The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymous Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and The Attachment Parenting Blog, discussing topics of interest to parents. Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs.

The future of sales? Affiliates

I just returned from the splendid Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada (conveniently held immediately after the huge Consumer Electronics Show) where I gave a well-attended business blogging workshop, and was fascinated by the wide range of affiliate programs available to interested publishers. Over 1,200 attendees were excited about affiliate programs too.

There were a wide range of attendees, but it was surprisingly common to meet someone who earned $10,000 or more monthly from their efforts to help other companies sell products or services, ranging from books and music to credit cards and even gambling (and, yes, porn, but those folk were careful to stay away from the light of day).

It was good timing, therefore, when I noticed today that PR Leads forwarded along a query from a freelance writer seeking experts to discuss technologies that are "changing the sales profession."

The more I thought about this query, the more I realized that there's really nothing that's changing the world of sales more than affiliate programs.

Here's the full request:

"I'm doing a story on technologies that are changing the sales profession, such as RFID tags, or vertical 'deep search' engines. I'm looking for examples of companies that use these technologies, and other technologies that will change sales and marketing..."

I fear that the reporter just doesn't get it.

A quick aside, though, to explain affiliate marketing: You join a company's affiliate program and once you're approved, you get a special code that you include on all links you have to their site. When someone visits your site, clicks on one of your affiliate links, and then goes to the vendor and actually buys a product or service, you are paid a small commission.

For example, I'm an Amazon.com Associate (Amazon calls their affiliates "associates" for reasons that remain beyond my understanding) so I can easily use its Associates area to search for a particular product and then be shown the exact code I need to embed an affiliate link on my own Web page or weblog. Try it: buy The daVinci Code and I'll make a few cents in commission.

This sales model might not seem earth-shattering, but my colleague Anne Holland at Marketing Sherpa estimates that affiliates accounted for a total of $6.5 billion in sales in 2005. That's a lot of commissions!

Remember, the beautiful thing about an affiliate program is that there's no salary to pay, no health benefits, no office to stock, no computer to buy. In fact, a company can double or even triple its affiliates without incurring any cost whatsoever. It's the sales version of "pay per click": affiliates are only paid when the transaction is completed, so there's no risk.

Unsurprisingly, a small number of affiliates generate the majority of sales just as one or two retail outlets will lead their corporations in sales. Indeed, a common figure you hear when you talk with companies that have affiliate programs is that 5% of affiliates generate about 95% of sales.

If I were running an online store or selling products online, I wouldn't be looking for new technologies that will change sales because nothing, not RFID, not 'deep search engines', will have more potential impact than empowering thousands of other Internet people to sell my service and product through an affiliate program.

Sounds like this topic would make for a good interview with that journalist, doesn't it?

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