Or...

Are you a business owner using affiliate AND network marketing?

The difference between the two models is striking.

Most distributors in the industry are just network marketing distributors who would have a hard time defining the term "affiliate marketing" let alone using it to generate leads and cash-flow for their business.

They only make money off a revenue producing event from their network marketing company alone.

The problem?

There is not enough upfront money for most people to stick around long enough to build a supportive residual income with their primary MLM-which can easily take 1-4 years.

That's where affiliate marketing can come in...

Adding affiliate marketing to network marketing creates an empowering model because it generates income upfront while, at the same time, helping to generate more prospects for your MLM business and products.

Contents at a Glance

1. Why Affiliate Network Marketing?
2. How Affiliate Network Marketing Helps Network Marketers
3. In Today's Network Marketing, Adding Affiliate Marketing to Your Network Marketing Business will Minimize Risk While Increasing Profits
4. Social Marketing Communities
5. Why The Economics Don't Add Up Without Affiliate Marketing In The MLM Mix
6. Get Started With Affiliate Marketing As A Part Of Your Network Marketing Business Plan?
7. Affiliate Network Marketing: How to Make Money While Generating Leads
8. Renegade Affiliate Program vs. Magnetic Sponsoring Affiliate Program

Find Related Topics

Applying affiliate marketing to network marketing can help network marketers make additional income as well.

Affiliate Marketing Commissions

An affiliate program is very similar to a network marketing program. The company pays a certain percentage to any individual or company that refers a customer to the affiliate company. When the customer purchases a product, the parent company pays an affiliate marketing commission for that referral.

Unlike network marketing, you are not compensated for building a team of affiliates. You are only compensated for referring new customers. There are some cases in which you can be paid up to two levels with an affiliate program, but this is extremely rare.

With affiliate marketing there is no need for you to actually sell the product. All you have to do is get the prospect to the affiliate web page. It is then up to the product owner to sell the product.

Promoting Affiliate Partner Products and Services

How do you get the prospect to the affiliate web page?

You do it by creating content. Content is very easy to create these days because of the proliferation of web 2.0 technology online.

This technology makes it easy for the average internet user with no programming knowledge to add content in the form of text, pictures, audio and video online.

There are people and companies that make millions of dollars a year in affiliate marketing commissions. However, note that this is the exception and not the rule.

The people making that type of income are typically driving thousands, if not millions of website visitors to their affiliate partners using their vast network of traffic and lead generation tools and resources.

But there are also average income network marketers making money each month from affiliate marketing commissions. Some may only earn a few dollars, while others may earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month from their affiliate marketing efforts.

This is all done by simply driving traffic to their affiliate page.

Affiliate Network Marketing

Affiliate network marketing is a very powerful strategy for creating an additional stream of income for business owners.

When network marketers generate leads for their network marketing business, the fact is that most of the leads are not going to join the distributor in his or her business opportunity.

Therefore smart distributors have learned how to supplement their incomes by directing the leads they generate to affiliate programs and earning affiliate marketing commissions.

For more information on how affiliate network marketing works, you can check out this article.

In fact, many respected business consultants would say you're not really in business at all if you're applying old-school MLM strategies because if the company ever bonks, you're done. You don't have anything in place to continue earning income through the customer list you've developed.

There isn't even a plan or thought to generate more revenue with your customer list like other 'real' business models would naturally look to do—called monetization—which works to generate cash flow that keeps a start up business afloat.

If you're just a network marketing distributor without affiliate marketing, you're not in control of your destiny—you're leaving everything up to chance—based on the success or failure of the parent company.

Let's look at this...

In a legitimate network marketing company, the parent company should be paying the majority, if not ALL of the commissions based on when a sale of a product takes place.

The limitation with this is that the company can only pay you a certain amount based on the sale of that product—there's nothing else in place for cash flow.

As just one example, suppose you are with a network marketing company and your premier product is a health based juice. A bottle of the juice retails for $40. Even if your company pays you 50%, the most you can earn on that bottle of juice is only $20.

Considering the average distributor has $100 to $200 in monthly expenses, under this scenario you would need to sell 5 to 10 bottles a month just to break even.

Keep in mind you also need to keep those customers buying monthly in order to earn residuals.

