The explosive growth of the Internet has allowed thousands of individuals to earn a living through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a system where an individual agrees to promote or advertise a product in exchange for receiving a portion of the sales price if a customer purchases the product. The advertiser, or affiliate, is given a special link that allows the creator or manufacturer of the product to keep track of sales for each of his or her affiliates.
It is not uncommon for aggressive affiliate marketers to earn six or even seven figure incomes.
Why does this marketing system work so well?
Merchants can benefit in the following ways:
The Internet is a large place, and anyone advertising in that medium has the potential to reach billions of customers. In practice, however, any one individual cannot reach everyone. By creating an army of affiliates, a merchant can reach the greatest possible number of potential customers.
Merchants do not have to pay their affiliates unless they make a sale. That can amount to free advertising, since even promotion that does not result in a sale can still lead to brand name recognition, which may pay off later. Affiliate marketing can work out particularly well for merchants that do not have a lot of money for traditional advertising.
Merchants can benefit from creative marketing. Aside from certain illegal types of advertising, such as spam e-mail, most any method of Internet promotion can help generate sales. Clever marketers often come up with creative methods of advertising that might not occur to a traditional, in-house advertising group.
For affiliates, some of the benefits are:
Motivated affiliates do not have a cap on potential earnings. As commissions are earned on a per sale basis, the amount of income an affiliate can earn is limited only by the number of sales that he or she can make.
No investment is necessary in order to promote a product. With no investment, affiliates are free agents who may move from one product to another in order to find one that sells well. In addition, since affiliates only direct customers to the point of sale, without actually making the sale themselves, it is not necessary for affiliates to stock or ship the actual product when it is sold.
Ease of entry into the marketplace. Nearly anyone with a small Website or blog can participate in marketing a product as an affiliate.
The combination of a motivated sales force, previously unknown marketing methods, and the ease of making a sale online have all contributed to making affiliate marketing a popular method of selling products on the Internet. It is one of the few methods of selling a product that works equally well all parties involved in the selling process.
Copyright 2008 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier owns Online-Moneymaking.net, a site devoted to
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