The Seven Steps You *NEED* to take to make money online with an affiliate program  

Affiliate programs can be one of the best ways to make money online... provided you know how to get the most out of them! If you want to maximize the benefits of YOUR affiliate programs, be sure to follow the seven steps listed below.

They'll help you attract the highest quality affiliates and make it easy for them to make great money promoting your products -- for them as well as you!  These seven steps will give you all the information you need to make money online with an affiliate program.

1. Offer a quality product, backed up by fantastic customer service

In order to build a successful affiliate program, your affiliates must be confident that your product or service that gives *great* value, and that you provide fantastic customer service.

The bottom line is, your affiliates HAVE to be able to trust you with their customers! They need to believe you know what you're doing and that you will treat anyone they send your way fairly and honestly.

Because your affiliate program won't last very long if you get a bad reputation.

Remember -- word spreads quickly on the Internet. If you establish yourself as a reputable seller who answers questions promptly, handles transactions quickly and accurately, and offers a guarantee to back up your product, you'll be ahead of the pack.

Your affiliates -- and your customers -- will appreciate the extra effort, and you'll be rewarded with loyalty.

2. Choose your affiliate program software wisely

One of the most important things to remember when you're starting an online business is scalability. You need to plan for future growth, so when it happens, you're ready and not caught off guard.

The affiliate software you choose will play a big part in determining how you set up your program. It's going to influence where you spend your time (on marketing or on administrative trivia)... and it will be a factor which some of your potential affiliates will use to decide whether or not they want to join your program!

Key features to look for in your software are a simple sign-up process; personalized 'admin' pages and a simple-to-use tracking program.

You want your affiliates to have access to:

• An easy-to-understand commission structure
• The number of visitors they have sent to your site
• How many sales they have referred
• How many sales their sub-affiliates have made
• Which products they are selling the most of
• How much commission they have earned from direct sales
• How much commission they have earned from sub-affiliate sales
• How much total money they have earned
• How many sub-affiliates they have recruited

After trying a number of software programs available on the market, we still weren't satisfied with any of them -- and so we invested a ton of time and money in developing our own affiliate tracking software: AssocTRAC.

3. Turn your affiliates into your customers is one of the best ways to make money online with an affiliate program

Your affiliates initially joined your program to earn some money... but you can also sell your products TO them as well!

Think about it: they get a discount through the kickback they receive from their own sale... and it's a great way to actually generate some new customers. Once your affiliates use your products or service, they can then create testimonials of their own experience to increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts!

Alternatively, if you sell a large volume of product, you can actually get affiliates to sign up with you solely for the purpose of buying your products at a discount! Your affiliate buys your product or service at regular price, but at the end of the month they get a referral fee on their own purchases -- this basically means they get a discount.

There are some affiliate program owners out there who say, "NO, you can't buy through your own affiliate program" and they fight it... Don't be one of them!

They're losing out, because this is a great way to get new customers and new business. Let it happen. Encourage your affiliates not only to sell your product but to buy from you, as well.

And there's another benefit to selling to your affiliates: It generates loyalty. You allow them to save money by buying from you through their affiliate membership, AND they earn money when they sell for you.

4. Pay excellent commissions

There's no doubt about it: If you want to have a successful affiliate program, you HAVE to pay out good affiliate commissions. The higher your profit margin, the more you should be giving to your affiliates. Because there's just one reason they joined your program in the first place... to make money!

The more money you pay your affiliates, the more motivated they will be to market your product or service and the more work they will put in on your behalf.

What it comes down to -- and what many affiliate program owners don't understand -- is that most of your real profit is on the "backend". Don't be afraid to give away a lot of your profit on the "front-end"… it is the customer who is worth the money.

5. Realize backend sales

It takes an average of eight contacts before a "browser" becomes a "buyer" so you need to make the most of your existing customers! Once you have the customer, if you have quality products and services that are great value, you will generate a lifetime customer from whom you can profit for years.

This is why you, as an affiliate program owner, can afford to pay generous affiliate commissions. You're not looking at immediate profits -- but at the potential of repeat sales or potential backend sales.

If you give your customers good value, a lot of them are going to come back and buy and buy again. Remember the 80-20 rule! Eighty percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customers. And it costs a lot less to sell to an existing customer than it does to try and win a new one!

So don't look just for the money you can earn today -- look for the money you can make over the next 6 months... or the next year, or even 5 years!

Think of it as a long-term investment. You've got to understand that the purpose of building your affiliate program is not only just to make money today -- it's about getting that customer, holding on to them and turning them into a lifelong loyal buyer.

6. Do business with your competitors

You might be surprised to learn that you may end up doing business with some of your competitors in order to make money online with your affiliate program...

...And that people you originally thought were competitors really aren't!

In fact, your "competitors" may well be someone you can actually do business with -- by partnering up in joint ventures and strategic alliances. This works especially well if your product or service is similar but not in direct competition with theirs -- think "complementary."

This may sound a bit hard to believe, but we do business with our competitors all the time!

Because when it comes down to it, many of the people who purchase our information or software will also purchase our competitors'. So why not work together and both profit from that?

Say, for example, I believe someone offers a good service selling great copywriting skills... and they have a manual on copywriting. I will recommend them to my customers, and in return, they will direct referrals and recommendations back in my direction.

Look closely at the products or services of your perceived "competitors"... if you see a way they would be of value to your own customers, contact these business owners in a professional manner and negotiate a deal.

You can even become a part of their affiliate program!

Think of what you can offer your competitors' customer based on what they would want and on what you both could profit from. Yes, you may find that you actually can be partners with some of your competitors and it can be very interesting. So, be prepared for this to happen.

7. Have a great visitor-to-sale conversion ratio

To run have an effective affiliate program you must have a good visitor to sales conversion ratio. This is one of the things you should invest some work in before ramping up your affiliate program.

You must be able to convert visitors into sales in order to keep your affiliates happy -- if they send thousands of visitors your way but then realize after a month that you're not converting these visitors into sales (thereby earning them a commission), they won't be very pleased!

So test everything on your site! Don't be afraid to change things -- it's the only way to find out what's working -- and what's not.

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that you can test very quickly. So, if you have ad copy that isn't doing very well, or an opt-in offer that isn't collecting very many of your visitors' names and email addresses, you can easily put up a new one and see results in hours or days, depending how much traffic you have.

Test your opt-in offer, your headline, your salescopy -- keep tweaking and testing until you find the combination that generates the best conversion. Just remember -- only test one element of your web site at a time, so you know exactly what was responsible for a spike or dip in sales.

Final thoughts to help you make money online with an affiliate program

Affiliate programs are, hands down, one of the best ways to make money online.

By making sure you offer only top-notch products and customer service, you'll not only increase your business, potential affiliates will be much more likely to trust you with their valuable leads and send their customers your way.

Approach potential affiliates in a professional manner, and they might well become your customer as well! And treat your affiliates well -- pay them generous commissions, and keep them up to date with your products and services. Happy affiliates are productive affiliates!

When choosing affiliate program tracking software, plan wisely and think ahead -- your program will likely grow rapidly, and you don't want to be scrambling to find a scalable software product. The Best Affiliate Tracking Software: AssocTRAC

Consider approaching web sites in your industry that offer complementary products or services to your own, and making a deal to work together. Sometimes two heads are better than one!

And remember -- test, test, test! You need to be continually updating your web site to figure out what's working best, and to keep your visitor-to-sale conversion rate as high as it can be. Your affiliates won't keep sending you customers if your site gets stale!

... And I'll send you 100s of tips and tricks for growing your Internet business!"

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