Why is Affiliate Marketing One of the Most Cost-Effective Ways to Start an Internet Business?

Affiliate programs are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates (or agents in the physical world) for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. The payment is similar to commissions to agents who help you make sales on behalf of the owners or the advertisers.

The agents or affiliates love it because affiliate marketing is the fastest way to start their Internet business and it allows them to make money from website visitors without having to worry about shipping and payment processing.

The products from the affiliate owners are usually information products such as electronic books (eBook) and software that can be delivered as a file that is then downloaded directly to your customers' computers. They could be repeatedly reproduced and downloaded and sold at no cost.

The following are some reasons why web marketers are so excited over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.

1. Low Cost

With so many emails and websites or sales letters screaming at them daily in their email in boxes with advertisements guaranteeing all types of Internet business opportunities with each one claiming theirs to be the ultimate solutions, it is understandable that many potential Internet marketers would be hesitant to part with their hard earned money to buy an e-book or an online subscription due to the uncertainties of such claims.
In affiliate marketing, you don't have to invest a lot financially to start pulling in profits.

2. No Inventories To Worry About

There is no need to keep and manage an inventory as this would be taken care of by the merchant. This eliminates the usual stress of having to manage the product inventory which needs substantial amount of cash to maintain and control.

3. Income Through Leverage

Many wealthy people earn their income through various leverage strategies which allow them to make money while they're sleeping, meddling with hobbies, or having vacation in far away places such as the beautiful beaches in Hawaii or the tropics.

Affiliates could simply drive traffic to the merchants' websites without having to sweat after having provided them your ad copy and links.

4. Globalisation

You are dealing with an unending global market place. All you have to do is study, research and select a niche product or service and prepare all the necessary marketing tools for your affiliates to direct traffic from just about anywhere around the world to your website.

5. Low Risk factor

The main reason for most successful Internet marketer's extensive use of affiliate marketing is the low-risk nature of the program. This is especially attractive to those with low budget for advertising.

6. Getting Paid While You Sleep

This system allows you to "recruit" thousands of "salesmen" who are willing to work for you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. You could switch your business to "Autopilot" mode so that you could continue to earn money whether you're awake, asleep or holidaying.

However, although you may have an excellent product or service you won't get many targeted visitors to your site to make any reasonable sales if your site is not well ranked by the search engines. Optimizing your keywords (or keyword phrases) and reciprocal linking (link exchanges) are two of the internet marketing strategies which you should first look into to make your site more visible. If these steps are followed your affiliate marketing journey would definitely lead you to a successful Internet business.

John Woon (Sung-Liang) is a successful Rubber and Latex Consultant and Internet marketer. To become a successful Internet marketer and start making money from home within 6 months, please go here:

http://www.johnwoon.com

http://www.johnwoon.com/blog

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How Big Should an Internet Marketing Budget Be?

If you were expecting a strict sum of money in answer to that question, you will be disappointed. But we will try and work out whether there are any guidelines that you can stick to here, as we attempt to answer that difficult question.

It's pretty obvious that no two companies or businesses will have the same internet marketing budget. For one thing every one of them will have a different level of income, so while one may be able to afford thousands of dollars a month, the other might only be able to allocate a few hundred - perhaps even less.

But it isn't just the size of the business that matters. You also need to think about your end goal. What kinds of web marketing do you want to do? Are you thinking about a few ads here and there to promote your business in general? Are you thinking about launching a brand new product and spreading the word as far and wide as you can? Or have you never been online before and you want to dip your toe in the water with a basic website and some search engine marketing to go with it?

It's plain to see that there is no simple answer to this question unless you know what you want your outcome to be. This is quite often the best way to approach the situation. Ask yourself what you want to achieve, and then work out how much it would cost you to achieve it.

For example, let's say you currently have five hundred unique visitors a day to your website and you want to increase that to five thousand. Now that would take a dedicated campaign, and if you are thinking of getting all that traffic from the search engines you'd need to focus on pay per click campaigns and featuring more highly in the organic search results.

To do that, you'd probably have to hire someone who knows that side of the internet inside out. A professional will be more than worth the money you pay them, and you would be safe in knowing they were doing their job while you got on with doing yours.

Of course it might be that your end goal is unaffordable for you at the moment. If your business hasn't yet reached the level where you can afford to put aside that kind of money into a marketing budget, you will need to lower your sights a little and figure out a way of making the money you need to aim for your ideal goal.

This is where some businesses trip up. They make their advertising budget bigger than they can afford to manage. It might be okay to allocate more funds to promotion occasionally, but doing it all the time can lead you into dangerous territory. And at any rate, you should always review your budget to see whether it needs any changes.

You'll achieve your goals eventually - and making sure your budget stays on track will help you get there.

Web Profits specialises in search engine optimization, online marketing & web design, helping businesses generate profits from the Internet. For a free report on 'The Secrets of Online Marketing for Offline Businesses' visit Web Design.

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