Are You an Internet Marketing Slave?

One of the disappointing things about Internet Marketing is that in many respects it is the digital equivalent of  voluntary slavery.

People are lured into promoting somebody else's product and services in a variety of ways  and then encouraged to directly promote those businesses.

In doing so they assume all the risk.

Let's demonstrate with an example of any number of popular affiliate sites paying lets say 70% commission on a product that costs say $30

Inside the membership area there will be some sample adwords ads and keywords to use - very helpful (not)..

So the new affiliate invests in Adwords and pays $3-$4 per click while the affiliate product converts on average at 3% rate - so at that rate the affiliate may and I emphasize the word may make 3 sales So after 100 click throughs on Adwords the affiliate has spent $300-$400 and made $61 if everything is running on average.

The trouble is that  in all likelihood the results will be worse.

Here is why.

The smart affiliate marketers do not promote the book directly - they recommend it to their subscribers and their readers.

Their results are way above average, meaning the newbie Internet affilaite marketing slave probably will be lucky to sell one product.

When successful affiliates spend money on advertising they spend it on promoting themselves.

What do all these people have in common?

Ewan Chia
Ros Gardiner
Chris Freville
Alex Goad
Mike Filsaime

They're all very successful affiliate marketers and they've become successful by promoting themselves and solutions to common problems.

Now lets talk about an even more insidious form of Internet marketing slavery.

I'm talking about an area that I am an expert in.

Traffic Exchanges.

Traffic Exchanges work - but they will never work for somebody promoting a program as an affiliate or member.

Here is what usually happens.

A program launches - lets assume for argument's sake that the program is selling a real product and is MLM based.

Inside the members area the members are given their own cookie cutter website and some promotional splash and squeeze pages to promote.

Then they are actively encouraged to promote these pages on Traffic Exchanges.

What happens?

Hundreds of people start promoting the same looking pages on Traffic Exchanges - it creates a buzz for the product but very little reward for the members.

Furthermore in many cases affiliates are really being engaged to build the program owners mailing list.

This is cynical exploitation of people's needs and desires.

So what can be done?

The first thing is to realize that Internet Marketing in all its forms is hard work.

Sorry - no other way to say that.

To be successful, you need to do some research, develop a campaign based on satisfying needs and then over deliver service.

In short you need to become somebody who people look to for leadership.