Affiliate Marketing Programs – Is It Time For You To Get Started?

Starting your own affiliate program will help you to make even more money on the Internet. It’s the logical next step once you have created your own products and your online business is growing. There are several things you will want to consider before you set up your own affiliate marketing, and those include deciding when you will first set up the program, who you will recruit as your affiliates, and which products you will offer to pay commission on.

My recommendation is to wait at least six months before setting up an affiliate program for your business. The reason for this is twofold. First, you need that time to learn how to conduct business on the Internet. Second, you will want to see how other, more experienced marketers conduct their programs and work with their affiliates. This type of education is invaluable. Become an affiliate for two or three people whose products you have purchased and benefited from. Learn as much as you can and see which parts of their programs work well, and which could use improvement.

For the first year after setting up my affiliate program I only opened it to people who were a part of my highest level mentoring program. In retrospect this was a very good idea. I knew that these people would be able to honestly promote my products to their own list of prospects. It was important to me that anyone who was recommending me and what I was doing online actually know what it was like to work with me personally. This made for a better relationship between everyone involved in the process. Over time I decided to open up my program to anyone who was interested. This is now a better business model for me.

I would also recommend that you only set up one product at a time to pay commission on. This was a confusing process for me, and seems to be for my students as well. By choosing just one product to offer to your affiliates you will be able to experience what it is like to have others promote your product without the process becoming overwhelming.

Train your affiliates on how to best promote you. Provide them with all of the tools they will need, including banners of various sizes, tweets, articles, and sample emails. Explain how they can log in to your affiliate center to see which products and tools are available to the, as well as how much money they have earned. Pay them their commission each month on the same day, and give them the opportunity to earn more money on special promotions and in contests. You can become my affiliate and get started right away.