Can you succeed marketing an affiliate based program?

By - Ian Bosworth
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Internet Marketing can be an enjoyable and profitable
experience, but it can also be very frustrating, time consuming,
money draining and anti social.

So why do we keep putting ourselves through all this pain?

Well, I’m sure that for everyone there is a different answer
depending on your driving force, but for me it’s the thought
that one day I’ll succeed and make a tidy income. God knows how
many ‘Get Rich’ schemes are out there but experience has taught
me that 95% of them are simply schemes for making the owner rich
and not the affiliate. 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 product(s) 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. If you want to subscribe to my
newsletter then go to

http://www.profitmashine.com/biztipspop.html

About The Author:
The author is Ian Bosworth who has 2 years experience in
Internet marketing. He has put together a website and newsletter
designed to help other marketers looking for a home based
business http://www.profitmashine.com