Referral Marketing - A Powerful Business Tool

Have you ever suggested to a friend that they should go see a movie or try out a new restaurant? Of course, we all have. But, what if the movie theater and the restaurant gave you a portion of their sales that resulted from your referral? Referral marketing is based on just that concept; letting others know about products and services that you have tried and endorse, but then paying you for your efforts to market their products.

Referral marketing can take many forms, from network marketing, where you are an active representative for a company and are paid based on the volume of sales that goes through your business, to what is commonly known as affiliate marketing, where you are driving potential clients to a product and then paid a percentage (sometimes as high as 75% of the sales price) of each sale. There are other examples, but these are the two that I've been involved with and are the most familiar.

For the new person starting out I suggest getting started with affiliate marketing first, as the start up costs are minimal and you can start with a single product, become proficient with marketing techniques and then expand your representation to multiple products (meaning multiple streams of income). Once you have established yourself in affiliate marketing and have steady income coming in, then take a serious look at getting involved in network marketing. With many affiliate programs, you will make a single sale to a customer, but with network marketing you are typically representing products that will be consumed and thus purchased on a regular basis, giving you a serious stream of residual income.

When getting started with affiliate marketing on the internet I suggest that you look at products such as E-Books, video or audio file programs. These are among the hottest products on the net because they can be instantly downloaded once the purchase has been made. Your customer can have the product immediately and put it to work to fix the problem they were looking have solved. These are also among the least returned products being sold over the internet, meaning you have a high likely hood that once a sale has been made you're going to get to spend that commission.

You will be the most successful when you become an affiliate for a product you have used and believe in personally. Remember our opening example of the movie and restaurant. You're most sincere recommendations will come for items you have faith in and it will show through in your marketing efforts.