Wednesday, September 1, 2010

How to Create Successful Affiliate Program?



Affiliate Marketing is a derivative of Internet Marketing where the advertisement publisher gets paid for every customer or sales provided by him. Affiliate Marketing is the basic for all other Internet Marketing strategies.

Affiliate marketing is an arrangement between an online merchant and an affiliate (you), in which the affiliate earns a commission for generating sales, leads and/or clicks for the merchant's web site.

Following are the easy steps to create a successful Affiliate Program:

1 - Decide which methods you want to use as an affiliate marketer. Some choices are creating a website, using PPC advertising to promote products or services (without building a website), and creating a niche blog.

2 - Register for affiliate networks. (There's a link to a directory of affiliate networks below, in the "Resources" section.) Registering for affiliate networks will put you in contact with merchants who want you to promote their products, services, or sites.

3 - Once you're approved by an affiliate network, take some time to familiarize yourself with the site, their terms of service, and the campaigns (companies) they represent.

4 - Decide which campaigns are best suited to the method of affiliate marketing you chose. For example, if you chose a niche blog, find campaigns that are relevant to your niche's topic.

5 - If you're using a website or niche blog, choose banner ads and text links to place on your site and in your pages and posts.

The following are do's and don'ts of being a successful affiliate:

Do's:

* Build a useful website. Visitors must gain some benefit by visiting your site.
* Retain visitors through personalizations. Provide something personal so that visitors can come
again.

* Sign up with a known and established affiliate program. They have their tracking systems updated and so you can be rest assured that you will get your payments.

* Market your affiliate program so that you can increase the number of visitors who see your affiliate offering.

* Optimize your website so that you get a high ranking in natural search engines.
* Know your competition. You have to provide something better than them.
* Choose the advertisement model that is in line with your overall business model.
* Launch your site for some time, before joining any program. Good affiliate programs may like to see your site and study the traffic before enrolling you.

* Look for outside help. You may employ skilled people.
* Use blogs and RSS feeds for promotion.
* Remain active in your industry. You must know the latest trends and needs of visitors.

Don'ts:

*Don’t join just any affiliate program. Many affiliate programs are outright frauds.
* Don’t ignore your competition. They are the best evaluators of your products/services.
* Don’t get obsolete. Update your content regularly.
* Don’t rely only on banner ads. Experiment with all types of advertisements.
* Waste time. Be the first to capture any new opportunity.
* Don’t encourage spamming. You will get blacklisted.

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