Promoting affiliate programs is most of the most popular methods being used today to develop a home based business. There a number of advantages to affiliate marketing compared to other types of online business models, apart from the obvious one of the ability to rapidly develop a substantial source of extra income.
Let’s examine a few of the benefits:
No product required: Developing or sourcing your own products can be exorbitant, however with affiliate marketing the products or services are all supplied by the merchant.
Low start up costs: The only equipment you need to get started with affiliate marketing is a computer and a fast internet connection.
No licenses or fees payable: The benefit of starting an affiliate marketing business means you don’t have to pay any fees or obtain any licenses, as you do with a normal brick and mortar business.
Virtually limitless products: These days just about anything you can think of is sold online, all you need to do is find a merchant that sells what you are interested in and join their affiliate program to promote it.
No experience required: You don’t need to be an experienced salesperson to become an affiliate marketer, and most of the merchants will provide you with articles and emails etc. for selling their products or services.
No staff: You don’t have to worry about hiring and paying staff, down the track as your business expands you might like to consider outsourcing some of the work, but initially you can get started on your own.
No requirement to establish merchant account: For anyone that has already been in business you will know that setting up merchant accounts can be costly and time consuming, but as an affiliate marketer all you need is a PayPal or bank account to be able to receive your commissions. No more worrying about charge back or fraud.
No stock takes and inventory lists: As an affiliate marketer you don’t have to be concerned about doing stock takes or where you are going to store inventory items, this is all handled by the merchant.
No dealing with customers: When a customer clicks on the link to buy a product in your website, they are taken to the merchants website to conduct the actual sale. This means you don’t have to worry about processing orders or dealing with customer information or queries.
Worldwide customers, open 24/7: Once you have built your website it is open worldwide 24 hours a day 7 days a week, so you can go off and do other things, no need to sit by your computer except to check how much money you have made.
No dispatch and postage: Once you make a sale you don’t have to worry about packaging and sending the goods to customers this is all dealt with by the merchant.
Risk factor: What if the product you selected isn’t making you money? No problem, just choose another one to promote instead. You are not locked into any contracts so you can shop round until you find something that is worthwhile and pays.
Income potential: The beauty of affiliate marketing is that the amount you earn is only determined by the amount of time and work you are prepared to put into it, be that just a few hours or a full time business that is all up to you.
