webcast entitled, "PRE-PUBLICATION MARKETING MUSTS" with Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer and Shelley Lieber, The Wordy Woman: Publishing Maven. Visit the Grand Opening Webinar Week page to read more about the topics and to sign up for your free Webcasts now.

Now, on to our post...

The second way that you can get involved in affiliate marketing is as an affiliate. This means that you sign on to a program that allows you to refer people to another company's product or services. In return, you get a commission if that person purchases the product. Now, this is a very simplistic example of what could be a complex affiliate relationship, but it explains the gist of how being an affiliate works.

There are a number of ways you can become an affiliate. Many companies offer their own affiliate program themselves. You can visit websites of companies you love to see if they have an affiliate program. Alternatively, you can visit one of many companies that handle the affiliate relationship of existing companies. When you do, you can join their program and sell any product from any company they represent.

Becoming an affiliate is a legitimate way to create another revenue stream for your internet business, if that's what you are looking to do. Here are my suggestions for things to consider before becoming an affiliate:

• Find products you believe in- It's much easier to refer people to products you can genuinely endorse. From a business standpoint, if you continually refer people to inferior products, then you will loose your credibility and ultimately the ability to be an effective affiliate.
  
  
• Find companies you believe are ethical- It's a tough thing to be in a business relationship with someone who does not share the same business ethics as you. Like it or not, your reputation will be tied to the reputation of the people you choose to do business with. Make sure you feel comfortable with the way they do business.
  
  
• Follow the rules- Good companies have strict guidelines on how you can represent them when you act as their affiliate. Make sure you are acting within those guidelines. Just as your reputation can be tied to them, so can their reputation be tied to you.
  
  
• Don't Spam- Hey, by now we don't need to get into why spamming is wrong on so many levels. But it's one thing to spam your own products and service, it's another thing to tarnish the reputation of the company you represent as an affiliate. Besides, if they catch you spamming while marketing their products, many companies are likely to end their affiliate relationship with you.
  

We can't end a post 0n affiliate marketing without discussing the FTC's guidelines on affiliate marketing. A lot of buzz has been going on regarding the new guidelines they adopted that affects you as an affiliate. At the heart of the issue is the fact that you need to be clear and upfront when you are an affiliate and use testimonials and endorsements or if you give reviews.

In fact, whenever you use an affiliate link, you need to disclose your affiliate status. The definitions of what constitutes an endorsement or testimonial may be broader than you think, so the safe route is open disclosure. You can read the FTC's communications and educate yourself more fully at the following sources:

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising

If you decide to become an affiliate, it can be an honorable and rewarding way to add another revenue stream to your income. The bottom line is really not complicated. Just act ethically and honestly. If you do this, then you are on your way to a potentially profitable business model that can also bring value to people you refer to your affiliate products and services.

Tony Eldridge