How to start a business working from home, affiliate marketing explained.
Many people faced with the uncertainty of the job market following the global downturn have considered their options for future financial security.
When there are no jobs around, gloom and despondency is one option, but this won’t get you very far. No point feeling sorry for yourself, you are better off researching opportunities for financial security through the Internet.
If there are no jobs available, maybe you should employ yourself, and start your own business. If you lack self-confidence because you did not finish college, you will discover masses of useful information on the Internet to help you achieve more financial security.
My father grew up during the 1930’s depression, his father was unemployed, and they bought stale cakes from the baker when he was ready to throw them out. Throughout his working life, he craved job security, and told me to do the same.
Things are different in this downturn; we have the Internet and computers. We can set up a shop tomorrow with virtually no overheads. We do not have to find suitable premises on the high street and pay expensive rent and rates, we can just set up a website, or better still, create a Blog site for nothing via Blogger, a free service provided by Google.
Blogger will even paint the inside of your virtual shop, meaning they will help you decorate it with free Blog templates. You can change the layout easily, to really interact with your customers. For example, you can show customers pictures of products you have for sale, by uploading these to Picasa, another free service provided by Google.
Bring on your pathetic excuses.
Before you do a cop-out and make feeble excuses that you don’t have enough education, let me just say that no school can teach you the things I am mentioning here, all this information is free, no videos to buy, no books – all this information is completely free. So before you think up some other excuse and procrastinate further, listen up – Internet marketing could provide you with options, opportunities and eventually the opportunity to get a well-paid job.
Start your own Business.
I know what you are thinking, if I had something to sell, this would be great, but as I don’t, this cannot work for me, right? Wrong! Internet marketing is all about selling products for other companies. Network marketing is is even better than eBay, because you do not have to get involved with wrapping and posting products, other people do that stuff for you.
Any other excuses?
Perhaps you are thinking, heck I can’t sell products, take money off customers and stuff. No problem, marketing is different from selling, you do not have to get involved with selling products, other people do that bit for you.
Internet marketing is sometimes referred to as affiliate marketing. Think of affiliates as representatives that tell people about products and services, not by walking down main-street and handing out flyers, that would not work, and I will tell you why. Imagine that you try selling a hovercraft, and walk down the local street telling people about this neat form of transport. Chances are, no one would be interested in buying one, so don’t do that. Imagine however that you go to a fire and rescue exhibition, in an area where people have been rescued from flooding, or rescued from mud, or they are falling through ice-covered lakes, as they still drive snowmobiles and quad bikes. In the right location, people are interested in what you have to sell, so you should sell loads. But remember, as you are only marketing this product, other people do the selling, so how does this work?
In the virtual Internet world, your “Shop” is your website or better still, your Blog site. People visit you, you don’t go to exhibitions, you just attract the right people to your site through Internet marketing. Maybe you write an article about hovercraft rescue, and submit it to magazines that deal with fire and rescue, them lots of people visit your web-site.
This is a home based business, just think, no more expensive time wasting commuting to work, you could sell the car and save a fortune on fuel, cut CO2 emissions, just work from home. OK, so you need a computer and Internet connection, but guess what, you must be reading this article on the Internet, so you probably already have this.
I used the hovercraft product as an example as one hovercraft company actually has an affiliate marketing program, so take a look at Hov Pod at http://hovpod-home.blogspot.com/ and go to the opportunities page, then affiliate marketing.
This is a good affiliate program, and I will explain why – by marketing a niche product that people have interest in, that sell for a bit of money, you do better than trying to compete with cheaper products that everyone else tries to sell, like mobile phones and ring-tones; there must be zillions of sites selling that stuff, and you will make peanuts – great if you are a monkey.
How do I know I will get paid? The affiliate program organizer will provide you with a form for visitors to your site to fill in if they want information. You don’t get involved with the selling; they do all that, your job, as affiliate is just to promote the product, get people to visit your website. The data capture form, when completed, is addressed to the affiliate program organizer, not you. It has a unique identifier that tells the affiliate program organizer whose site the form came from. If and when the customer purchases the hovercraft, you get paid, depending on what they bought, as a percentage. A typical sale could pay you $650 or more.
Successful people are the ones that identify opportunities and take action to exploit them, less successful people identify opportunities and then think of reasons why it couldn’t work for them. Affiliate marketing is an opportunity for all people, age, creed, background, education level does not matter, no more excuses!
Mike Glanville is a widely respected affiliate marketing, CRM / SEO specialist. He writes many articles about affiliate marketing & provides free training through http://wfh-am.blogspot.com/
