Internet Marketing Strategies - Part Six: Setting Up Your Affiliate Program
By Shelley Lowery
If you're marketing your own product on the Internet, you can dramatically increase your sales with an program.
An program will enable you to recruit an unlimited number of individuals to sell your products. The key to obtaining affiliates is to offer a nice commission for each sale. The higher the commissions, the more affiliates you'll recruit.
There are thousands of programs on the Internet. In order to be successful you must sell your program just like your product. In other words, your letter should be written like a sales letter. You must persuade your visitors to join your program by packing your sales letter with benefits. Tell them exactly what your program will do for them, how much commission they will receive and make the sign-up process simple.
One Tier Verses Two Tier
One tier programs pay commissions on one level. For each sale an makes, they will receive a commission. For example, if you offer your affiliates 30% commission and your product sells for $39.99, for every sale your makes, they will receive a $12 commission.
Two tier programs pay commissions on two levels. Affiliates will receive a commission for each sale they make and for each sale their recruits make. Two tier programs usually divide the commissions over the two levels. For example, if you want to give your affiliates a total of 30% commission for each sale, you would offer 20% commission on their first level sales and an extra 10% commission for second level sales. If your makes a $39.99 sale, they would receive a $8 commission. If one of their recruits makes a sale, they would receive an additional $4 commission.
Increasing Sales
Nobody knows more about your product than you do. Provide your affiliates with banners, sample ads, articles or anything that will assist them in making sales.
To further increase sales, create an ebook that is directed towards your target audience and allow it to be freely distributed. This ebook should be packed with valuable information and, at the same time, used as a sales tool for your product. Customize a copy of your ebook for each of your affiliates and allow them to freely distribute it. You can customize the ebooks yourself or purchase an ebook compiler that enables your affiliates to customize your ebook themselves. Not all compilers will allow customizations. I highly recommend Ebook Edit Pro.
To keep your affiliates motivated, set up an opt-in list to enable them to subscribe and receive new promotional methods, sales letters and articles to assist them in making more sales. This will not only increase their sales, but it will also enable you to keep in contact with your affiliates and introduce new products.
Setting Up Your Program
When you're ready to set up your program, there are basically two options. The first option is to purchase an software program. software will track your sales and enable your affiliates to view their stats. This option requires that you run your program and you are responsible for accepting payment and sending out commission checks.
The second option is to use a third party tracking company to run your program for you. These companies will track your sales, enable your affiliates to check their stats and send out commission checks for you.
Affiliate Tracking Software
AssocTRAC- A great tracking software that features real time tracking of stats. It tracks both visitors and sales for each associate to determine not only the quality of visitors, but also if your sales copy is turning visitors into buyers. It includes an easy sign up process that instantly creates accounts for associates so
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