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2. Two-tier Affiliate Support
Two tier affiliate support is when affiliates can recruit more affiliates under them, and earn a percentage of their income. A typical two tier affiliate program for an e-product might pay out 50% on
first level and 10% on second level.
Two tier support is important because it allows merchant to provide all of his affiliates with an additional income opportunity in finding more affiliates to join his program. This is essentially giving affiliates an incentive to grow affiliate program, and thus it automates growth. It allows program to organically grow by word of mouth, with every single person involved having an incentive to get more people involved.
Combine two tier support with recurring billing support and we now have a recipe for a passive income that automatically grows each month! Of course this is all predicated on fact that you must have a good product that is worth buying and keeping. Without that, this whole model will just fall apart because sales will not be there to fuel growth and sustain ship.
3. More Payment Options
Any marketer knows that more options you give a customer to pay, more likely he is to be able to pay. This is especially true online. Credit cards are very prevalent in United States, but as we begin to look toward world stage in marketing and selling our products and services online, we must face reality that not everybody has a credit card, nor does everybody want to use their credit card online.
Fortunately, there are a whole host of other payment systems available to people around world, that aren’t plagued with problems and drawbacks of credit cards (which in my opinion are actually a pretty outdated way of conducting business). I could write a whole article about alternate payment systems (and perhaps I will), but for now I’ll say this: anyone who wants to steal Clickbank’s throne needs to add more payment options other than credit cards. These could include: Paypal (and similar), e-gold (and similar), mobile phone payments, mailed-in money orders, and countless others.
And while we’re on subject, let’s talk about how merchants and affiliates receive their payment. In Clickbank’s current incarnation, only way to receive payment for sales or affiliate commissions is by a check in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank, and mailed by regular mail. Talk about an inefficient and antiquated system! A Clickbank replacement needs to be able to pay US publishers by ACH (automatic deposit into bank accounts) such as Commission Junction has been doing for quite some time, and be able to pay foreign publishers by wire-transfer. Alternatively, payment by digital gold currency such as e-gold would also be welcomed and useful to many.
Of course there are many things that need to be done in order to create a better digital marketplace for e-product marketers and publishers. I feel that three things outlined in this article would make a huge difference towards making e-product publishing a larger market worldwide, while at same time providing opportunity to even more people.
These are kind of changes we need to see more of as we move into a more global, and best of all, more profitable future online.
