Top Home Businesses: Joining an Affiliate Marketing Programme.

Our earlier discussions have examined a whole range of top home businesses, but our current theme is to focus on affiliate marketing, before returning to other options in a later series. The bewildering range of options remains the problem. Where to next?

Google lists more than 3 million “top” affiliate marketing programmes in less than one second!  “Close your eyes, spin the cursor, and click,” is unlikely to be of much help in making your selection! Our task then, is to narrow down the number of options, so that the principal beneficiary is you, the new home business owner.

Please give some thought to the following, in making your selection:

• Try to find a number of Affiliate programmes linked under one umbrella. Very few of the individual  programmes available are likely to be sustainable,if operated in isolation, unless you have unlimited time and resources available.

• Look also for those that offer comprehensive training and guidance every step of the way. The world of internet marketing is so complex, and is changing so rapidly that ordinary people like us have no way of keeping up with new technology and developments, without continuously available guidance.

• You should ideally follow successful entrepreneurs by duplicating their successes, and by avoiding the mistakes that they’ve inevitably made in getting to the top.

• You will need assistance in setting up and hosting a website, and probably a blog-site as well. • Of paramount importance is the availability of some personal mentoring, so that you have (reasonable) access to someone who has been down the road well-trodden, and who offers e-mail contact to assist you through the daily round of technical and other problems which await the new business owner.

• The ideal is some sort of package-deal which combines all (or most) of these requirements, at a very modest cost. You will undoubtedly have to pay a little for the registration of a domain, with on-going website hosting. Highly successful, global affiliate programmes are freely available, and it should not be necessary to pay out large sums merely for membership.

• Do make sure in your own mind that you identify personally with the programmes on offer. Do they offer “real” products, which you might be prepared purchase or use? (Remember that products don’t have to be concrete, “touch and feel” objects to be real. Thus, services are also products which can be marketed.)

• Look at the profiles of the business-leaders. Do they have credibility? Do you believe what they say? Can you find some real personality underneath the claims of massive earnings? If possible visit their websites to get a better understanding of who they are and what they promise, in exchange for your hard-earned cash! There is often an element of hype aimed at attracting the ever-hopeful by promising unbelievable wealth. Many of these claims may be true, but of course many more are not! Read the small print entitled ” Earnings Disclaimer,” for a more accurate impression, and remember that only a small percentage of participants will make it right to the top.

• An excellent test is also to see how long a programme has been in existence, and if the business leaders have been around for a while! How large is current membership, and are there geographical or other limitations?

• Don’t believe claims that you can click here, pay there, and then sit back to wait for the cash to pour in! All businesses involve a great deal of hard work, especially in the early, developmental stages.  Success is almost invariably a measure of working hard and smart!

We trust that these thoughts will provide some assistance to you, in your quest to select your own version of the many top home businesses available.

In our next article we start examining the mechanics of getting the show on the road, with suggestions about a number of important steps to take in laying the foundations of your new business.