Let's also keep in mind that when I refer to the average monthly expenses only being $100 to $200 a month, I am NOT referring to advertising costs, like for example, if you are a part of some type of co-op advertising program.

I'm only referring to the costs of the basics, like your minimum product order, meetings, trainings, web site, voice communication system, etc.

This is the challenge and one of the biggest reasons why many distributors quit the industry.

I'm not talking about the people that just join to join and who were never really committed to begin with.

I'm talking about the people that actually plugged into the system, got on the conference calls, went to the meetings but just couldn't make it happen.

It's tough building the business when your spouse wants to know why you are going to "one of those meetings"; and last month you got a check for $10, but spent $100.

But you say "Ha, I don't have to worry about that! I sell a personal development seminar and I get paid $1000 per sale!";

If you get paid $1000 a sale, you REALLY need to pay attention to this more than the distributor selling a $40 bottle of juice.

Here's why.

How many times have you spoken to a prospect, everything looks good but when it comes down to it, they simply don't have the $2000, $5000, whatever the price is for that seminar you get paid $1000 a sale for?

If you're like most distributors in a company like that, it happens a LOT!

Chances are with the economy being the way it is, it's happening even more frequently than it happened before.

Who cares if you make $1000 a sale if it takes you 6 months to get your first sale!

Then you get all excited until you realize that you have to pass that sale up to your upline because you're in a 1-up or 2-up compensation plan!

The challenge with network marketing is that because of the price points of the products we market, it is extremely difficult for most distributors to create cash flow retailing the products.

In most cases, the price point is either too low to create significant profits or too high to create enough consistent volume in sales.

Yes, if your organization grows large enough you can leverage the team sales for a supportive income, and beyond. But as we've stated, that takes a while.

You have to be able to sustain yourself in the long-run.

You also need to be able to show prospective opportunity seekers a successful model. It's hard to do if they're looking at very little upfront income coming in with a long-term plan.

The Solution is Adding Affiliate Marketing to Network Marketing

As we've eluded, there is a solution to this problem that if you implement it, can allow you to generate upfront cash flow that you can re-invest back into your business, put some checks in your bank account to satisfy the spouse and keep you in business until the residuals from building a network marketing organization kick in and are able to produce a significant monthly income for you and your family.

The solution is to implement the strategy of affiliate marketing into your business.

What is affiliate marketing exactly?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote products and the company pays you a percentage of the price of the product. These could be informational products like e-books or services, software – anything.

It's actually very similar to network marketing, the only difference is that they typically pay you on one level only, perhaps two maximum.

You are not encouraged to spend time developing a team to create income in affiliate marketing—that's why you're able to usually earn more on the sale upfront—it's not being shared with multiple levels of people.

The sale can even produce a lead for your network marketing business. This is accomplished by linking to affiliate products that are related to your network marketing opportunity (services, information products, books, etc).

If you are like most distributors in the network marketing industry, let's suppose you prospect 100 people. 25 of those people either gave you the wrong phone number or their phone got disconnected so you will never speak to them again.

Another 25 of these people you will get their voice mail every time you call and they will never call you back.

The third 25 you will get on the phone but they will simply not be interested in taking a look at anything.

That leaves you with only 25 prospects out of 100 that you will be able to get to seriously take a look at a presentation on your products and business opportunity.

Out of those 25, at least 13 of those people will not be interested after talking a look at a presentation.

You will probably have another 6 that will be interested, but will either not have the money to do the business or have too many "life events"; going on to start a business.

That leaves about 6 prospects left and out of those you will recruit anywhere from 0 of them to all 6 depending on how solid your recruiting skills are.

That's the nature of the network marketing industry. Talk to any distributor that is actively tracking his or her numbers and they will tell you that these numbers are about right.

So even if you are a superstar and you recruit all 6 prospects, you still have over 95% of your prospects who simply aren't going to get involved with your company as a customer or a distributor.

This is where being an affiliate network marketer comes in VERY handy!

Instead of simply pitching your products and your company like most distributors, you should share with your prospects multiple related products & services that your prospect may find useful regardless of whether or not that prospect joins your network marketing company or not.

