Ongoing customer use is what creates real residual income in network marketing. The MLM business can generate earnings for a very long time even after initial years of hard work and investment. With a solid network, residual income is assured at each renewal period of a “downline”. If product or service involved in is one that has to be reordered at each renewal period, income should just keep coming in like clock work.

How does difference in affiliate marketing and network marketing translate into in terms of building your customer relationships and your earnings power? In network marketing model, to ensure that your “downlines” renew at each period, you must ensure that you build up a good relationship with them. It is essentially a people-build-people and a leader-build-leader business. The ability to generate huge sums of money is increased exponentially when network grows. The potential to make huge sums of money is thus greater here if you can employ efforts of others to help grow business vis-à-vis affiliate marketing model. In affiliate marketing, your earnings ability is limited by your own direct sales plus an additional of 1, 2 or up to 5 levels of leveraging efforts.

Having described above, it would seem that to maximise your income, it is best to join online network marketing programs as opposed to affiliate programs.

Nope...I don't think that's really case either.

Affiliate marketing is best described as an entry to online network marketing. Affiliate products are easier to sell, likely to involve one rather than an array of products and therefore, less expensive. For instance, an e-book is likely to have an associated affiliate program while access to a membership site of digital products is more likely to pay for recurrent renewals of membership.

In conclusion, there is always no harm in joining different programs whether affiliate or network marketing ones. Just be sure that you understand how you are paid and channel your efforts accordingly. Afterall, your goal is to build multiple sources of income. You have a choice to represent what or which combination of products/programs work best for yourself.

Similar advantages also exist for producing a software product. The difference between producing an e-book and a downloadable software product is that you can charge more for lattar due its higher perceived value and thus earn a higher profit.

6. E-Membership Model In this business model, you create a high quality, content-rich site and charge your members a subscription every month in order to use your site’s resources. This is a good business model to follow as it helps you earn a recurring income. However, you must be able to continually update its content; otherwise, your members have no incentive to stay.

7. E-Professional Services Model Here, you offer your skills to people who are looking for solutions to their problems via internet. For instance, if you are a graphic designer, you can offer to design other people’s websites for a fee. If you intend to freelance, you can always advertise your expertise at http://www.elance.com.

8. E-Zine Model In this model, you are publishing a content rich newsletter for your subscribers in a particular interest group. You either earn revenue from promoting on related products advertised in your newsletter or charging your members a subscription fee.

The models mentioned above depict main ways that you can earn money. However, they are not only ones available. It is good to spend some time analyzing on how you would like to make an online living. Happy hunting!