How to make money with Affiliate Programs - The Sensible Way

Every day, thousands of would-be marketers scour the internetlooking for any and every affiliate program, sign up, sit backand wait for the money to pour in and get frustrated just asfast when the bank balance still shows a big, fat ZERO!There are tons of guru's floating around and even more eBooksand articles claiming to know the latest and greatest trick tomake tons of money with no effort at all (oh and of course,unless you use their method then you will never, ever getanywhere in your online business and stay broke the rest ofyour life). We've all seen these before.Let's get real for a moment. If you don't put any effort into your marketing and don'tspread the word of whatever you are marketing, then you willget exactly that much out of your effort. Zero effort = Zero results!I hope that's plain enough and now let's have a look at thesensible way to market your affiliate programs, so you canactually earn some of that Internet-Money-Pie (and it's yummytoo).There are two types of affiliate programs generally. Those thatpay you (1-tier) and those that pay you, plus they pay you abonus for actions taken by visitors sent by other webmastersyou have referred (2-tier).Let's think about that for a moment. What's the easier way tomake money? You sell a bunch of products and get paid on thatalone, or if you sell product and also introduce the affiliateprogram to a bunch of webmasters who in turn also sell and theyearn a nice commission and you get a bonus every single timethey sell something, just for having referred them to theaffiliate program?Ok, I know you probably just smacked your forhead andsaid 'Duh' quite loudly and think I am stating the plain andobvious.If you can get others to do the same thing you are doing, bykeeping in touch with them and helping them and duplicatingyour efforts, then of course it stands to reason that the bonusyou receive for referring the webmasters will generatepotentially a large team of people making you money.So, your first task is to find good, well-paying 2-tieraffiliate programs. You can always use single tier programs asa back end sale or on other projects, don't get me wrong, theywill still make you money, but right now, we want to get youstarted off on the right foot to your own internet income.So, you've gone out and found a well-paying affiliate program,and you are ready to rumble and make money... Not So Fast!!!How are you going to promote it? What is your plan of attack?That's another problem many marketers run into, they just runoff and don't think before they act and that again results in alot less return for all of your efforts.Here's what I have done in the past and always do each time.Feel free to try this out and see the results for yourself.After finding the affiliate program I want to promote, I checkthe resource material provided by the program. Sometimes,depending on how new the program is, I use their material toget things rolling but almost every time, I start to write someads of my own, perhaps an article or even an ebook that I canuse to promote the product and the affiliate program with.Some of those resources are available to readers of theeBusinessCornerNews newsletter if you are interested.Another thing I do, after putting together all the marketingmaterial I want to use is to check out the competion that'salready in the market. I don't really care if there iscompetition, as a matter of fact, many times that is a goodindicator that there is a good demand for the type of product Iam promoting. You can do this pretty easily by just going to asearch engine and typing in keywords you associate with theproduct for example (there are a lot of additional ways to dothis that we discuss in our newsletter).There are a ton of places you can advertise your product, andthe marketing material you are using, such as articledirectories, free advertising forums or websites, you can evenfind a lot of ezines that allow you to place free classifiedsand websites you can post your ad on, at no cost.Another thing that is handy to have is a website of my own,where I can post my thoughts and comments (nothing sells betterthan your own, plain english comments and reviews) along withany other articles I can find that will help to draw visitorsin and make the search engines list my site better.Most of the time, I will take a few of my articles and turnthem into a free ebook, or post the articles in articledirectories where other webmasters are permitted to reprintthem in their own newsletter, provided they leave my resourcebox (see the bottom of this article for an example) in place.So now they are spreading the word for me, driving traffic onmy behalf and generating orders too. But I like to help, as much as I like to earn money too, sohere's what I do most of the time. When I find a good newsletter that I like then I touch basewith that publisher and offer him the article, but I also tellhim it's for a 2-tier affiliate program and if he would like,then he could use my article, if he either leaves my box inplace or signs up under me and then I let him add his link intomy box, so he can earn the bigger piece of the pie and I getthe bonus commissions from his sales. Now, why would I do that? Simple... I do that, because there's a much better chance that he willsend out my article sooner, rather than later because now hehas the potential to earn money with it too. Find a few publishers like that and you are well on your roadto getting a nice piece of the pie and the great thing is thatanytime you find a new affiliate program to promote and write anew article, you already have made contacts that you can sendit to, so it gets easier every time and takes a lot less efforton your part.Well, there you have the sensible way of making money withaffiliate programs. (Note: There are a lot of other methods available to marketyour affiliate program and earn money, but this is one of thebest methods I have ever used.)Here's to your success,XavierP.s. Quit reading this article already and get out there andfind yourself a good affiliate program and start making money.Now get moving...(Note: You have permission to reprint this article in it'sentirety, provided you do not change the article in any way andleave the Resource Box above intact. If you would like to earnmoney with this article, please visithttp://www.makemoneymarketingonline.com today and sign up forthe generous 2-tier affiliate program that pays 50% for anysales you make, plus an additional 20% for any sales generatedby webmasters you refer into the program)