Just because the prospect won't join YOUR business, that doesn't mean that they don't have any interest in the industry.

Maybe the prospect just has no interest in the health and wellness industry if that is your product line.

However, if they saw a product in the personal development industry or the financial industry they would jump at it.

As an affiliate network marketer you recognize from the beginning that most of your prospects aren't going to sign up.

Since you know this from the beginning you plan for it by offering other related products that your prospects may sign up for.

How does this work?

Let's say you lead with the business opportunity and most of your prospects are indicating an interest in starting a business part time.

In addition to promoting your business you could promote an information product that teaches people about the types of tax deductions that home business owners are entitled to.

If that prospect is serious about starting a home business, even if it's not with you, don't you think there is a good chance that prospect will purchase that product?

Of course they would!

You don't even need to know how to put up a web site! There are many places like www.squidoo.com and www.hubpages.com where you can create a web page within minutes pre-populated with affiliate links that you can earn commissions from if the visitor to the web page buys!

Need more customization?

No problem!

You can also create your own blog or web page using software that does it automatically within minutes, also with no knowledge of any technical programming languages.

In fact, if you aren't sure what products to market for network marketing prospects, three of the best include "Magnetic Sponsoring"; by Mike Dillard, "The Renegade Network Marketer"; by Ann Sieg or "Marketing Merge"; by Mike Klingler.

These three programs are tailored for distributors in network marketing regardless of what company they are involved in and are designed to teach them how to build their network marketing business over the Internet.

The beautiful thing about this system is that you now have the ability to make money not just only on the prospects that decide to become a customer or a distributor with you, but even from the prospects that decide they don't want to have anything to do with you!

This is because if any of these prospects click on any of these affiliate programs that you are promoting and purchase one of these products, you get paid!

The process is seamless and you don't even have to worry about providing support. All you have to do is cash the check!

Affiliate network marketing is an excellent business model for helping to combat the challenge of distributors staying committed to their opportunity of choice because they can't create enough income monthly to keep up with business overhead.

It is very realistic for a newcomer to this concept to be able to set up affiliate systems in place that can produce enough income to cover your overhead from your parent company.

Once that takes place, now all you have to do is focus on building your network marketing business because you don't have that big financial monkey over your shoulder!

I believe that if more distributors practice affiliate network marketing, the industry would have a much lower turnover rate.

Here are several commonly used affiliate network marketing methods network marketers use to put money in their pockets while their building their primary MLM

Blogs or Websites

Squidoo or Hubpages

Email Marketing

Funded Sponsoring Proposal

More about Affiliate Products

Blogs or a Website

As a network marketer you can create a blog or a website about a topic that would interest your prospects.

For example, if you are involved in a network marketing business that markets weight loss products, you could create a blog that discusses weight related topics.

If your network marketing business is travel related, your website could offer tips on destinations, accommodations and accessories for vacationers.

Sometimes you may prefer to attract prospects who already have an interest in network marketing or business opportunities.

In that case, you want to create content related to building a network marketing business or how to select a business opportunity.

A perfect example of this is the article you are reading now.

By creating topics of interest for your 'target market' you get traffic to your blog or website through search engines and free Web 2.0 methods.

Once you have traffic, you can convert it into leads through a link to a lead capture page or opt-in page for your newsletter.

You can create income through your blog while you're generating prospects. Readers click on links to affiliate products you recommend in the articles.

For example, if your target market is network marketers, you might recommend a good website building product that makes it easy for non-techie types to create a website for their business.

Squidoo and HubPages

Squidoo and Hubpages are companies that provide an easy way for non-techies to create content for free to attract an audience by placing it up on the web so people can find it.

The process is similar to a blog or website but easier to put together (you can put one together within 15 minutes to an hour). You can also link to affiliate products in your content and generate leads by linking to a lead capture page.

Squidoo and HubPages help you get traffic to your site by capitalizing on the large community already established by these websites. Not only are you found by the search engine traffic these pages create but you get additional traffic from members of these communities.

They also share the revenue generated from your pages with Google Adwords.

Email Marketing

While you're generating your own leads using a lead capture page (either one you created or one you're using from a system like Marketing Merge, The Renegade System, or Magnetic Sponsoring, you're building an email list.

