An Introduction
Monday, March 17th, 2008Affiliate marketing has been around in South Africa for a while. It is an aspect of the internet in this country that is underused and often misunderstood.
What is affiliate marketing?
It is a program that depends on you or me or any one else with an e-mail account or website to promote someone else’s product or website. You get paid a fee for each member your sign up or for a sale that gets completed.
Some programs like Bidorbuy require simple referrals and others like Kalahari.net pays you a percentage of purchases made by referred customers.
So what is the catch?
I have personally had referrals from my website and have found nothing unsavoury about affiliate marketing. For each referral I have made, I received the promised payment. Use reputable websites with proven products or services and you can have a steady income for as long as you are willing to market.
What can you expect to get paid?
Anything from 5% of the value of the product to R250.00 per confirmed referral. All affiliate programs have their own criteria.
What can you expect to pay to join the programs?
Nothing! That is the best part. It is not a pyramid scheme. Neither you, nor the person you referred pays one cent to join the program. All you are doing is marketing someone else’s website. As a webmaster of my own website, I can tell you – marketing is hard, hard work. Paying someone a percentage of a sale is worth every cent if you get one confirmed purchase. Expensive banner advertising is no guarantee of a sale.
In Closing…
Affiliate marketing is for anyone and everyone. Other than your e-mail contacts a computer and internet connection, you don’t pay a cent to join! You don’t force anyone to purchase anything they would not normally be interested in and you don’t profit while someone else loses out.
When you enter an online competition, you are almost always asked to refer friends without an offer to get paid for it! The principle is exactly the same.
With this blog I will find and do some research on the various affiliate programs and report back on the ones worth joining.
In this world there are two types of people. The ones who say yes to trying something different and rest.
