Affiliates vs. MLM’ers, my thoughts
It has long been discussed as to which method is the most effective method for generating an income stream online. This discussion has led to all out smear campaigns of both types of online marketing. This is a disappointment and has created a lot of doubt and concern for those people looking to get into either type of marketing. The advent of so many ponzi schemes, and disreputable companies that have launched, taken people’s money and then vanished just as quickly in BOTH types of marketing has made this a narrow and treacherous path to walk. I want to go over a few different points in each and leave the decision in the hands of the reader.
Affiliate Marketing Pros and Cons
Affiliate marketing has quite a few pros involved in it. The main ones that stand out the most of course are:
- You do not need your own website
- You don’t need your own product
- You don’t have to worry about follow-up, customer service, delivery or technical support.
- You get up to 75% commissions on many products and you can get started and usually promote the links for free.
That all sounds very appealing to the new person who just entered “how do I make money online” into Google, and found 75 products that have those exact points in the beginning, but let’s look at the negative side to this form of marketing
- There are over a million affiliate marketers on ClickBank alone
- Getting people to see your affiliate site is easy, but getting people to open their wallets, is a lot harder.
- Discouragement becomes easy because it takes a lot of traffic, even targeted traffic to see any results.
- If you are not careful, you won’t benefit from follow up sales due to the vendor capturing the email address, and not you, meaning you don’t build your list.
- It is a constant battle, and a constant form of work that is hard to put on autopilot.
So with these things that NO one will tell you it paints a different picture, but that’s not to say that a person can’t be successful with affiliate marketing. It is just better to be armed with all of the facts right? These facts alone won’t help you completely, but if you know what your up against, you will at least have some idea of where to start.
Multi Level Marketing Pros and Cons
Let’s change gears for a second. Multi Level Marketing has been around for as long as I can remember, and in fact back in the early nineties I even tried my hand at Amway, I also failed miserably at it. Now that a lot of Multi Level Marketing organizations have gone online let’s look at some of the advantages!
- The reach of each individual marketer becomes vast, almost infinite, with more and more people coming online every day, you will always have someone to market too.
- You will usually not need your own website, though a dedicated domain name of your own usually works better.
- Again the product and follow-up is handled by the staff at the MLM company, (if you are in a reputable MLM company.)
- The residual income is recurring, and as long as people are happy, continues to grow.
- In the right situation the opportunity to make a living at MLM can happen.
Multi level Marketing can be a lucrative career according to these points, but again, when people are trying to recruit you, they leave out some very important things that can be construed as negative.
- They claim a part time effort can create a full time income, but this is a fallacy, because if you don’t live and breathe your MLM you won’t get anywhere.
- You have to talk to every person that you hope to recruit, because people are not going to follow you if they don’t know you or trust you.
- Even after you are making a full time income in MLM, if you are not encouraging and helping your downline grow, the people at the bottom will quit because they don’t make money until they have people below them.
- The career of an MLM’er is a life time career because it is necessary to continue to support the people below you.
- Less than 3 percent of Multi Level Marketers ever make a full time living at this endeavour.
- Finding the right Multi Livel Marketing company is almost impossible in the online world due to so many deceitful sites and false advertising.
This shows a very different side of Multi Level marketing, and if people know this information going in, they might reconsider. This is not to say that Multi Level Marketing is a bad idea, it is just necessary to know that it takes a very serious commitment.
So which one is better then?
The purpose of this article is not to determine which one is better. The information provided is just an honest look at the pros and cons of both marketing ideas so that YOU the reader can make an informed choice if you plan to get into one or both of these ideas.
In conclusion I will tell you that I do both types of marketing described above, and I have mild success with both. I enjoy affiliate marketing as the returns are higher in the short term, but I also like the relationship building involved in Multi Level Marketing, so I am a supporter of both, but what I learned in my time as to the pros and cons I have now shared with you, and I hope you have enjoyed this information and will share it with your friends!
