Residual Income: The Key To Making A Full Time Online Income
For many online marketers earning a full time income is the ultimate goal. It is not an easy task but it can be accomplished as long as you apply this one simple strategy along with all your hard work. You will discover what most savvy marketers already know, the major key to making a full time income is quite obvious: "Residual Income".
Just as the name states, residual income means you make one sale and you earn follow up income automatically for months, years or sometimes even for decades after you make the initial sale. It almost sounds too good to be true but residual income does exist and thousands of online marketers are reaping the rewards.
It is a pure marketing strategy which makes perfect business sense. Why utilize all your marketing resources to make one sale and receive one payment, when you can just as easily use the same resources to make a sale and then receive repeat payments for years down the road? The beauty of residual income comes from being rewarded for your hard efforts again and again. One sale can equal long term income for years.
The Internet makes earning residual income possible for everyone. Stay at home moms, the college student, the part-time worker... you name it, anyone can earn a residual income on the Internet.
Why is this now possible?
Because the Internet has opened up a whole stampede of companies and services looking for clients and customers. Services that once were only offered locally before the advent of the web, but are now being offered globally to a world wide consumer base.
Unfortunately, as many companies have discovered, the competition has also increased a million fold as this new marketplace has opened up. Competition for acquiring clients and customers has become a lot stiffer mainly because companies don't just have to compete locally anymore but globally. It's the new global economy.
With competition so fierce many companies and businesses will offer a premium reward for anyone who can acquire or find clients/customers for their company's products and services. Many will even offer residual income for as long as the client or account stays with that company.
Enter the Affiliate Marketer: You!
Affiliate marketing is tailor made for the Internet. Millions of webmasters have millions of sites attracting millions of visitors each day. These sites relate to a particular niche or subject matter that attract targeted visitors interested in the same topic. All any webmaster has to do is join an affiliate program related to their site's topic and promote this affiliate company or business to their visitors.
Just connect the Dots.
The smart webmaster or online marketer will only seek out affiliate programs or companies which will give them residual payments for finding clients or accounts for those company's services or products. This marketing strategy has proven very lucrative for those webmasters/marketers who are taking advantage of these residual revenue streams.
Here are some pointers on how to make this strategy work to your advantage.
* Affiliate Networks. Use very reputable Affiliate Networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, ShareaSale... these programs offer a whole range of Top 500 companies that you can promote. I find CJ and LinkShare to be extremely reliable, with excellent tracking and prompt payment.
* Private Deals. However, the most lucrative rewards and residual income can come with private or individual deals you make with a particular company. My experience, if you manage to attain top rankings for the top keywords in a particular industry these companies will come to you with a private deal. Your job is to acquire or find clients/accounts for that company and receive a commission or percentage of all revenue this client generates for the life of that account.
* Smaller Companies. Sometimes it is the smaller less known company in your particular industry or niche that will offer the best deal. It may be harder to promote a lesser known company but the rewards may even be greater.
* Cookies. Keep in mind, another version of residual income is the good old cookie; you refer a customer to a company and this customer is cookied with your affiliate id... any sales made from your cookied referral will earn you money. Check the length of these cookies, some are 24 hours, 90 days... the longer the better. I seek out companies which give life-long cookies, they are rare but they do exist!
* Major Point: The key to picking the best affiliate programs for residual income is picking companies that offer services like web hosting, phone services, cable services, marketing services... anything that people sign-up for and then rarely change. This will earn you a monthly commission for as long as they use this service. I am presently earning commissions on sales I made 4 or 5 years ago.
* Use PPC. Pay Per Click advertising can be a very effective way of kick-starting your residual income if you know what you're doing. This form of advertising can get very costly very quickly so proceed with caution. I found even with a low conversion rate and a high cost per click charge you can bid higher with a residual income affiliate program because it is not a one time sale. You can afford to outbid your competition, but don't try for the number one position; I have found the best place to have your PPC ad is in the third spot.
* Never Put All Your Eggs In One Basket. Don't just promote one affiliate company or service, instead spread your marketing over difference services and companies to earn multiple streams of residual income from different sources. If one should dry up, you will have plenty of others to rely on. Besides, getting 10 or 20 monthly checks will always put a smile on your face. Trust me!
Of course, there are many more factors involved in producing a full time residual online income but these points will help get you started in the right direction. Don't get the wrong impression, this income won't just suddenly appear, you do have to do some hard work marketing and promoting your chosen affiliate companies or services to make the initial sales. But the rewards are very sweet, and they just keep coming and coming and coming...
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The author is a full time Internet Marketer with numerous sites on the web, including two niche sites on Internet Marketing. His main site is Internet Marketing Tools For the latest and most effective marketing tools to boost your online marketing try: Marketing Tool Guide Copyright 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed with this resource box attached.
