As I was finishing up my special report for Whitecourt Marketplace last night, I realized that I had neglected getting my affiliate program started for PK Marketing Solutions. Admittedly, I have enough excuses to fill a cruise ship - between developing the local membership program and getting everything prepared for the Northern Alberta Sales Seminar and, of course, client & marketing work - I have been swamped.

If you’re not familiar with what an affiliate program is, let me break it down to you in simple terms. An affiliate program is an automated referral program. There are two sides to an affiliate program - the affiliate owner or manager who is looking to promote products or services and the affiliate subscriber who signs up to promote those products and services in exchange for an agreed upon percentage of completed sales.

For example, if you sign up for the PK Marketing Solutions Affiliate Program you would receive 20% of the proceeds from any sale that you recommend to me through your affiliate link.

It’s a great way to make extra money from services you already use or items that you would recommend anyway. Most of the software used by affiliate marketers makes it easy as pie too.

There are a wide range of services available to help you set up your own affiliate program. I chose to use WAHMCart myself. It’s an inexpensive subscription program that takes care of almost all of my online business needs. It meets three of my primary criteria for choosing services for my business:

1. Inexpensive - Like most small business owners, I don’t like paying more than I have to for the services I need to operate. Expenses can add up quickly and eat away at profits if you don’t keep an eye on your bottom line.
2. Easy to set up - While I know some coding and can work my way around the ‘net fairly easily, I prefer to keep things simple so I can accomplish what I need to fast. By choosing all in one solutions that are easy to integrate like WAHMCart, I can get more done in the limited time I have available.
3. Owned by a MomMasterminds member - Like most consumers, I prefer to do business with people I know and trust. My membership at MomMasterminds has led me to a lot of brilliant businesswomen that I would never have connected with otherwise and I’ve never been disappointed by purchasing from a connection I made through the site.
4. Great support - I’m by no means perfect, especially when it comes to the more technical side of online business and that makes responsive, speedy support an essential for all of my business needs. I need to know if I mess up that there’ll be someone to guide me through fixing the problem before I lose money or sleep!
5. Serves multiple purposes - As I mentioned in point#2, all-in-one solutions save me time. I don’t have to worry about remembering multiple log-ins. I can complete several tasks in one work session and going back to point #1, it saves me money! Instead of paying four or five different providers for the same service, I have peace of mind knowing that I’ll only be billed once for everything WAHMCart offers me.

So far, I’ve added affiliate options to my Press Releases, Brochures, Product Descriptions and Articles. If your business targets businesses that need copywriting services - this is a great way to partner up and make some extra income from your valuable online real estate (ie. your website or newsletter list)

I’ll be adding more tools for affiliates in the weeks ahead, but I feel like I’ve made a great start for a not-so-lazy Sunday morning!