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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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