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In this issue:

1) Tip of the Week

2) FEATURE ARTICLE: Affiliate Programs-The "Secret" To Internet Marketing by Joe Haedrich

3) Classifieds

4) FREE Resources

5) MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGE: Let Some of the Pressure Out of Your Life by Bill Hodges

"Tip of the Week"

Web Cards

If you market any or all of your services via a website, web cards is a very inexpensive and creative way advertise your business. Web Cards, Inc. specializes in internet marketing, and Web Cards are low-cost, full-color, offset-printed postcards with an image of your home page on one side and a custom message on the other. Prices start at $95 for 500 cards. The back of the postcard can be printed with any content you choose. There are hundreds of ways to use web cards -- For example, a professional speaker can list their top ten speaking topics on the back. A bed and breakfast owner recently gave postcards with a "$50 Off!" sticker on them to customers who can mail the card to their friends. A business consultant uses the back to promote his products for sale and then mails the postcard to prospects. WebCards are far less expensive to create and to mail than a fancy brochure, and can be just as, or more effective.

To learn about lots of creative ways to use webcards or unique ways to market services and products over the internet, email Azriela Jaffe, editor of the Keeping in Touch newsletter, which is a free online newsletter sponsored by Web Cards. (az@azriela.com) If you'd like more info about web cards, and would like to receive some sample cards, email Joe Haedrich at joe@printing.com, and tell him that azriela referred you or call 800-352-2333. You'll find Joe and his staff to be very concerned about offering you superlative customer service and good value for your money.

FEATURE ARTICLE

Affiliate Programs-The "Secret" To Internet Marketing

by Joe Haedrich President, Web Cards, Inc.

Affiliate Programs are partnerships in which on-line marketers pay a commission for the business they receive from Websites who send customers their way. One has only to look at the success of Amazon.com, which recently announced that it had 60,000 affiliates and was adding 500 per day, to see that affiliate programs are booming. CD Now, Barnes & Noble, TechWave and many leading on-line retailers have discovered the value of these programs.

My experience at Web Cards, http://www.printing.com, has convinced me that affiliate programs are as close as we have come yet to the "secret" of successful on-line marketing. We now have more than 700 affiliates and are adding new ones at the rate of approximately 200 per month. Our affiliates bring us more than 100 leads per day which account for more than half of our new clients.

The simplest model for affiliate programs is "pay per click" on a banner which means the site owner is paying for a "visitor". If her experience is that 1 out of every 100 visitors buys a product and that purchase results in a $5 profit, then she can pay .05 cents per click through ($5 per 100 visitors) to break even on the sale--hoping that she will make money when the customer comes back to make another purchase or recommends her site to a friend who buys. This system is popular with adult oriented sites but has gotten a bad reputation not only because of the content but also because there has been so much bad "rap" on discussion groups about sites who don't pay their affiliates.

A more sophisticated version of "pay per click" is "pay per lead" which we use at Web Cards. This system offers a higher "bounty"--in our case $1--for each person who clicks on a banner and then fills out a form requesting samples--essentially generating a "lead". As with many purchases, our customers don't usually buy when first discovering our site. In fact, it can be months after getting samples, our newsletter and several of our promotional Webcards in the regular mail before they eventually buy. We have enough experience knowing what percentage of these "leads" will buy to know how much we can afford to pay for them.

Probably the most popular type of affiliate program is the commission one used by Amazon which pays a sliding rate depending on the type of book purchased and can range from 5-15%. Here the customer clicks on the Amazon button on your site (often after reading about a particular book) and hopefully makes a purchase for which you get a commission. Amazon has received praise for the smooth operation of its program but criticism for capturing future business from the acquired customers without paying commissions. However, in Amazon's defense, it is difficult to continually manage commissions for thousands of affiliates and millions of transactions.

As in many business relationships, most of our referrals come from a small percentage of our affiliates. About 10% of our partners account for 90% of the commissions which can exceed $500 a month for better sites. Some Web Cards affiliates generate new "leads" regularly because they are continuing to attract new visitors to their sites while others generate a burst of traffic initially which trails off after all the "regulars" have found out about the product.

Key to a successful affiliate program is trust. An affiliate must feel that they will not only get paid but also receive the fair amount due them. At Web Cards, we set up a Web page for each affiliate to track their responses real time at any time. When their visitor fills out our form, a credit is immediately added to the affiliate's total at their private Web Page. Other affiliate programs (such as Amazon) notify participants about results regularly by email. We issue checks to all sites due more than $10 in commissions promptly 10 days after the end of the month. (Amazon waits for the total due to reach $100 and pays quarterly). Payments to our foreign affiliates are made by credit card because of the problem of cashing U.S. checks in other countries.

