| Free IPods For All? |
| Invention Development Advice - Marketing | |||
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Free iPhones for you and your family? Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? The latest craze sweeping the internet is affiliate marketing, and it's building up quite a head of steam. There are of course sceptics, but those who have been getting involved seem to be happy enough, and the affiliate sites themselves seem to be growing in number. They promise iPods, iPhones, digital cameras and PS3s to 'members' who sign up for a trial promotion, and get others to do the same. Are these sites for real, are they a scam and how can they afford to give stuff away for nothing? Read on and I'll explain.
Free iPhones for you and your family? Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? The latest craze sweeping the internet is affiliate marketing, and it's building up quite a head of steam. There are of course sceptics, but those who have been getting involved seem to be happy enough, and the affiliate sites themselves seem to be growing in number. They promise iPods, iPhones, digital cameras and PS3s to 'members' who sign up for a trial promotion, and get others to do the same. Are these sites for real, are they a scam and how can they afford to give stuff away for nothing? Read on and I'll explain. What is affiliate marketing and how does it work? Affiliate marketing is a clever way to get people to sign up to what you are offering. The most common form is google ads which appear as hyperlinks next to the google search that you just performed. When these links are clicked, a commission is paid to the person hosting the link either when someone clicks on the link, or when they buy something from the site. Typically this is small, but in the case of many sites, they can be substantially higher. How can they afford to give away iPhones, PS3s and digital cameras? Simple. if they persuade you to sign up to their site, and take out a promotional offer, and then persuade a number of people to do the same, then you are generating business for them. Sites like freebiejeebies and kudosnetwork (aimed at the UK, USA and Canada see below) structure their incentives this way. You sign up to the site, take out a promotional offer which is often free, and persuade a number of people to do the same. Once these have all been validated, you get your gift. But you only get credited when the people you have referred take out a promotion themselves. If you need 18 referrals and each of those 18 people need 18 referrals to get what they want, then the site has gained 324 customers. The next 18 from each of those 18 gives 5832 people, yet the site has only given away 19 iPhones. The numbers stack up very quickly, and as you can see, it makes perfect financial sense for them. Advertising is not cheap, and when the consumer is paid instead of the advertising company, it adds up to quite a lot of nice free 'stuff'. Of course they say 'free', but there is time involved although little or not money leaves the hands of the savvy. Hence the appeals to youngsters (who tend to have lots of the former and rather less of the latter). What's in it for the middleman, the website owner? Considerable amounts of money, of course. He needs you, however, to make the wheels turn - the reason he comes up with salivating prizes to get you off your bum selling on his behalf. You are charged with the job of working out which of your friends would be interested in such a scheme, and more importantly which of your friends wouldn't, and you keep pushing to reach your goal like a salesman after his bonus (iPhone). Meanwhile Mr. Site Owner sits there taking a commission for every sale her gets, and passes on a residual to you in the form of your gift. His marketing is clever, and as you can see, he is doing very well out of it. But if everyone completed their referrals, wouldn't the site lose money? Theoretically if they gave away iPhones to everyone, then they might make a loss, but as is always the case, not everyone makes it to the number they need to get their free gift; only achieving a couple of referrals or none at all. They have contributed to the list of people signed up, yet have received nothing in return. It all balances out in the end. If it doesn't, the number of referrals required per item goes up to reflect how savvy the customers are being, or how much revenue the site is receiving. In short they are not likely to lose out as long as the advertisers are happy, and as far as we can tell, they are. What about the advertisers? Again, they probably would lose customers (and money) if all people cancelled, but this is never the case. There are always people who forget, or who don't know how to cancel. More importantly, the company gets one very important thing; your attention. They get a chance to make a good impression. Think of it as a 'loss-leader', a sales call. If they can convince you that what they are selling you is good, then you will buy it and they will have a happy customer and a revenue stream. The reality is that some will stay, some will go, and some will forget to cancel their direct debit (and so remain 'gym' members by default) So does this affiliate marketing work? Well, it's up to you. If your time is worth big dollars, I would say, no. If however you have a bit time to spare and like to explore clever and challenging ways to generate referrals, then why not give it a go. You really haven't got much to lose, have you? You Game? Check out the following sites for more info: kudosnetwork & freebiejeebies. Click on the links below to visit the sites. Have fun! More information: Visit kudosnetwork AND freebiejeebies for additional information about how to start claiming your free gift. Also visit thebestthings.co.uk for background information and to make your affiliate marketing additional successful. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
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