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5 Reasons Why a Small Business Should Have an Online Affiliate Program

By Krystal Folino & William Mee
Krystal Klear Technologies, Inc.

Expand your sales force to tens, hundreds or thousands of people. An affiliate program is a great way to reach more prospects without having to build & support a high priced sales team.

Affiliate marketing programs consist of percentage commissions on sales, rewards, or referral fees generated by links from the affiliate websites to your website.

It is the equivalent of hundreds of independent sales reps who you only have to pay when a sale occurs.
Develop repeat business to increase sales. People click on the link to your website from an affiliate because they have a need for your product or service.

That click is already is someone who is a prospect and has expressed interest in your product or service. This process increases the number and quality of qualified leads. When this occurs sales are definitely increased.
Your affiliates can expand your sales force into communities and areas an in-house sales force may not be able to reach.

People tend to form loyalties within specific communities. These communities can be based around demographic, geographic, religious, cultural, ethnic, age, interests, professions, etc.

An affiliate program gives you the possibility of doing business within those communities that would otherwise not be available to your small business sales effort.
An affiliate program is a great first step to a dealer/partner network.

If you have a business selling products where a dealer/partner network may be the best way to distribute and support your products or services, but you don't currently have the resources to develop, market and support a dealer/partner network correctly or profitably.

At first glance, the dealer/partner network may not seem difficult or expensive, but remember, dealers receive big discounts, the dealer's sales people need training & support and they require a constant stream of effective marketing and support materials for the dealers to sell to the end users of your product.

An affiliate program is a great way to begin building your dealer/partner network and start increasing your sales right away.
Increase website traffic to get more leads and prospects. Every affiliate with a link to your site improves search engine placement on many popular search engines.

Whether your site shows up first or 50th on a search engine result listing depends on how the engine ranks your site. Your website's rating on some search engines will improve if you increase the number of hyperlinks to your site from affiliate sites.