While you provide value to that list, you can tactfully place links to affiliate products, thus generating more income from your prospects while further building your relationship with them.

This is what email marketing is.

Funded Sponsoring Proposal

The funded sponsoring proposal is a term typically used to describe making money directly from an information product that attracts prospects to your opportunity.

You can create your own funded sponsoring proposal or use one like Magnetic Sponsoring, The Renegade System, or Marketing Merge.

Affiliate Products

Affiliate products are either information products or services that offer commission on one level (sometimes two levels) and are low commitment.

In network marketing, you would want to share affiliate products that would be seen as valuable by your target market.

This allows you to make money while prospecting for your primary MLM.

While most affiliate products offer a one time commission based on an initial sale, some affiliate products offer commissions if the product is a service that customers have to subscribe to monthly.

Affiliate network marketing can help to create income as you are generating leads for your network marketing business opportunity. Some people make their living from affiliate marketing alone.

These programs are specifically designed to help network marketers prospect for their business as well as make additional money to fund their business.

The key is to understand the differences between the two so you can make an intelligent decision as to which one you are going to promote. Of course, depending on your situation you could always promote both of them!

Affiliate Sales to Generate Leads and Income

Both The Renegade System and Magnetic Sponsoring offer a main product that provides front end retail income for the network marketer. The biggest challenge to network marketing is making enough money to cover business expenses. With these programs, you are able to use the affiliate commissions generated from the sales of the main product to fund your network marketing business.

Many affiliate programs only pay out one time for the sale. When the owner of the program continues to promote to the leads you generated, the owner keeps 100% of the commissions for all future sales. This is not the case with either The Renegade System or the Magnetic Sponsoring system.

With both of these systems there are mechanisms in place to allow you to make additional income from the leads you generate. The Renegade System allows you to populate affiliate links within the system. When prospects click on those affiliate links and make purchases, you generate income from those sales.

The Magnetic Sponsoring system offers additional products available to network marketers who become leads in your system. When your leads purchase these additional products instead of keeping the sale for themselves, the Magnetic Sponsoring system pays you a percentage of the sales for ALL future product sales, not just the first sale.

Lead Contact Management Systems

Both affiliate programs offer a lead contact management system for the affiliates. When you generate leads with the systems you are able to see the names, telephone numbers and email addresses of each lead that you generate with the system. With this information you are able to contact these prospects to either share your primary network marketing business or promote the affiliate system you are using.

Front End Products

There are also some differences between the two programs.

The Renegade Network Marketer offers a front end report that you can use to promote the main product. The Renegade Network Marketer offers a book "The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing" You can give this report away for free. You can also sell this report for a lower price as a lead in for the main product.

Magnetic Sponsoring, while not offering a book as a front end does make an offer of a free video training series that you can use to give away as well. You send your prospects to a web page promoting the free video trainings. The video trainings all lead back to the promotion of the Magnetic Sponsoring book.

Both programs offer different types of products at different price points.

The Magnetic Sponsoring program offers a physical book for $39 including shipping & handling. The Renegade Program offers a series of electronic books and audios for $67 available immediately upon purchase for download.

Leads Generation for Your Network Marketing Business

Regardless of which program you choose to promote, both programs do a great job at creating a hot list of prospects who are already interested in network marketing for you to talk to about your business opportunity.

The key is to focus on them first by helping them to build their business. In return, by offering value first, they will eventually want to offer you value by requesting to join your business. This way they recruit themselves instead of you having to convince them to join.

Financing your business becomes as easy as being paid to prospect!

Contents at a Glance

1. Why Affiliate Network Marketing?
2. How Affiliate Network Marketing Helps Network Marketers
3. In Today's Network Marketing, Adding Affiliate Marketing to Your Network Marketing Business will Minimize Risk While Increasing Profits
4. Social Marketing Communities
5. Why The Economics Don't Add Up Without Affiliate Marketing In The MLM Mix
6. Get Started With Affiliate Marketing As A Part Of Your Network Marketing Business Plan?
7. Affiliate Network Marketing: How to Make Money While Generating Leads
8. Renegade Affiliate Program vs. Magnetic Sponsoring Affiliate Program

Find Related Topics