Monday, December 05, 2005
Affiliate on the roof. Meet the match maker.
This is the tune that thousands of income-seekers are working to while using
a new technology known as 'Customer Reciprocation'.
The work from home revolution is well and truly here. Primarily drawing on
affiliate marketing as the main source of income, business opportunity seekers,
website owners, and the new revolution of work from home mums are competing
aggressively to boost customer acquisition. Unfortunately, list building,
link building, blogging and marketing can seriously eat into the free time
of any goal driven enthusiast.
With these imposing forces, it's no wonder many soon throw in the towel.
The dream of passive income proving to be somewhat harder than the fancy
sales copies purported.
This is where Customer Reciprocation is lighting the path for many lost affiliates.
Customer Reciprocation ensures you receive a customer in return whenever
you purchase online. Every time you purchase something you're some merchant's
customer. In return, using Customer Reciprocation, you can be "Matched" with an affiliate
of that merchant. This results in someone with a purchase intention for a merchant
that you are affiliated with purchasing through you. It's a sensible win-win scenario.
Customer Reciprocation lends itself to any form of referral or associate
income business. Whether you're into multi level marketing MLM, an online
store merchant, an affiliate marketer, an ezine newsletter owner, Webmaster
or Internet entrepreneur, there are real benefits to be derived.
Exchanges that connect people are not uncommon on the Internet. Many successful
businesses base their service models on reciprocation. Just like online dating,
auctions, link exchanges, and affiliate networks, the value of Customer Acquisition
Exchanges reside in the community of loyal and active members. For every
new member that joins, the value to all grows exponentially. This is why
these reciprocation services often grow rapidly with the viral effect of
word-of-mouth spreading quickly.
In summary, there is plenty of hope for anyone wanting to make an income
online. Working from home is certainly achievable, and for those who are
willing to try new customer acquisition vehicles, the rewards can be plenty.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
The affiliate marketer's power guide to niche product evaluation.
If you built and sold the first teleportation device you would make some serious money.
But...
If you built the network that connected the teleportation devices and charge a subscription fee to use it, you're set up for a future of enormous passive income.
This is the view many entrepreneurs are taking in the 21st century. Passive income can only be derived from niche products with a sustainable market.
We love niche products because they inherently don't have many competitors and solve the problems of people who have money to spend. It is no wonder affiliate marketers fall over themselves in a rushed "grab-for-cash" type frenzy whenever a niche product with affiliate income opportunities launches. Unfortunately many are too late and end up scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last few customers.
If we analyze niche products closely we can divide them into 2 distinct categories:
Un-Sustainable and Sustainable.
Unsustainable niche products may or may not make money. If they do make money, they only do so for a short period of time, then they need to be re-invented to become new niche products. Affiliates who get in early stand to profit. But sales usually diminish quickly once new competitors or hot products arrive to saturate the market. Take for example a car or a DVD player, when first released the manufacturer sales margin would have been massive. Only the rich would have been able to afford one. But as competitors enter the market, margins start to reduce drastically and there is no longer much profit to be made. Mobile phone handsets are an example of this. The market is so saturated that the phones are often given away for free.
Sustainable niche products are those products that grow in value the more people know about them. Drawing on the mobile phone example, the telecommunications network would be a sustainable niche. The more people on the network the more valuable the phone becomes to the owners. Affiliates of sustainable niche products stand to profit considerably more using this long-term strategy compared to the possible quick profit from unsustainable niche products.
Sustainable niche products can be sold to each individual in the market. They are inherently viral as every individual who has the product can derive greater value when they convince others to use it. For example a fax machine has greater value when everyone has one. With subscription or disposable services, there is generally no market saturation. You can re-sell the same niche product back to the same customer again and again.
So before you invest your time, effort and money promoting another merchants product, ensure the niche product passes the following checks:
#1) Does the product meet a continuous need of consumers? Can you sell it 10 years from now?
#2) How viral is the product? Will people rave about it or keep it as their secret weapon?
#3) How big is the market that would use this product? Is it likely to shrink in the next 10 years?
#4) Does the product lend itself to a subscription based, limited license, or a disposable user pays model? Can you re-sell it to the same customer again and again?
#5) Do the product benefits grow exponentially for every user that purchases it?
Here are some examples of sustainable (past-niche) products:
#1) Internet Telephony
#2) Online Auction
#3) Online Dating Service
#4) Customer Acquisition Exchange
#5) P2P file sharing services
If you're an affiliate marketer looking to derive sustainable passive income, make sure you market the right kinds of product.
Affiliates: earn money whenever you shop ANYWHERE online.
