Affiliate Marketing Online:
5 Great Reasons for Beginners to Sell Other People’s Digital Information Products

Online money making opportunities bring new hope to entrepreneurs bold enough to strike out in a new direction. However, newcomers (“newbies”) looking to get their “foot in the door” on the Internet often wonder what’s the best way to exploit this new, virtual frontier.

Affiliate marketing is recognized as a stable business model that is scalable for people of all backgrounds and abilities. Simply stated, its revenue-sharing model rewards people (“affiliates”) for bringing prospects to a merchant’s website and converting them into paying customers. Anything can be sold on the Internet, but affiliate marketing is magically suited for downloadable (digital) products, i.e. e-books, home study video courses, software, etc.

So, what makes affiliate marketing an especially attractive way for beginners to make money online? Consider the following reasons:

1. Low to negligible start-up costs: Short on cash or credit? No problem – with digital products, you do not have to purchase and stock physical inventory nor incur special transportation or shipping costs. Marketing other people’s digital products means that in the beginning, you do not have to purchase a domain name, maintain a website, or even create your own digital products. Essentially, a serviceable PC with an Internet connection is enough to get going.

2. Time commitment: Initially, affiliate marketing may feel like being up the creek without a panel. However, after learning the essentials, it should only take a few hours weekly to start generating some income. Of course, affiliate marketing can be done from the comfort of your home – no extra commute to a second job site here! Now with mobile technology, you can even do it while on a park bench, in a library, or during your lunch break at work.

3. Superior compensation deals and flexibility: Not unlike commissioned salespeople, you will be in position to control the amount of money earned by your efforts. Merchants need you to succeed, so most offer 50% or more commission for digital products sold. In addition, you control the products you want to promote – stick to “cash cows” and ditch the dogs as soon as possible.

4. Not responsible for payment processing and customer service infrastructure: How to get paid by customers is a “black hole” for most beginners. And customer service? Please, I don’t want the hassle of refunds, right? Well, as an affiliate marketer, neither issue is your problem. The merchant takes care of everything, paying you on a bi-monthly or weekly (or sooner) basis and addressing customer service requests related to their product. Your responsibility lies exclusively with product selection and driving traffic to the merchant’s website.

5. Marketing support to get you started: No self-respecting merchant tells affiliates to rely exclusively on its marketing tools. Remember that the core seller has hundreds, if not thousands of affiliates, so simply putting up a replicated website or emailing canned messages isn’t enough to be successful.

Still, as part of your marketing initiation, it does not hurt to study material that merchants provide and test it out. The sooner you obtain quantifiable results, the better positioned you will be to “personalize” your pitches.

Believe it not, affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide, with companies like Amazon.com and Google leading the charge. It can be intimidating and overwhelming for a newbie to get started, so it is critical to set modest income goals at first. For example, if you currently work full-time, would an extra one or two hundred dollars per month make a difference in your life? Sure it would.

Affiliate marketing is not about getting a free ride. If you are prepared to invest in yourself, it can certainly help you claim a piece an ever growing Internet pie.

Want to learn how to really take your affiliate marketing to the next level?  Check out our feature article on affiliate marketing squeeze pages.