We’re all familiar with fund raising that involves selling cookies, chocolate bars, and so forth, where the proceeds go toward a cause. The items that are sold are either purchased in bulk and sold at relatively high prices, or were made at home in the case of cookies or even lemon-aid. This would work if we had a movie star helping us out!! Luckily, there is another way of selling goods that people actually want that won’t involve reselling them at marked up prices that make the buyer wince.
lemonade and a chance to meet Gwyneth Paltrow for just a dollar!
It’s called online affiliate marketing. In a nutshell, you sell the products of a company as an affiliate and earn commissions from these sales which you use for your fundraising events. The advantage here is that you can sell a wider variety of items at normal prices.
Because your commission won’t affect the price, you will no longer have to sell the equivalent of the five dollar chocolate bar. Because people won’t experience sticker shock, more will make purchases and therefore contribute to your cause. An additional benefit is that you will not have to worry about payment processing because that is the responsibility of the company you affiliate with.
Becoming an affiliate with a company is fairly straightforward. It starts with having your own website because that is the main requirement that companies ask of their affiliates. The next step involves finding companies with an affiliate program. This can be done in a number of ways.
If your cause has to do with preserving bird habitats , then you would look for companies selling items that your patrons would be interested in. It could be books or bird watching products. Use the search engines to locate these companies using keywords such as “bird watching products affiliate program” and so forth. The keyword phrase should always include “affiliate” or “affiliate program”.
Once you find an affiliate program, joining is a simple matter of filling out an online application. When accepted, you will be provided with special affiliate links and banners that you place on your site. When someone purchases the company’s product through your affiliate link or banner, you will earn a commission that could go towards your charity fundraising.
You can also join affiliate program networks (again use a search engine to find them). An affiliate program network is a third party that brings companies and potential affiliates together. The benefit of belonging to a network is that they provide a convenient listing of the companies and their affiliate programs. A lot of information is provided to you such as their commission rates and how well their products sell. These networks are a great fundraising internet resource because they are big time savers in helping you choose the right program to join.
In summary, build a website on google,look for an affiliate program of a company that sells goods that your patron would naturally be interested in buying, fill out the application form and when accepted, place the affiliate links and banners on your site. Ask the visitors of your site to contribute by purchasing items through your links, the commissions you make go toward the online fundraiser.
What about getting traffic to your new webpage? Yeah, that is going to take some time, so here is a quick fix: if you create a “Call to Action” page on Creeklife for your fundraising event and link to your new webpage it will help. We’ll index your page and help drive traffic to it and we’ll write an article about your cause if we can to help get off the ground.
Posted by Mark Contorno
