How An Affiliate Program Can Help Build Your Online Business Cheaper Than Advertising

Writen by Janet Meiners

An Affiliate Program Can Help Your Business

Every business owner is looking for ways to sell more product or services. No matter how large the staff or the budgets, it can be a daunting task. You may cover some areas very well while others are not reaching their full potential.

As internet marketing matures, it's more expensive and difficult to attract attention online. As more and more web users become blind to regular advertising, you need to find other ways to approach marketing.

Start an Affiliate Marketing Program

An affiliate marketing program can help you fill in the gaps that exist in your business. Run well, affiliates typically bring in 20% of your total online revenues. An affiliate program is an online referral system. You set up a program individuals or other companies can join. They get a unique URL that can be tracked. You pay them a finder's fee or a commission on each sale they send to your business. You provide the ads ands support which your affiliates use to market to their audience.

Affiliates typically use email lists, web sites, banner, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and text ads to market your products. These are internet marketing tools you should already use. If you don't, an affiliate program is a great way to "outsource" those tasks. You won't have to hire a bigger sales force. Affiliates upfront the costs and help you extend your reach online.

The first thing a business should do to start an affiliate program is to find someone to run your program. You can hire or outsource this task. However, to truly be successful you'll need an affiliate manager on staff. Affiliates won't take your program seriously if you don't. If you truly partner with your affiliates, both your business, and the affiliates who represent it, can benefit.

These are some basic benefits of having an affiliate program. Sound hard? It's not really. But it does take time to learn and perfect. It's more than I can cover in this article. The subject is covered well in Module 2 of The Affiliate Manager - How to Build and Manage an Unstoppable Online Sales Force. The entire course is invaluable. It's the closest thing to a college course in affiliate managing. I highly recommend it.

Janet Meiners is web marketer and professional writer. She recently launched Affiliate Flash the source for affiliate marketing news and information. Janet blogs at newspapergrl.wordpress.com. Find more details about starting an affiliate program at Affiliate Manager 101.