Affiliate Marketing News : What Is It and How Do I Find It?
In the next couple of weeks I will publish a series of articles, each will detail a step on the way to a rewarding affiliate marketing business. The first article is written for people who are completely new to the subject and are still looking for information. I will suggest a simple definition of affiliate marketing and show some simple ideas for finding lucrative products.
This article is not meant for skilled marketers or for people who are familiar with affiliate marketing and with the process of identifying products to promote, as it will discuss only the very basics. Hopefully some of the future articles will cover advanced steps, which even veteran marketers will find beneficial.
I will start by explaining what affiliate marketing is. Well, I like to say that Affiliate Marketing is to the 21st century what the Gold Rush was to the 19th century. The gold is there - one only needs to find it. But, on a more practical note: Affiliate Marketing is simply an agreement between you and a merchant or a product publisher, that says that the merchant will pay you a percentage of each and every sale he or she makes to a customer that you have driven to their web site.
Roughly, you’ll find three types of products: material ones - from shoes to yachts; information products - videos, software, ebooks, that are instantly downloaded to the purchaser’s computer; and subscriptions to newsletters, registrations to a course etc. Thousands and thousands of sellers pay commission to affiliates for purchases and for leads.
You can see that the fortunes are there, hidden under the ground in Internet land. You need to go out there and dig it out. Most new affiliate marketers learn that their first step, i.e. finding the right product, is the most complicated one.
Let me suggest a few ideas for starters:
1. Think of a product that you have purchased online and were very happy with. Try to become an affiliate. Visit the product’s web site or sales page and click on the link to the “affiliate program.” You can read there all the details you would want to know.
2. Do you have any hobbies? Things you know a lot about like a sport, music, cooking, whatever. You may also participate in forums in which your interests are discussed. This will be very helpful in the future when you promote products associated with your hobbies. Let’s assume you like sewing; you have a lot of information about cloth, patterns, and sewing machines. Look for any kind of product in the field of sewing which you can easily promote.
3. Do a little research on the Internet. Think of products that do very well in the United States but are unknown to Europeans, become an affiliate and promote the product using Google Adwords campaigns in Europe. You can do the same with a product that you’ve discovered in Europe, or any foreign country, and promote it in North America.
4. Talk to your children and/or other teenagers and try to find out what their newest fads are. Teenagers are great customers.
5. Subscribe to or buy regularly some popular publications. Follow the reports on the newest fads and fashions.
6. And last but not least: join one of the big Affiliate Program Providers, such as Commission Junction, ClickBank, to name just the biggest ones, but there are more out there which will offer you thousands of products to promote.
See you in a couple of day with Part 2 of the step-by-step plan to successful affiliate marketing.
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