How do you set up an affiliate program? We developed our software internally but the choices are numerous. They range from services that handle the entire process such as Be Free http://www.befree.com which administers the Barnes & Nobel program and costs many thousands of dollars to simple programs such as ClickTrade http://www.clicktrade.com and LinkShare http://www.linkshare.com which you can set up your program on line. A good description of affiliate program software can be found at http://www.associateprograms.com/howto.html.

As we look to the future of our program, we will be adding benefits to create a richer experience for our affiliates and thus more rewarding for us. We will soon put new software on line which pays affiliates both per lead and a commission for sales--helping them share more in our success. We do regular mailings to affiliates suggesting ways to enhance their program. Contests and other incentives are also planned. We have also found that affiliates often turn into customers.

The nature of the Web is that many sites have an almost unlimited amount of potential space for links to affiliates. Many sites also have huge amounts of traffic but little source of revenue. Affiliate programs are an easy way for them to take advantage of their traffic and space by partnering with businesses who sell products on line.

There are several good sources on the Web for further information about affiliate programs. One of the best is James Marciano's Refer It http://www.refer-it.com which lists and rates hundreds of programs. Another good source of information is Allan Gardyne's http://www.associateprograms.com. Mark Welch publishes a list of affiliate programs at http://www.markwelch.com. Another new service is http://www.sitecash.com. The Amazon referral program is spelled out in great detail at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/...ssociates.html.

Web Cards has been growing by more than 25% per month over the past 18 months-much of it thanks to our affiliate program. Setting up the program was only slightly more complex than setting up our Web Site. You can see the details of our program at http://www.printing.com/bannerinstructns.html. Considering the growth of Web Cards, Amazon, CD Now and TechWave, affiliate programs promise to be a key to on-line marketing in the future.

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MOTIVATIONAL MESSAGE

LET SOME OF THE PRESSURE OUT OF YOUR LIFE

(C)1998 William N Hodges, used by permission.

It has become fashionable to worry about the problem of the environment and the effect discharged chemicals are having on our bodies. But even more deadly than any of the toxins released routinely from factories is an airborne killer that can be found in almost every home or office. It's called stress.

Stress is one of the most deadly forces we have to deal with in our modern life. Pressures continue to mount, and sooner or later we fall victim to what I like to call over-inflation. We swell up and explode. Well, we don't actually burst, but we do become easy prey to a variety of illnesses that can make us feel like we are coming apart. Here are some ways to let some of the pressure out of your life.

1. Look carefully at what is causing the stress in your life, and determine how you can avoid the situation for at least a period of time. Avoidance is not always the best route, but it will give you a breathing space. Take a trip, even if it's just for a couple of hours at the shopping mall or a walk in the park. Better yet, go somewhere you have always wanted to go. When you return, the problem may still be there, but you will be renewed and refreshed in spirit and better able to handle it.

2. Realize that other people are not more perfect than you are, and that many are not as good. Look at the expectations you have for the people you are dealing with. See whether your expectations for them are too high, or if you are asking them to live up to a standard to which they haven't agreed.

3. Build a time to relax into every day. Even a job you enjoy can get you down if you put too much into it. I've had a lot of people tell me, "I really love my work." Then in several years, I've seen them suffering from burn-out, because they put too much of their lives into a single track. Diversify your interests. Make time to have fun.

4. Pressure is bottled up energy. Look for ways to put the energy to use. Within limits, physical activity is an excellent pressure reducer. Seek out chores or tasks that need to be done and require that you expend some energy. Upon completing the task, you will have benefited in two ways-you will have received exercise and you will have a sense of accomplishment for the task you have completed. Each in its own way will reduce stress.

5. Make up your mind to have a great day. That may sound somewhat flippant but, believe it or not, your attitude toward what you expect the day to be has a tremendous effect on how it actually turns out.

Stress is a killer. But if you take the pressure out of it, you can live a long and happy life.

Bill Hodges is nationally recognized speaker, trainer, and columnist. If you enjoyed this article, you will enjoy his book Within Your Reach which contains 60 such articles on positive thinking. If ordering from your local bookstore, reference ISBN #0-9622717-0-5, or you may order directly by sending your check for $4.95 USCurrency plus ($1.30 USA $3.00 Other) for shipping to Hodges Seminars International, P O Box 22 Fairborn OH 45324. Or order by Visa or Mastercharge at his Web site http://www.BillHodges.com

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