Business Solutions Information Library
Building Affiliate Income
Picking Profitable Affiliate Programs
It is a great feeling to open your mail and see a check there for $500 or more. It is an even greater feeling to get two or three.
While there are thousands of affiliates out there who never make a sale or get a check, there are a few of us who get checks every month, all year long. No matter what kind of site you have, you want to be one of those people.
There are several steps to building an effective affiliate income:
- 1. Identify a workable market niche
- 2. Locate solid affiliate programs to offer that niche
- 3. Build a site and newsletter with high-quality information tied to that niche.
- 4. Get your targeted visitors to the site and signed up for your newsletter.
- 5. Send your visitors with open and receptive minds to the affiliate sites you represent, ready to buy.
The problem: Locating affiliate programs that will make you the long-term money you want and need.
There are a number of places you can look for affiliate programs. Here are a few that produce income for us every month:
Search for Quality Programs at the Internationl Professional Services Directory
Here is how you can identify a program that will make you a good income over the coming months and years:
MAKE SURE IT IS TARGETED TO YOUR NICHE
If your niche is radio controlled car racing enthusiasts, you don't want to offer them internet marketing courses. Instead, you will want to offer them products related to RC racing.
DETERMINE IF THE COMMISSION IS SUFFICIENT
Sending an email to your list doesn't cost you anything, right?
WRONG! Here's why...
Every time you send out an email about one product, you are giving up the opportunity to send out a recommendation on some other product. This is called opportunity cost.
We do a product recommendation to our list about once per month. We know that the average return per subscriber for each of those mailers is around 10 to 20 cents per subscriber.
If we choose to recommend a product to our list and the commission is too low, we may make only 2 cents per subscriber.
So, that mailer "cost" us 8 cents per subscriber. That is a HUGE amount of wasted opportunity
The commission offered on your product needs to be enough to justify your cost in advertising the product.
3. MAKE SURE THE PAGE HAS A SOLID SALES PROCESS
Before you recommend a product--even if you truly believe in the product--make sure you take a close look at the sales process. Is the sales page readable? Compelling? If not, don't send people to the page--they aren't going to buy.
4. CHECK OUT THE PRODUCT YOURSELF
DON'T RECOMMEND A PRODUCT YOU HAVEN'T AT LEAST *EXAMINED* YOURSELF! Recommending products you have not looked at is like Russian roulette--you might get by with it for a couple spins, but eventually it will shoot you in the head.
5. MAKE SURE SOLID TRACKING IS IN PLACE
You should be able to see how many visitors you have sent to the affiliate site, how many purchased and how much sales commission you have earned. This is a bare minimum.
Following these five recommendations will go a long way toward getting you nice commission checks week after week.
If you have your own product to sell here is a professional, cost effective way to bring your product to market.
Building Affiliate Clicks
