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Setup Budget for Affiliate Marketing
To
gain success from promoting affiliate programs, you need to
spend some money for advertising, registering domain name,
setting up a website, etc. Through proper budgeting, your
investment can be lower than $1,000 for one year. Except from
promoting affiliate programs online, where can you start a
business lower than $1,000 per annum? If you want to succeed
in affiliate marketing, spend a little bit money and you can
reap the reward later.
Your first thought on seeing the title of this article is
probably, "I'm not going to need a budget because I'm not
going to spend any money." I'm sorry, but that's not how it
works. If you don't want to spend ANYTHING, you are not going
to succeed.
Now that you know you must spend some money, it's time to
decide how much money you can afford to invest in your affiliate
marketing business.
There are some expenses that you will have if you want to
be successful. There are others that you can put off until
the time you start earning income from your affiliate products.
The below suggestions are not carved in stone - they are
just a guide. This is an Annual Budget - for the first year
of business. Some items that will need to be budgeted for
are:
* Domain Name.
There is quite a span between the low-cost and the high end
cost of domain names. Why does Network Solutions charge $35
when you can get your domain name for much less elsewhere?
I don't know, but when I got my first domain name, I went
through them because I didn't know any better. Now,
I get
my domain at a much lower cost .
If you shop around, you may even be able to find something
less expensive. But make sure it's a well-established company!
You don't want to lose your domain name once you have decided
on it! You will likely get a better "deal" if you register
your domain name for two or more years in advance.
* Website Hosting.
Here again, fees for web hosting can vary dramatically from
company to company. Set up a comparison chart and write down
each company you are considering, with columns for Company
Name, Price, Disk Space, and Bandwidth. Hosting fees will
run from $7.00 to $25.00 per month or more.If you are a small
or even home business owner, consider using HostRocket
as your web hosting service provider.
* Merchant Account.
You probably won't need a Merchant Account, as such, unless
you are selling digital products or products you'll be shipping
to a customer. It is a good idea to set up an account with
Paypal because a lot of affiliate managers are using PayPal
to make payments to affiliates. There is no charge for using
PayPal.
* Software and Scripts.
You will need, at the least, some kind of spreadsheet to
track your expenses and income from your affiliate business.
Eventually, you will need a more robust program like QuickBooks
or Microsoft Money. If you don't have a spreadsheet software
application, you can get one free from http://openoffice.org.
This is a suite of tools that works like Microsoft Office.
You may or may not need website scripts - depending on how
elaborate you want your website to be. Examples would be link
exchange or "tell a friend" scripts. Let's just set at
cost at $50-150 just in case.
* Advertising.
For the first few weeks, you will not be spending money on
advertising or promotion. But since we are working on an "Annual"
budget, let's estimate it at $50 per month or $600. I know
that sounds like a lot, but if you want to get the word out,
you'll need to set money aside for pay-per-click search engines
and ezine advertising.
* Education.
Ongoing education is going to be extremely important to your
affiliate marketing success. You will not have to purchase
a lot of educational materials - if you don't want to. There
are many free resources, such as newsletters, that you can
study. For now, we'll set a zero budget, but allow a certain
amount later for ebook or how-to videos. What is the final
total? Approximately $800.00. Does that seem extreme? Remember,
this is for an entire year. Where else but on the Internet
can you start a business for under $1,000? Keep it in perspective.
If you intend to have a "real" business, you must treat it
as a real business - which includes real expenses.
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