If you are looking to make money online, then affiliate marketing is a good place to start. 
If you are not familiar with affiliate marketing, I will outline what it is.
What is affiliate marketing?
In any business, whether online or traditional bricks and mortar, in order to earn an income, you will need the following:
Customers
Products or services
Marketing methods
Let’s take the products and services.
There are 2 main ways to approach this. You can either develop a product or service or you can promote somebody else’s products or services.
There is no reason you cannot develop your own product but there 2 main issues as follows:
It can absorb a lot of time and money. Product development is taken very seriously by major corporations with huge budgets. It is unlikely that many of us can compete with such resources.
You don’t know whether it will be successful- you may have what you consider to be the greatest idea ever, but you do not know whether other people feel the same and whether they feel strongly enough to part with their hard-earned cash.
That is why it may be better to promote an already successful product or service.
This really is nothing new as it has been the norm in many markets. If you take the case of Apple, whereas they do have their own outlets for their products, you will find lots of stores that sell the iPhone, iPad as well as other Apple products.
Many of the PC manufacturers also adopt a similar model. It is a means whereby they can promote their products to a wider market place. In fact, there are some suppliers who concentrate on what they are good at, i.e. product development and leave the supply exclusively to channel partners.
This is what happens on the Internet, where the practice is known as affiliate marketing. However, on the Internet many suppliers supply their products through a number of portal sites, one of these being Clickbank.
If you are just starting out, I would suggest that Clickbank is an excellent place to start for the following reasons:
1 It is a well-established supplier that was formed in 1998.
Clickbank is a privately owned company with over 6 million customers worldwide, making it the 87th largest Internet retailer in North America.
Because the Internet is fast-moving, you may find that some companies cannot keep up and go out of business. Although it is not possible to guarantee the future for any organization, the fact that Clickbank has been in existence for over 20 years and is still growing, should give you comfort in promoting their products and services.
2 They pay affiliate commissions regularly, which should give you peace of mind.
Fortunately, Clickbank is very reliable and pays out regularly. It is comforting to know that you can go online at any time and see how much commission you have earned. You can withdraw your commission as and when you want.
The commissions can be very high as some vendors offer as much as 70%.
3 It offers digital products, which makes it easy to deliver.
You do not have to hold stock, and you do not need to find an agent who will hold your stock. When people want to buy from you, they only have to click on your unique link, and they are taken directly to Clickbank, where they download the product straight away.
It is a very good feeling to open your account in the morning to find you have made money overnight while you have been asleep.
4 There is a vast array of products to promote in lots of different niche areas.
These include:
Business/Investing
E-business & E-marketing
Employment & Jobs
Green Products
Health & Fitness
Self Help
There are many more categories, and within each category there are sub-categories.
It is reasonable to say that whatever your interest or passion, there will be a good selection of popular products available on Clickbank, particularly as they have over 50,000 products to choose from.
5 It is easy to join and is FREE
If you are looking to promote other peoples’ products on Clickbank, for most products it is just a matter of entering your affiliate name and you will have a unique affiliate link for any product.
Some other networks like JVZoo and Warrior Plus need to approve you before you promote products. If you are new to Internet marketing it may not be easy to be approved on these 2 platforms, which is why Clickbank is a good choice.
With Clickbank, you sign up for free. All you need is an email address, an account name, and a password and you are ready to promote products.
In deciding whether to promote a Clickbank product I look at the sales page. If I am convinced to buy the product, other people may also buy it.
If you don’t like the sales page, pick another product. After all, there is plenty of choices.
6 Good sales collateral
The top vendors will supply lots of good marketing material including:
Banners, articles, and email swipes
If you find a product that offers these you know that the vendor is serious about his/her business. In providing these, it saves you a lot of time and money.
7 Good earnings
Sometimes it takes as much effort to promote a $9 product as it does a $99 product, so you don’t want to be promoting a product where you don’t earn much money.
Personally, I look at a minimum commission of $20.
Normally the suppliers will over commission rates from 50% to 70%
CONCLUSION
If you are looking to make money online, affiliate marketing is a good place to start, and Clickbank is a very good choice for all the above reasons.
You may find that you are so successful that all you do is promote ClickBank products.
If you would like to take this one step forward and make a good residual income from Clickbank, please watch this short webinar below to see what is possible.
http://johnhayesonline.com/video
This is a guest post from John Hayes, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.
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