These independent marketers are called affiliates. The question we present is how can you, as an entrepreneur in online marketing, become an affiliate?
A large company may recruit affiliates for a selected area of the larger site’s products. Such a large company may market hundreds of thousands of products and no single affiliate can advertise all of them. When companies recruit affiliates they emphasize their marketing expertise and your ability as an affiliate to earn large commissions.
There’s a big online book seller that doesn’t charge for delivery. You would think that word of mouth alone would send them millions of customers but they also have an affiliate programme. Another industry that relies heavily on affiliates is the online gaming industry. For example, Sloto’Cash Casino has a very attractive home page with an R2D2 type character flashing the running progressive jackpot total. This casino’s home page features all the colours of the rainbow and is very appealing. But it also runs an affiliate programme through its parent corporation, a group of online casinos.
These are just a few of the thousands of opportunities you have to become an affiliate. Many internet entrepreneurs are affiliates for more than one industry. You need to finance an online site or sites, be able to write massive amounts of content because it’s content that gets you high up in search engine lists, and continually update pertinent information.
If you’re looking into becoming an affiliate, here are a few pointers to consider:
- Within an industry, there are many different affiliate programmes. You need to balance the popularity of one online seller with perhaps a better affiliate package from another seller.
- You have to decide which niche you want to occupy with your affiliate site. Defining your business is not as easy as it seems. Robert Townsend wrote a seminal book on corporate management in the 1960’s called “Up the Organization”. In the book, he spoke about the importance of defining your business. By doing so to the business he had recently been recruited to run as President, management decided to sell a large part of the company. As an affiliate, you want to fill a felt need and before you can do that you have to define that need.
- We mentioned the importance of online content but this point cannot be emphasized enough. There are so many ways to get a message across online that you have to be able to write in the style of each or pay someone to write in various styles. Your content has to be better than online content was as few as five years ago. It must be informative and well-written.
- Although they may be expensive, many new affiliates learn a lot at affiliate conferences. These conferences are run by third party marketers and many industries have booths set up where they recruit affiliates. Seminars, workshops, speeches and simply hob knobbing with people like yourself is of immeasurable value.
- You need to have the energy for long days at the computer. Whether you’re writing, updating your site, or perusing the many blogs, forums, publications, and the like that are relevant to your niche, you have to stay with it. Others are doing the same in the same market niche so you have to work hard to stay even with the competition.
- You will need to learn many computer software products. For example, WordPress is indispensable for bloggers. As a writer, you’ll need to know writing programs, office programs, and social media platforms. If you think you’re already an expert in social media, you must realize that you have a lot to learn.
This might be the tip of the iceberg for you as a prospective affiliate. Entering the field of online marketing involves a lifetime of learning. You can never learn enough about any of the many aspects of online marketing.