Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What is affiliate marketing?

Courtesy of: The Online Entrepreneur

What is affiliate marketing?


Affiliate marketing is a method through which you can receive money on the Internet simply by referring prospective customers to the website of a merchant who sell products and / or services on the Internet. In other words, you send customers (people searching the web) to websites (here, website refers to internet stores owned by the merchants), and the owner of the website pays you for each purchase the customer makes.

Let’s look at affiliate marketing from another angle. It is similar to the way that commissioned sales work in the “real world.” You (the affiliate marketer) generate sales for a company (the website), and the company pays you a commission or percentage of the sale.
However, affiliate marketers reap the rewards of commissioned sales without the stress of face-to-face selling, the hassle of providing customer service, or the drudgery of maintaining inventory. Most exciting of all, you don’t even have to leave your house! You can literally sit at home in your underwear and make money!

Of course, you are not confined to conducting your business from the comfort of your home. Some affiliate marketers decide to work while sitting on a sun-drenched beach in the Florida Keys; others work from a 5th Avenue Penthouse Suite in New York; still others work from a luxury suite at the Rio in Las Vegas. The allure of affiliate marketing lies in the freedom it affords; you can literally work from anywhere in the world, provided you have a computer with Internet access.

Another great benefit of being an affiliate marketer is that you can work in an area or industry that you know and are familiar with. When asked the secret to his success, Warren Buffet, the great stock market investor, is famous for offering the simple advice, “Do what you know, and do it well.” What he means is that you should work in a field that you already know; you should work in an area that you are passionate about. And affiliate marketing allows you to do just that. For example, if you are an avid rock climber, you may want to promote websites that sell rock-climbing gear.