We have basically two different types of marketing on the Internet. One of them is Affiliate Marketing and the other is Multi Level Marketing (commonly know as MLM). In reality, most Affiliates are doing both to some extent. There is a bug difference between the two. Read on and I will try to explain.
Other than marketing your own items,
there is really two other ways to make an income on the Internet. Those would be Affiliate Marketing and Mutli Level Marketing.
With Affiliate marketing, you are selling someone else's product or products, and earning a commission which is your profit.
The other is MLM - (Multi Level Marketing) and it is greatly different in every way possible. As a general rule, you are not "selling" anything. You are marketing a plan whereby you normally get paid to bring in another person, who then repeats the same thing over again.
Both methods have the same problem in that one thing can stop them both dead in their tracks...TRAFFIC! Without traffic, neither one of those systems will produce any sales, much less a steady cash flow.
One really good thing about Affiliate Marketing is that there is a ton of products on the Internet for you to market. Plenty may be an understatement!
If you don't know about ClickBank, or Paydot.com or CBEngine, you better become familiar with them. They are for the most part actively searching out Affiliates to market products for other people. On average, the commissions are very good and they have been doing it for a long time. (That goes for all of them.) Of course there are others, but I think it is safe to say they are the largest.
They are all free to sign up with. Working with all of them is very easy, and getting started is quite simple. Then you just go through and pick out products you are either familiar with or would be interested in marketing, and have at it.
In reality, what do you need to get started? A web site? A Blog? I will say that I think it helps, but it is not positively necessary. Probably will need a Blog for a landing place for your customers! (Most Blogs are free and simple to set up!)
Moving on now to MLM. The difference is primarily that you are not really selling an "item or product" with MLM. You are selling a program or a plan which aggressively "recruits" others to join and that goes on forever.
When you have someone join what is called your "down-line", and you get paid. When when they "solicit" another person, then they get paid and you get a small percentage of the new recruit also! Normally this will go down your "line" (where the terminology "down-line" is derived from) for so many places and cuts off at a certain point.
The major difference in the Internet multi level marketing and outside the web MLM is this. There is usually some small monthly fee to the "site organizers" - the ones who began the MLM - to keep it going and keep track of who belongs to whom and all the other details.
Which the better of the two? Depends on how you look at things. Many of us get heavily involved in the Affiliate Marketing as it's easier to work with an item you can see. Multi Level Marketing is invisible and you must have a certain amount of "nerve" to market it.
Realizing on the Internet, they (Affiliate and MLM) aren't that much different. It's not possible to "see or touch" e Books or videos on the Internet. But millions are being sold daily by affiliates and business owners promoting their own products.
There is also a great deal of MLM Plans being sold daily. Offers of a "eBook" or CD as a prize for joining. Both offers, Affiliate and MLM, are the same in one way. you still don't know what you are getting until after you have bought it, do you?
As an Internet businessman, I have been involved with both of these programs. I can say both work and both make money. But you will find that you main concentration will be on getting TRAFFIC to your site or your Blog, or both if you have them!
