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On the plus side, they do
teach you the pitfalls of Internet Marketing and hopefully move you that little
further down the line towards your ultimate goal.
You may think that this
article is simply a moan about the chaos which is ‘Internet Marketing’ but I
assure you that’s not the case. My aim is to pass on the good and bad of this
type of venture and to hope that I can help someone to avoid the many obstacles
and reach there goal reasonable unscathed.
Can you make money from a
program which doesn’t sell a tangible product?
Time and time again
you’ll see these type of programs – They’ll say pay $5 as a one off payment and
we’ll give you thousands in return. The word that comes to mind is ‘Pyramid’.
Logic tells you that $5 can never become $1,000 without you sponsoring thousands
of people and then they’ve got to sponsor thousands of people and so on. At some
point you run out of people and the system fails. You loose your money but the
owner makes a tidy sum. Maybe the answer is to invent your own ‘Get Rich’ scheme
but then, how do these people sleep at night?
Personally, these schemes
should be outlawed because all they do is serve to undermine the ethics of
Internet Marketing.
So, can you make money
from these types of programs – My experience tells me ‘No’
Should you avoid them?
Most certainly ‘Yes’
What about programs where
you pay a monthly fee but again there isn’t a product?
These are very much the
affiliate based programs and do have some merits. They tend to offer the same,
old same old, free resource tools, safe lists to join and a type of ad co-op
guaranteeing leads and/or sign-ups. Of course, the tools are usually obsolete in
today’s market, the safe lists are more geared towards the owner making an
advantage by you joining using their affiliate ID and the guaranteed leads are
too old to be of any use. I’m sorry for being a cynic but I’m sure there are
people out there who are reading this article and nodding there head because
they’ve been there.
On the plus side these
programs do have a sustainable growth because of the monthly income and so
getting personally sponsored affiliates can recoup your loses over time. The
problem however, is that people tend to be reticent to join because of the fees
and then become despondent when they struggle to get affiliates for themselves.
Most of the programs offer free membership and ‘Yes’ you will get tens to
hundreds of people joining the free program but the ratio from free to paid is
very poor.
People enter these
programs believing, that by simply joining, they will be given thousands of
Dollars for doing zilch! Like I said these programs do have there merits and if
you stick in and spend loads of your money on advertising, hours of your time
promoting to rotators and safe lists then you may come out the other side
breaking even or with a small profit. Don’t get me wrong I still have some
involvement with these types of programs – Why? – Because I believe the hype
that I can be the one success story and come out the other side, a rich man!
What about the programs
where you pay a monthly fee and promote a product?
If the product is unique
in some way, affordable to the masses, useable and needed and you can get in on
the ground floor then you could be onto a winner. In my experience, it’s the
product which brings in the serious marketer not the affiliate program. Think
back to the early days of mobile phones, when they use to be very bulky and
expensive and people were saying “They’ll never catch on”
However, the marketer
with vision saw the mass potential and stuck in. Oh how I wish I’d been in this
game then because now I wouldn’t be here typing this article, I’d be on a beach
somewhere and my secretary would be typing this article. There are other types
of product based affiliate programs out there which will also give you a chance
for success, but finding it is like crawling through a minefield. Don’t simply
sign up because it’s free membership or the site looks professional, read all
the pages and understand the ethics of the owner. Consider the product(s) on
offer and think about your target audience. The products should be affordable,
useable, sellable, exciting and hopefully unique in its market. The affiliate
program should be affordable and sustainable. Look at the Compensation plan and
consider how feasible it will be for you and your potential team, to reach the
profit line. Some plans may look impressive but sometimes they dazzle you with
big Dollars. Look at the amount of paid sign-ups required together with the
percentages paid and compare this to the cost of the program and the cost of
advertising needed to reach those required sign-ups. Work out how long it will
take you to break even, for instance, if the cost of the program is $20 a month
and you spend $20 a month on advertising you may get 1 or 2 sign-ups a month. If
the comp plan pays you $5 a sign-up you’ll need 8 sign-ups to break even but it
may take you 4 to 8 months to get to that point. So it could cost you between
$160 and $320 to get there.
Do your sums or you may
never really break even?
You should look at the
make-up of the down line and how it fits in with the matrix/comp plan. Some down
lines have legs, in that you build so far down and then the line splits off and
begins again. This usually happens when you reach another level in the comp
plan, but the resulting effect can make it hard to progress to the next level.
Some have a straight down line so everyone who joins will be in your line. This
can be misleading in that you believe that it’s your sign-up and you’ve earned
money.
However, it does allow
you to assess the popularity of the program and help you decide if you should
continue.
Now Image you’ve come
across an affiliate site (Not hard to do with today’s Internet) Ask yourself the
following questions:-
Does the site look
impressive?
Does it make you want to
read on?
Does it have a product
that excites you?
Could you use the
product?
Could you sell the
product?
Would you buy the
product?
Is the product
affordable?
Do I get the product as
part of the affiliate program?
Can I afford the monthly
payment?
Do they have a worthwhile
Compensation Plan?
Do they have a matrix or
a straight down line?
How quickly will I break
even?
Can I make a profit?
SO CAN YOU SUCCEED BY
MARKETING AN AFFILIATE BASED PROGRAM?
Find today’s ‘Mobile
Phone’ with an affordable affiliate program, offering you a good compensation
plan, workable matrix and responsive down line and the answer is undoubtedly
‘YES’
Thanks for reading my
article.
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