What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Perhaps you've heard about affiliate marketing. You may even be involved with it in one way or another. Then again, you may be like many other people who really don't know much about it. Today, I want to answer a few questions about what affiliate marketing is and how you can use it in your business.

First, what is affiliate marketing? Simply, it's an Internet business model that rewards someone for sending visitors to a website. For example, if company A is selling a product, it may offer to pay someone a portion of each sale when an "affiliate" refers someone to their site who purchases a product.

Some companies will even pay for each visitor who is referred and signs up for a mailing list. From your standpoint, affiliate marketing may fit into your marketing plan in one of two ways:

• Recruiting Affiliates- If you have products you are selling, you may be interested in setting up an affiliate program to give an incentive for people to spread the word about the products or services you are selling.
  
  
• Becoming an Affiliate- This can be another revenue stream for you. By telling people about someone's products and services, you can earn money on each purchase made by someone who you referred.
  

You can think of affiliate marketing as a way to recruit a selling force for you. But just because you have a product or service, that doesn't mean people will be lining up at the door to become an affiliate for you. Below, I have listed some things for you to think about if you are considering the task of creating an affiliate marketing program for your business.

If You Want To Recruit Affiliates

• Sign up for an affiliate program- A quick search of the internet will return a lot of companies that run affiliate programs for you. You can start by checking with your shopping cart to see if they offer affiliate programs. For me, I use 1ShoppingCart's affiliate program since I use them as my shopping cart.
  
  In fact, this link I give to 1ShoppingCart is an affiliate link. From a visitor's standpoint, you just click on the link and are taken to the same place that you would go if it had been a non-affiliate link. But now, 1ShoppingCart knows when you click on it that it was me who sent you.
  
  1ShoppingCart is one of many great companies that can help you set up your affiliate link. If you know someone who sells products online, ask them who they use. This can be a great way to find companies that people are happy with.
  
  
• Create resources for your affiliates- If you want people to refer your products and services, you need to make it easy on them to do that. That means you need to create sales pieces for them, provide e-collateral (banners, buttons, etc...), education, and even suggested text they can use in an e-mail campaign. By setting up a resource page where an affiliate can find a plethora of resources, you increase the chances they will find one suits their selling style.
  
  One resource I created for my affiliates, is a video that explains to them how their affiliate link works. I break it down in a way that hopefully demystifies it and gives them power to use their affiliate links in a way that fits their style. Feel free to watch this video entitled: Using Affiliate Links.
  
  
• Make yourself available without smothering your affiliates- There is a fine line between establishing a relationship with your affiliates and bugging them so much about selling your products that they eventually tune you out. If you spam your affiliates, then they know you will spam people they refer to you. Remember, these people are not your employees. If you are over the top about pushing them to sell for you, you may have a dismally poor affiliate program.
  
  
• Treat referrals like royalty- Affiliates put their reputation on the line when they refer people to you. That means it's incumbent on you to to treat these people as valued guests. If you treat your referrals poorly by spamming them, then it will get around to your affiliate. Not treating your referrals right will be the quickest way to dry up your affiliate program. People talk, and I promise you, word will get around. That's one reputation that's hard to clean up once you've crossed the line.
  
  The bottom line is that you need to treat your affiliates and referrals right.This is the best way to build a healthy referral program that engenders trust, ethics, and excitement. Be a resource to these people and do what is in their best interest. Doing so will increase the likelihood that they will do the same for you.
  

On Monday, I will look at affiliate programs from the other side. We will look at how to join an affiliate program so you can add additional revenue streams to your income. Now the FTC is getting involved with language around affiliate marketing. It seems that you can read all kinds of interpretations about their announcement. We will touch on that on Monday as well.

Regardless of how affiliate marketing may or may not fit into your own plans at this time, this is a viable option for you to consider. If you do, be one of the people who give affiliate marketing a good name, and not one who tarnishes it by engaging in questionable practices. Being open and up front goes a long way to establishing a great affiliate reputation.

Tony Eldridge