I have a couple of clients left over from my IT support days who have established bricks and mortar businesses that also have an online presence. Their websites get a reasonable amount of traffic from local brand recognition, offline advertising etc.

It occurred to me that there was plenty of scope to add additional value to those websites in the way of affiliate schemes promoting other services which would also be of interest to their customers, without having any detrimental affect on the core business of the company.

So I approached one of these companies and we have agreed that I will add related affiliate marketing content, handle & track the revenue and then split it with them on a monthly basis.

The possible risk is that the company might see how it's done and go it alone, cutting me out of the loop but I figure they have their core business and I have mine, and they'll most likely be happy let me carry on doing my thing and they can carry on doing theirs. I think it helps when there's an established relationship and trust is already there, but otherwise a more formal approach may be required to protect work done on their behalf.

But it seems like a nice idea I thought, and I wish I did it earlier. But does anyone already do this? Has this got a name... Affiliate consultant? Business Enhancer? The Cream On Top?

Labels: ideas