Author : Alex Goad
Incentivized marketing refers to the practice of creating forced leads by offering incentives to visitors to sign up to third party offers. The variety of sites applying this principle grows daily. It all started not so long ago with condoms, t-shirts, trinkets… Today, offerings are much larger and more appealing, ranging from the over represented Ipod, to new generation gaming consoles, to merchandise worth thousands of dollars, such as large screen plasma televisions.One of the pioneers of the system, and also amongst the greatest beneficiaries of this new way of marketing has been Gratis Internet, who racked up earnings around the $20 million dollar mark just last year. Dozens have followed suit. Several of these have met with huge profits, opportunistically joining the gold rush at the right time. As these juggernauts battled it out, fair play began to dwindle in the face of greed, as is nearly always the case.While some companies have resisted the temptation of padding profit margins through questionable practices, many have also been willing to sacrifice any semblance of fair game in their quest for earnings. In this case, the goodwill of participants is being squandered as a natural resource. An un-renewable one.It used to be that the name of the game was sign up, fill this or that offer, receive a small incentive. So far so good. Escalation brought offer requirements up to compensate for larger gifts or payouts, and in marched the special conditions. It became a lot harder to claim the gifts that are touted as free. Only fair, considering the price of these often reached the hundreds of dollars. It wasn't long before many large players broke this multi-lateral logic, replacing it with a simpler and well hidden unilateral one, making more money at any cost.How do you give away a 42 inch plasma screen in exchange for a customer completing a number of sponsored offers that generates under $500 in commissions? You don't. You include outlandish conditions or unattainable ones, buried deeply, in tiny print somewhere at the bottom of your oft neglected terms and conditions. Goodwill is not reciprocated but consumed, as trust slowly leaks out like oil from a faulty motor.Fortunately, such blatantly treacherous performances create the opportunity for well-minded individuals and companies to shine through with their ethics and create a loyal following. This takes time, as consumers tend to go for the most immediately appealing proposition first before either withdrawing in disgust or finding at more trustworthy source for their freebies.Jad Bitar, founder of www.myeasyscripts.com, one of the top providers of scripts to incentivized marketing sites has identified a trend that allows marketers to build this base of users: "Start with a small easily fulfilled gift, help your customers receive it, make it easy instead of hard. Go for trust above all else. It will pay off, as customers submit testimonials and pictures which slowly but surely draw users into a system that has proven that it can deliver on its promises while making marketers what they ultimately seek: profit."Alex Goad is an incentivized marketing expert, specializing in affiliate marketing through forced leads.
Keyword : Incentivized marketing, affiliate marketing, online marketing, internet marketing
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