Affiliate Start-ups
What are your affiliate Start-up Options?
We will review a more structured beginners action plan on another page; however, I 'd like to take a moment and look at a few general ideas to fire your imagination.
Perhaps you'd be surprised to learn that there are as many ways to skin this cat as there are grains of sand. Below you'll see listed several ways, but really its only limited by your imagination:
1. One pitch page/one product
—Perhaps you are interested in keeping close to your interests, simply trying to make a little extra cash while you indulge a hobby. For example, perhaps you dabble in investing. You could go to Clickbank, open an account (its free!) at the top of the page where it says:"Sign Up," and find a product that interests you.
—Once you have located a product, become familiar with the product, you then can start "advertising" the product. At this level of affiliate marketing, most people are interested in keeping expenses to a minimum. With virtually no cash investment, you can now go on an article writing spree to "spread the word" about your product. You can write about it on forums interested in the topic, you can submit articles on 100s of article directories, and you can even do an email campaign (assuming you have email addresses to send to). When people read your articles, they will go through the link in your signature block or article body to get more information.
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Incidentally, here is a course that you can take to learn this form of affiliate marketing. Rating: 
from me! See below address:
Affiliatenaire Affiliate Center
This is another offering along the same vein, I havent used this one personally but it continues to be popular:
—Since you don't have your own web site or "landing page," your link will actually send them to the retailer's landing or pitch page. In the example pitch page you'll note this would be the end of your effort. From here the retailer persuades the customer to buy. When Clickbank logs a sale they send you a commission check. That's it! In this way, depending on how much you write and push the product, you will make a 20 or 30 dollar sale here and there. Very little effort for a free dinner! But if you want more, you must do more.
2. One website/one product (or more)
—This option, while more in-depth, still operates on the same principle. The chief difference here can be significant if you are technically challenged. In addition to the writing you were doing before, you will need to put up a website and make a "landing page" for people to come to after reading your article and coming through your link.
—The chief difference in this option (besides running your own website) is that the landing page will be yours and only after that will you then send them on through a link on your landing page to the retailers pitch page. There are many pluses to this option. Chief among them is flexibility. The website is yours and you can have as many landing pages/products as you desire. In addition, the benefit of your own landing page is that you can use different strategies to sell your customers on the product.
—The first use of the landing page is simple: you get to expound upon the product at length, sing its praises to the heavens (just don't bore your customer off your website)! On your landing page you can intensify the interest so by the time they get to the pitch page, they are nearly sold already. The danger here is that you must write honestly and convincingly. You cant say "Buy it! Its Great!" Writing ad copy is a skill (a learnable skill), one we will talk about it on other pages on this site.
—Another use for the landing page is a Review Site. On this landing page, you set it up like a product review. I have heard that the minimum number you should review is five like products. Personally I have done three and made sales. It will depend on what you are comfortable with. I believe you can do as many as ten products. That tends to get busy and I would suggest as a beginner you start with three.
—Simply put, you place three like products side by side and rate them on the same criteria. You then rank them and suggest which you think is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Remember that you actually want to make a sale on any of them and you should have the links to ALL THREE products. Probably 80% of your sales will be from product 1 but some sales will come from the other two. Shoppers are finicky! Run with it! 
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This link below corresponds to a product I used myself. While I came to think of it as being too straight forward and simple for my tastes ( its Rating: from me), it's still a platform that you can accomplish a modified form of what I explained above. The difference here is that in this application/program, your page does not have to be hosted on your own website, in fact, you don't need a website! Landing page, page graphics, and hosting of your page(s) is all done there. In addition, they give you lessons on how to review and how to get "targeted" traffic to your review page(s). Its an all in one product that you should review. See the link below for further information:
3. The Basic Affiliate
—Up to this point, the above options probably still fell in the "hobbyist" category, even though you could probably make a chunk of change if you worked them smart enough. But from this point on the complexity ramps up some and we begin to get serious. The purpose of this site is to teach you about the business after all, not the hobby, so here is where I set the demarcation line between hobby fun and serious money.
—Affiliate marketing uses some or all of the following mechanisms to push product:
A) Article Writing
B) Pay Per Click Advertising
C) Banner Advertising
D) Email Advertising
E) Reciprocal Linking
and more. All of these, at this level, will require some investment of cash. Pay per Click is arguably the most complex to get your head around and because of that, perhaps the most expensive. Some affiliates don't use it because of its complexity, preferring to use article marketing and email marketing instead. This is a choice you have to make for yourself. Whichever you choose, to some degree it will dictate your level of success and the way you go about marketing your product(s)
—The Basic Affiliate option presupposes that a minimum investment will be made to setup the infrastructure of your company (you are going to start a legitimate company, right?). Depending on the structure of your company:
A) Sole Proprietorship
B) Limited Liability Company (LLC)
C) Corporation (Corp.)
there will be some fees to pay. I know, I know! The government strikes again but what can you do? But you have to be on the up and up because, believe me, come tax time, you don't want to be pulling your hair out (especially when you make money ). And speaking of taxes, you will also need to register with the IRS for your Tax I.D. or FEIN Nr. (Federal Employer Identification Number). You can begin by calling the IRS at 1-800-829-4933.
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In point of fact, you may run a Sole Proprietorship without filing any fees. The income you earn is simply applied to your total income. However, if you want to run your sole proprietorship by any name other than your own i.e. "John/Jane Smith Company" you will have to file a DBA or "Doing Business As." This can be done using the same companies as highlighted in the right sidebar of this website. Bear in mind that as a sole proprietorship, your household (meaning everything you and your family own) becomes liable to litigation for any illegality committed by your "company." This is mitigated to a great degree by running a limited liability company or a corporation and one of the chief reasons why I run one myself.
There are numerous companies on-line where you can file your paperwork and it can all be done from the comfort of your home. Some of the better companies are at the top right of this page. If you don't like those, do a search on Google for: "Forming Corporation" that will turn up several.
—Once the business entity is formed, you need to decide what you want to sell. You can sell everything below but this list is not inclusive:
A) Digital Products
This usually refers to software, but can also refer to ebooks on any subject from Ants to Zebras. The chief sources of these are Clickbank, Paydotcom, and Click2sell (I am not fond of Click2sell but I mention it for your information).
B) Services
You can Join Linkshare or Commission Junction (Affiliate/Retailer Networks) to find companies like United, Chase, Expedia all offering their services through Affiliate websites.
C) Durable Goods
Again through the Affiliate Networks you can find everything from Airplanes to Web hosting equipment.
In due time you will come to appreciate how this all links together. If on your website you advertise traveling, you can also eventually advertise credit cards, travel agencies, luggage, hotels and on and on. An Affiliate's website is an orchestra of services designed to, as much as possible, provide a one stop shop for its visitors.
Continue to A Beginner or The Action Plans
