An affiliate program is one of the best internet businesses to get involved with these days. Specifically, the programs which offer monthly memberships and have a network marketing structure are the best.

 Affiliate marketing definitely has its pros and cons. It certainly takes a lot of work to promote an affiliate business online. There is no free ride here (sorry to ruin your fantasy). The amount of work, however, when compared to a traditional business is much, much less (trust me, I just sold my regular business). I had a first aid training agency for 12 years and the amount of work involved versus the payoff, just didn’t make sense anymore. What I really like about my affiliate marketing business is that I can work on it whenever I want. I still have my full time career (Paramedic), and this covers all of my day to day living expenses. With my first aid training agency, I had to work every day and I eventually became burnt out.

 Below you will find a listing of the main benefits of running an affiliate marketing program:

 1.   The Cost Is Low
Many potential business owners hesitate to get started because of the cost involved. As an example, some of the big franchises such as McDonalds can cost over a million dollars to get started (and that’s just the cost of the franchise). Affiliate programs are dirt cheap and you can usually start out with a cost of between $10 – $25 per month.

 2.  There is no inventory
The merchant (who you are an affiliate for) handles all of the details such as inventory, billing and shipping. The merchant will simply send you a commission cheque in the mail, or put the money into your PayPal account. In many cases, the products are digital in nature which means there is no shipping at all.

 3.  Your Upfront Work Keeps Paying Off
When I had my training agency, I would work the business and get paid for every contract. If I didn’t work, I didn’t make money (so I kept working). It was really just like having a second job (no wonder I got burnt out). This type of income where you work and then get paid for that work is known as linear income. With affiliate marketing, you have to do a lot of work up front. When things get rolling, though, the money keeps coming in week after week, month after month (even if you go on holidays). This is called residual income. Also, with an affiliate business, if you continue to work it, your monthly income will continue to rise over time.

 Stay tuned, because in my next blog post, I am going to outline some more great benefits of affiliate marketing. See you then.