Have you run out of ideas for low cost start up business? Then look no further! There are a lot of businesses on the internet these days that can be started on a shoestring budget. One of the best businesses to start is affiliate marketing. So what is affiliate marketing? It is a type of internet marketing in which you as the affiliate markets products that belong to a merchant. There are numerous opportunities and programs on the internet that you can join to take advantage of this.
The reason this is a low cost business is that you only have to generate leads for the merchant. Every lead you generate that results in a sale that will earn you a commission from the merchant. Lead generation is a key component to your success as an affiliate marketer so you have to become highly skilled at this.
Lead generation can be categorised into two main types – free and paid lead generation methods. Of course to be truly a low cost business, you will probably need to concentrate on the free methods. These include the use of social media such as face book and twitter and content marketing where you provide value to the online community in the form of articles, video and mp3s to mention a few.
The paid methods on the other hand involve placing adverts on Google and other search engines to help drive traffic to the merchants’ sites. But you have total control over how much you want to spend on advertisements.
You do not have to hold stock either, which can be capital intensive and it is free to join most affiliate programs. However you will find that with the paid traffic you see the results quicker. To account for the advantage the paid methods have over the free lead generation methods, you will need to take massive action.
Another reason why affiliate marketing is unique as a low cost business to start is because you do not have to build your own website if you do not want to. You can choose to work with merchants that have great marketing systems.
You have to be careful though in your choice of merchants to work with. The reason for this is if you are serious about building a business you want to thoroughly research the merchants that you initially select to be sure you are all going in the direction. You want to work with merchants who have great products that are in high demand and will be around for a long time.
Also you want to consider the long term vision of the merchants you will work with as you don’t want to go through the trouble of building momentum in the business only for it to fold up because the owners have mismanaged the funds. Also be careful to choose merchants who have a proven track record in their line of business. Ideally they should have been working in that sector for three or more years.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent low cost business to start because of the minimal capital outlay and the fact that you do not hold stock in order to be involved. But you still have to choose carefully who you work with as your success depends on it.