As a single mom who paid off debts and replaced a day job paycheck with affiliate income, Kelly wants to make sure that other moms know that they too can build a profitable business while staying home with their kids.

This 100% virtual event is being held in a web conference room, giving moms all over the world the opportunity to attend from the comfort of their own homes.  Sign up for free Mp3 interviews today!

Helping Direct Sales Consultants Generate Leads

Sell Your Own or Wholesale Products

If you manufacture your own product, you can sell it online. Or you can save yourself manufacturing costs and hassle by purchasing ready-made products at wholesale prices. Just take into consideration the extra work and storage space involved with carrying a product line. You can always purchase dropshipped wholesale products (the wholesaler ships only when you make a sale), but that usually carries a low profit margin.

The other suggestions in this article don’t carry the require of inventory and extra workload…

Direct Sales Products

Direct sales companies offer great support and a proven product in many cases which makes starting your business with them a nice idea. That being said, remember to check with any company you are considering joining with to be sure they allow sales online. If so, set up your own website and start selling. You must be willing to promote your website in order for the online side of sales to work, however so learning the ins and outs of marketing online, just as with any other type of business, is important.

Information Products

Also known as info products, these include ebooks, audio or video recordings, guides, reports, etc. that teach someone how to do something or explain something in detail.  Most times, info products are sold in a form that allows the buyer to immediately receive their purchase by means of downloading them from your website. You can also sell info products in the form of physical products such as CDs, hard cover books, manuals, etc. that can be shipped to the buyer. It’s easy to make an info product business 100 percent online by offering everything in a downloadable format.

Affiliate Sales

Do you have a blog or informational website already? If so, have you considered selling other people’s products on your site? Many business owners have affiliate programs that allow other you to refer their products or services to others. In return they will pay you a commission when someone uses your referral and makes a purchase.  This carries the benefit of not having to fulfill orders or having to offer customer service. You just focus on promoting.

Just search for the type of product you want to sell + “affiliate program” on a search engine – you’ll see plenty of options.

Services

Whether it is administrative services, bookkeeping, web design, copywriting, or some other service you perform, the chances that you can sell it online is a good one. By creating a professional website that explains your services and marketing it to your potential clients, you’ll be one step ahead of others who are looking to offer their talents online as well.

Need to Build Your Website?

Looking for an even easier option to build your web pages? Take the comprehensive website builder for a 10-day test trial. You can choose from over 1200 templates and your account includes all kinds of interactive features including: message board, shopping cart, mailing list, coupons and more.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty darned difficult until you have determined who your target market is and what they want and need from you. So, how do you find out what type of person readily buys your products or services? Keep reading for tips to aid in growing your online business by getting to know your target customer.

Talk to Your Current Customers

The first thing you can do, if you already have paying customers, is find out what they really are all about. Determine what they want and need from you. There are many ways to do this. A few of which include:

• Creating surveys and asking for their thoughts and opinions on your product or service after they make a purchase.
• Another way is to utilize your mailing list and ask them what they would like to see more of from you in an email.

You Can Still Research Even if You Don’t Have Any Customers…YET.

So, what happens if you haven’t sold your first product yet or you want to additional exploration? A great way to determine who your target customer is to make a list of your product or service’s benefits. Find out what your product or service does for a person. Some examples of this include saving them time, getting them in shape, etc. (i.e. helping them fix a particular problem or fulfill a burning desire) and more. Figure out what you can do for your future customers to make their lives easier, better, longer, etc.

When your list is complete, evaluate it. Let’s say for instance you sold beauty products that reduced wrinkles and made your customer look younger. Your target market would probably be women in their 40s or older. By listing even more benefits you can go even more specific with your market and really zone in on the perfect customer for your beauty products. You might even realize you can have more than one target market and that’s ok, especially since you are doing business online. This makes advertising and creating more than one site for each of your markets easy and inexpensive.

Finding Out What’s Already Out There

You can also conduct keyword and/or market research. There are many ways to do this including keyword research, reading magazines, reading reviews and visiting forums, social networking sites and other discussion groups. Browse around and see what it is people are looking for by visiting other websites. Even your competitors can give you great insight.

No matter how you come up with your target market, remember to take the time to put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes. Whether you’re just starting out with a new product or are making changes to your existing service, don’t be afraid to talk to people out there to find out just exactly who the target market for your online business really is.

Need to Build Your Website?

Looking for an even easier option to build your web pages? Take the comprehensive website builder for a 10-day test trial. You can choose from over 1200 templates and your account includes all kinds of interactive features including: message board, shopping cart, mailing list, coupons and more.

Question 1: How much commission should I offer in my affiliate program?

How much you offer will depend on the amount you can afford, taking into consideration the lifetime value of a customer, what your competition is doing and how attractive you can make your offer.

As a general statement, information products usually have a higher commission rate - often between 25-50% with the higher end being more common. Consumer products with smaller profit margins can be as low as 5%, but don’t often go above 20%.

But what you charge should be based on your own unique business. Here are some more things to help you come to a decision:

Sometimes it’s okay to pay a bit more for a first-time customer who will buy from you over and over again.

Always see what your competition is offering, but you don’t have to get into a commission war. Just make you can make your program very attractive through good conversion rates, unique and useful promotional tools and other attractive features.

Question 2: What kind of affiliate tools should I provide to my affiliates?

The simplest answer is: Give them what they want.

Talk to your affiliates and see what they need to serve their unique audience needs, and where possible, provide it to them.

For hard-hitting promotions, you can craft email copy, conduct live teleseminars with content and sales pitch, special reports, etc.

For the content-starved webmaster (and there are plenty out there), give them things like articles, free ebooks and other informational content.

The important thing is to listen to your affiliates and watch which tools convert best.

Question 3: Can I have an affiliate program with a service-based business?

Sure you can. If you have a profit margin or a lifetime customer value that allows you to pay commissions, certainly.

If you have services available that are at a set price, it’s easy to automate everything and run your program, just like a product-based one.

If you charge by the hour or have to give project estimates, it’s a little tougher to automate completely.

Here are a few options:

- Have a script that can track who referred your potential client to you. Ex. Affiliate recommends your service through a tracking link. Potential client clicks the link, checks out your website and fills out a form for more information. Your system tells you who referred the client and if they purchase your services, you can give the affiliate a commission.

- You could do it as a pay-per-lead opportunity where the affiliate is paid a smaller fee for every person that fills out the form for more information. This would be easy to automate in most affiliate systems that can handle pay-per-lead transactions.

- Don’t want to go with a full-blown affiliate program? You can institute a client referral program where you simply allow your clients to recommend your service, in return for credit for services. When a new client comes to you, you ask where they heard about you and you add a credit to your referring client’s account

An affiliate force is an incredibly powerful thing and when you consider you don’t have to pay affiliates anything until they produce results for you, it’s one of the best deals going in Internet marketing today. Plan your program well and you’ll soon have your own active force of affiliates bringing you new customers every day.

For more answers to your questions about starting and running your own profitable affiliate program that your affiliates will love, claim your copy of Alice Seba’s step-by-step Affiliate Manager Sweetie course.

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