Affiliate Business Explained

This is the first of a series of special articles on building a profitable affiliate business. If you want to know how affiliate works and how to build a profitable affiliate business in the shortest time possible, this article series is for you. In this first article, you'll learn:- What is an affiliate business- Why it's the BEST business model EVER discovered.- 4 key benefits of affiliate.- Why everyone - whether you already have an existing business... or... you are completely new and looking at having your first own business - should have an affiliate business.On the next article, I'll reveal to you...- How to get started in building a profitable affiliate business- How to effectively market your affiliate productsBut before I get started, I'd like to acknowledge that the information I'm about to share with you in this article is based on an eBook authored by Sean Rasmussen-an affiliate expert who built an outrageously successful affiliate business and became financially independent in 3 years! (To discover my personal experience with Sean, please go to my blog following the link at the bottom of this article.)Now let's get right into the meat of this article. First...What Is Affiliate?Well, it's simply an online business model where you market and sell someone else's products instead of your own. For example, if you come across a book about investing which you think is great and very helpful for anybody who'd like to learn how to invest successfully, then you simply join its affiliate program and start to market the book on behalf of its author or publisher. When people buy the book through your marketing, you earn a commission. The commission rate varies from one affiliate program, or even product, to another... but typically you may expect a commission rate of 30-50%.If you think about it, affiliate business is truly the best business model EVER discovered-whether you already have an existing business and want to expand it or build a different line of business... or... you're completely new and want to start the first ever business of your own.Why? Because, first, you can set it up and get it running in a few minutes... you don't need to have a website (though it helps if you have one)... you don't need to have your own products... you don't have any upfront cost to pay (signing up affiliate programs is free)... and you have no financial risk whatsoever (I'll talk more about this in a moment)...And you can market and sell any products on the internet that have an affiliate program for you to join-there are literally a countless number of great products (and I mean great, not mediocre to average) existing and available on the internet. All you have to do is spend a little time surfing on the internet to find them out and join their affiliate programs. When you become more familiar with internet surfing, it becomes very easy and quick for you as you'll know exactly where to go and search for new, high quality products.4 Key Benefits of AffiliateThere are many advantages of running an affiliate business against other conventional online and offline businesses. Here are four of the key ones:1) No financial risk whatsoeverYou see, with an affiliate business you have...(a) No overhead cost-You don't need any money to set up an affiliate business and get it running. Because signing up affiliate programs is free. And although it helps to market your affiliate products if you have your own website, it's NOT essential to have one, especially in the beginning where you're just starting out and trying to get familiar with how affiliate works. You can market your affiliate products on free classified websites, social networking websites, article websites and so on (more on this in the next article...)(b) No production, manufacturing and delivery costs-This is straight forward. Since you only sell other people's products, you don't need to worry about paying anybody to create a product, manufacture it and deliver it (if it's a physical product). The owners or distributors of the products will do all that for you.This is one of the big advantages for NOT having and selling your own product, because you will free yourself from all the headaches of owning a product.(c) No marketing and advertising costs-You have a choice on this. You can choose to advertise your affiliate products on free classified websites, social networking websites, etc... Or, you can choose to pay a small amount of money to advertise your products at premium locations.My recommendation is first test your advertisements on free websites or standard locations which are free. When you are confident with your ad and are sure that the websites are ideal to reach your potential buyers, then slowly roll out to advertise at premium (paid) locations. This way, you can minimise your risk of paying advertising without a return.(d) No way you can lose money on an affiliate business-By now, it should be obvious to you that you can't possibly lose any money on an affiliate business. Why? Simply because you don't need to fork out any money to get your affiliate business up and running.All you have to invest is a little bit of your time to find the affiliate products you want to sell and learn how to market the products effectively so that you can earn a big commission.Therefore, even if you're a complete novice in business... or... you already have an existing business and want to expand it, but you prefer NOT to risk a single dollar of your own money, affiliate business is definitely for you.Now listen: You have absolutely no financial risk for running an affiliate business, but you have a VERY GOOD CHANCE of making truck loads of money, because you can...2) Sell any, and as many products as you want.Imagine you have a "virtual store" selling tens... or even hundreds of various kinds of products ranging from books, home-study courses, health care products, weight-loss products and so on... Each one of them has been proven to be a best-seller and is expected to pull in a lucrative profit.Can you imagine that? But... That's literally the case with affiliate business. Because you can pick and sell as many affiliate products as you want... without any cost or financial risk to you. There's no limit on the number and the kind of affiliate products you can sell.Let's say the average commission you make out of one affiliate product is (conservatively) $100 a month. So if you have 10 affiliate products, you'll make an average of $1,000 a month... Or... if you have 30, you'll make $3,000. Now what if you're really good at marketing your affiliate products and each one of them brings in an average of $1,000 or $2,000 a month? That's completely within the realm of possibility. And you can do the maths if you have 20 or 30 of such affiliate products!A word of warning though: Don't sell any affiliate products that you don't believe in... or you won't buy or use for yourself. You definitely want to sell ONLY great products to your customers in order to build a long-term relationship with them. When they know that you can be trusted, they're more likely to come back to you and buy more products from you in the future... or they will buy products on your recommendations.A simple, handy tip is to sell best-selling books or products because they are success proven products-People are already buying and feeling happy about these products. So all you need to do is simply ensure that the potential buyers get access to these best-sellers via your marketing.Can you see how easy you could be making a lot of money without any financial risk with an affiliate business?But that's not the end yet! Another key benefit of running an affiliate business is...3) You're in total controlYou get to decide when and where you want to work. You can decide how quickly or slowly you want to build your affiliate business.Plus, you also get to decide the affiliate programs you want to join... or... fire them when the programs (or products) no longer serve you or meet your strict criteria.4) Have Affiliate products to complement your own product rangeIf you already have an existing business selling your own products or services, then you can use affiliate products to complement your own product range. This way, you will not only expand your business without any extra cost to you, you will also be able to better serve your customers by providing a range of other products or services that could be of great benefit to them.For example, if your business is about coaching to small business owners, then perhaps you can have affiliate products such as books on how to build a successful business, how to trade stocks, how to invest in property, etc... Most business owners will be interested in these topics and when they buy through you, you'll make extra profits without any extra cost to you.In the next article, I will talk about...- How to get started in building a profitable affiliate business- How to effectively market your affiliate products