The Amazing Facebook-(TAF): How to Make Money Marketing Affiliate Programs

The title of this post, “How to Make Money Marketing Affiliate Programs,” will be exciting to some of you and scary to others. So, the first thing I want to do is reassure those of you who are a bit frightened because you think your customers and blog readers won’t like it.

Affiliate marketing is not big, bad, and scary. You can find some wonderful affiliate products and programs in almost every industry that can fill the gaps in your online marketing funnel. These will bring you extra money and help your customers as well. If you don’t have a few affiliate products that you sell, then I recommend you go get some! I’ll explain how. These are my personal recommendations for beginning to make money marketing affiliate programs.

What is an Affiliate Program?

Let’s start by making sure we are all on the same page. To make money marketing affiliate programs and products, it’s important to understand what an affiliate is and what an affiliate does. So, in the simplest terms possible, an affiliate markets another person’s products and programs on their website, blog, or ezine. When someone clicks through the affiliate link to the sellers’ site, the affiliate gets a cut of the sale.

How Do I Market Affiliate Programs & Products

One of the easiest ways to market affiliate programs and products is to create a Resources page (click on the link to see mine as an example). You can also set up affiliate banners on your website or blog. If you look in my right sidebar (you may have to scroll down a bit), you’ll see 6 small banner ads. These are all affiliate product links. I have them up there for now to fill gaps in my sales funnel and I will replace them over time as I add more of my own products. Some other ways to use affiliate programs is to write reviews of people, products, or programs like I did in my post about Dave Navarro, The Launch Coach. You can also recommend affiliate products in your ezine or in email messages. Basically, the myriad of ways to promote affiliate products and programs is only limited by your imagination.

The affiliate products and programs that I market to my readers are all from people and companies that I know have excellent content and customer service. And, most of them I have purchased myself. So, I feel really good about recommending them. I would be recommending them anyway, so I figure why not actively promote them and make a bit of money from it?

What Affiliate Programs & Products Should I Market?

Perhaps you would like to make money from marketing affiliate programs, but you think there is nothing you could recommend in your particular industry. Well, here’s something you may not realize: most large companies have affiliate programs you can join. And, many of you have clients who would like to learn more about a particular topic that you know about but they do not – you can use an affiliate product to teach them.

It will probably help you if I explain what I mean. Let me give you some examples of how various industries can make money marketing affiliate programs:

Photographer: There are probably various cameras, lighting equipment, photo paper supplies, batteries, and camera stands that you can share with your blog or ezine readers. Sign up for an affiliate program with Amazon or B&H Camera or other online stores that carry the products you recommend. Develop a Resources page and feature blog posts and ezine articles that give your product recommendations.

Chef or dietary expert: Is there a Cuisinart blender you love? Guess what? They have an affiliate program you can join! Or you can always link through to Amazon or another big retailer and people can buy from there. Recommend your favorite pans and knives. You customers really want to know this kind of detail! And you can make a little money just by recommending something you love.

Fitness expert: How about recommendations for special cookbooks or fitness bands? What about going to ClickBank and searching for an ebook that describes a workout-program that compliments your style?

How Do I Find Affiliate Programs & Products To Market?

When you are looking for an affiliate program to market, go to a company’s home page and search for a small link that says something like “Affiliates” or “Business Partners” or “Associates.” Often it’s in small text at the bottom. Once you click on the link, the company will give you instruction on how to sign up and how to use their links.

Sometimes though, you may not immediately find an Affiliates program link on a company website. Do not despair quite yet, fellow marketer. There are sometimes third-party companies that run affiliate programs. So, you can Google it (ex: Williams Sonoma Affiliate Program) and see what turns up – you can also call or email their customer service department to ask if they have an affiliate program that you can join.

One of the easiest place to start is Amazon because they sell books (which every industry can recommend) and many, many products. You can also go to ClickBank to look for infoproducts (ex: Ebooks, audio programs, video seminars, etc.) and Commission Junction is a huge third-party affiliate marketing company that works for big companies like Expedia, Match.com, Adobe, Newsweek, Reebok, and Marvel Comics among others (see, I told you almost every company has an affiliate program!)

About the FTC Regulations regarding Affiliate Programs & Products

I would be remiss if I didn’t include information about the recent FTC regulations that were released in December of 2009. These affect United States citizens. I am not going to get into the details other than to say that the FTC requires that you disclose an affiliate relationship. Here are some good articles to give you some ideas of how you can word your disclosures:

The FTC, Affiliate Disclosure and You

How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules

How to Turn Affiliate Marketing Disclosure Into a Selling Point

Don’t let this dissuade you from working affiliate programs and products into your marketing funnel. It simply requires you to be honest, which is better for you and for your customer. If someone doesn’t want to click through your affiliate link, then they can always do a Google search to find the same product. Most people, however, feel fine with clicking through your link, especially if you’ve built a trusted relationship with you and they believe in your recommendations. And it’s a great little money maker for you. So, I encourage you to add affiliate marketing to your product mix.

So there you have it! These are my personal recommendations on how to make money with affiliate marketing. I hope you took some value out of this today! Let me know what you think in the comment section below…

And if you like this post, share it with your networks… Digg it, Twitter it, Share it!Similar Posts: