Affiliate and Referral Programs Defined

Posted on November 14th, 2008

Learn the difference between an Affiliate program, Referral program and joint ventures before joining one.

By joining a Referral program, you can learn various aspects of real estate while earning an income. Your commissions can eventually pay for your tuition. Many companies have Referral programs, sometimes referred to as Affiliate programs, which are basically the same thing with a different name. The difference is that an Affiliate program generally has at least two levels so you can get paid a percentage of the sales generated by those you refer to the program.

Lead Partner Programs

The Lead Partner programs are set up for you to generate leads and let the company close the sales. The web page you set up will capture the prospect information and pass it on to the company. That page does not need a strong sales pitch. It simply generates enough interest that the visitor requests more information. Of all the various programs, this is by far the easiest to set up and promote.

Referral Programs

Referral programs are set up so that you get paid either a flat rate or a percentage of the sales that you generate. It does not include sales generated by those who joined the program through your Referral link. Your job is to refer sales to the company, much like the Affiliate programs, but without the option to earn from enrolling others.

Affiliate Programs

Most often an Affiliate program is mistaken for Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), where you get a piece of the sale generated by multiple levels of others who joined through your Referral link. MLM has been given a bad reputation by so many programs being set up so that those at the top of the list get most of the money. Those at the bottom are usually left with being paid just on the direct sales that they generate.

Knowing the difference between those different programs is important. You should know up front where your commissions will be generated. All of them should be free to join, since you will be generating business for the company. The difference between free and paid programs is when you get training along with the program. In that situation, paying a training fee is acceptable.

Sometimes program managers will charge a small monthly fee to have a website where you can send prospects. That site is maintained by the company and they want to be compensated for maintaining it. Having a replicated site, one where it looks identical to the others, cuts overhead costs by the company only having to maintain one set of website files. For those, you may or may not be charged a fee. If you are, it means that the sites are managed by someone outside the sales department.

Joint Ventures

While Join Venture (JV) programs have some similarities to Affiliate programs, there are distinct differences and advantages. With an Affiliate program, you promote the product and get paid a commission. With a Joint Venture, you are partnering with someone to help you develop, market and support the product, while sharing the profits.

The percentage of profits shared is generally much larger than that of an Affiliate program, since your JV partner will be helping you with the project. If someone sets up a JV with you, simply to set up a web page and blast out some emails promoting it with their unique link, they are an Affiliate.

Someone with whom you collaborate on the project to change and improve it, is a JV Partner. The share of profits you split, the duties each of you have and the level of risk are all determined when the JV is formed. It stands to reason that you want to make the package attractive enough to set up a JV with you, while allowing sufficient room for yourself to profit. The duties are usually split by the skills each JV member has. Do what you are good at and let the other partner handle the other duties.

Sample Lead Partner Program

Getting involved in real estate normally means you are required to take classes, pass a test and maintain that license every year by taking more classes. Those are meant to keep you up to date on any changes that may have occurred the previous year. While that still holds true to be licensed, there is a way to get into real estate without having a license.

A typical lead partner program runs like the one at ShortSaleHoldings.com. You join free, get access to the members area where you have marketing resources and can manage your contact information. You can also track the leads you bring in. There is no charge for the website and when the sale is completed, you get paid a very decent commission (see website for details). In many cases, all the lead partners do it simply put a banner that the company provides, or a link, on your website.

When you visit the site you will see that there are two distinct Referral programs. One is for referring short sale clients. The other is for referring others to the short sales training program and learn how they can do the short sales themselves.

Summary

Affiliate Program: May have one or multiple commission levels. Multiple levels pay a percentage based on the sales generated by your referrals. The first level always includes product sales commissions.
Lead Partner Program: Generate leads for the company and let them close the sales. This is the easiest of all the programs.
Referral Program: Single level with commissions being generated through direct referrals.
Multi-Level Marketing (MLM): Usually 10 or more levels with commissions being generated mostly by the fees paid by other members to join. Some products will be sold, but the primary focus is more often to get more people to join.
Pyramid Disguised as MLM: This is where the sole focus is to recruit others who pay a membership fee, from which you are paid. Little, if any, product is sold.

Sample Sites

Lead Partner Program: Refer short sale leads at ShortSaleHoldings.com
Affiliate Program: Short Sale Investor Training ShortSaleHoldings.com/training

Tags: affiliate marketing, affiliate programs, joint venture programs, JV Partners, lead partner programs, MLM, pyramid schemes
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Why I Like NetProfitsToday Affiliate Forum

Posted on June 24th, 2008

Of all the Affiliate discussion forums I have visited and participated in, few have the sense of community like NetProfitsToday.com. Operated by Rosalind Garner, author of The Super Affiliate Handbook, beginner and veteran marketers come reach out to each other: veterans guiding newcomers; beginners giving veterans fresh ideas; each person having experience in various areas.

Along with the discussion forums, Rosalind writes helpful articles on her Affiliate marketing blog. Many times those articles support the current discussions. Putting the articles into the blog allows Rosalind to expand on each topic more than the discussion forum would allow. Once the article is posted, a comment is made in the forum that links to the article for an in-depth review.

Sure there are much larger forums where tens of thousands of people gather daily. That may be good for experienced marketers, but for beginners it is frustrating to see the conversations move so fast that they are tough to follow. Those are places where ridicule is second nature to some, with disregard to how that welcomes beginners to the community.

NetProfitsToday.com is much more laid back, friendly and sensitive to how criticism is handed out. When someone asks for ideas on choosing a niche market, various members join in with their ideas to help the asker along. Website reviews are honest, detailed and most of all, helpful. By the end of the conversation, everyone involved knows that someone was helped that day.

There are all types of people from many walks of life in multiple countries. However, most of them though are from USA or Canada. To help with forum growth, recent additions to the moderator team were chosen based primarily on their level of participation, interaction with others and knowledge level in various areas.

The invitations to help moderate were not previously announced. Instead, the new moderators were made surprise offers after being watched for extended periods of time. Each one was both delighted and surprised with the offer. Apparently, only two people knew about the selection process: Rosalind and her long-time moderator, Bradley.

With the moderator team in place, NetProfitsToday.com is poised for growth to reach out to even more Affiliate marketers. I am proud to be a member of that team.

Visit today at http://NetProfitsToday.com

Jim Hutchinson

Tags: affiliate marketing, discussion forums
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Getting Affiliate Sites Listed in Search Engines

Posted on February 5th, 2008

This is probably one of the most important tips I can give you in regards to driving traffic to your websites.

You may have heard about replicated Affiliate websites not being allowed in the search engines. That is true with an exception: Only the most popular website, i.e. the one with the most incoming links, will be listed. You have the ability to get your Affiliate websites listed in Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others.

You can start by asking your Affiliate manager to allow creating a personalized introductory paragraph on your Affiliate website. That will make the first paragraph on each page unique. That is generally enough to get that page treated as being different from any other.

From there, you can go through the Free Website Traffic document that can be downloaded here and found on the newsletter subscription confirmation page. That document is just a start though. There are many other things you can do to get listed higher in the search engines and get more traffic, with or without the search engines.

The primary methods I use to get onto the first page of search engine results are:

Get my own domain name with the keywords in the name and build the site with unique content.
Advertise that domain name instead of my Affiliate websites. A blog is an asset to have on the site, which can be used for the site itself.
Participate in social networking (MySpace, FriendsWin), discussion forums and Yahoo! Answers.
Place classified ads on high traffic sites such as Craigslist, USfreeads, etc.
Publish articles outside the blog, such as in ezinearticles.com, articlecity.com, MySpace, FriendsWin, etc.

All of that can be broken down into one word: Participate

When you actively participate in various venues, you not only get traffic from those venues, but the search engines pick up your on your activity, follow the links you provide in them and drive traffic to your site. It makes you visible to the world and that is what brings people to you.

Along with the Free Website Traffic page, which has a PDF file for you to download and print, visit www.affref.com for more marketing ideas. There is a newsletter subscription option there that will allow you to get weekly tips in email.

Thanks for being with us!

Jim Hutchinson
Affiliate Referral Sources
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