Affiliate Marketing Strategies Explained

Affiliate marketing / joint ventures / referral partner marketing is a great way to grow your business, yet effective affiliate marketing strategies are still misunderstood by most entrepreneurs and business owners to this day.

I have a soft spot for smart affiliate marketing strategies because it's really the secret to how I built my company and it's how I generate over $12,000 per month in affiliate income.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is simply you becoming "affiliated" with a company that sells a product, recommending / encouraging someone to buy it and then getting paid a pre-determined commission when you either help create a lead that is interested in buying the product, or, more commonly, when the person actually buys the product.

Smart Affiliate Marketing Strategies

Smart affiliate marketing strategies help the company that makes the product or offers the service because they only pay you, their virtual sales force, when a sale is made. It benefits you, the smart affiliate, because when you find a hot, valuable product or service (that you hopefully use yourself) you can earn nice affiliate commissions for simply telling the world what you like and why you like it.

Think about it: we do this anyway when we see a good movie, have a nice meal or tell everyone how much we like our iPad or iPhone. (I'd be retired on my own island sipping fruity drinks if Apple paid me a nickel every time The Schaeffer household bought an Apple product or we recommended an Apple product to someone since April 2004!)

99% of the time I only become an affiliate of something after I've used it and believe in it.

The 1% exception to my affiliate marketing happens during a launch or announcement of something I think solves a problem and is in a pre-launch time period and offers a money-back guarantee if it doesn't work, but also offers a deep discount to get in early.

When that is the case I explain it and disclose all of the facts so people can make an informed decision.

For example, I did this with Webinar Ninja when they were in their pre-launch mode.

They were selling at a deep discount two weeks before they went live and offered a 30-day money back guarantee.

Because of my frustrations with the expenses and reliability and compatibility issues of mainstream webinar software providers, I had no problem buying the software early and recommending everyone do the same.

We really had nothing to lose and potentially thousands of dollars a year to gain.

This is just common sense and good stewardship to humanity.

Besides, there is no delete button on the internet, so tell the truth, provide value, explain things as best you can to help people make an educated decision and you'll be able to sleep well at night not only because you were honest, but also because you'll have money in the bank and won't have to stress about deciding which of your bills get paid at the end of the month and which ones you'll avoid.

Enjoy the following resources to help you perfect your smart affiliate marketing strategies: