Many people misunderstand Affiliate Marketing with Network Marketing. Both of them are good ways to earn some extra income. There are some similarities and differences at the same time on how both of the business models work. Unlike Network Marketing, which is also known as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), affiliate marketing schemes are free to join and would not require you to recruit any members into a network. That is the main difference between affiliate marketing and network marketing. In this post, we will explain how both marketing models work, their differences, and their advantages.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is the activity of earning a commission by promoting, marketing, and selling other company’s products. In modern Affiliate Marketing, marketers provide banners, send emails, and website links to people to attract customers to buy the products. The marketers or the affiliates will get commissions and bonuses for the sales they have made. Many companies and brands provide affiliate programs nowadays that anyone can join them. You just have to find a product or brand you like, promote it to others, and earn a percentage amount of the profit for each sale that you make. It’s just as simple as that.
Advantages
- Choose Products you like
The main advantage of Affiliate Marketing is the freedom you have in choosing the products or brands. You can pick the products that you are interested in and are familiar with, this way you will be able to promote the products more effectively to the consumers.
- No joining cost
While Network Marketing requires you to pay a joining fee or purchase product kits upon registration, Affiliate programs are free to join. So there will be no startup cost.
- Freedom
Affiliate marketing provides you complete control over the marketing and sales activities. You can plan and use a wide range of marketing methods and strategies to sell the products.
Network Marketing
Network Marketing or MLM is the activity of selling the company’s products directly to the end-customers. It also involves recruiting other members, known as downlines, to build up the network in order to generate more sales. The distributors can earn commission and bonuses from their efforts of both selling and recruitment.
Advantages
- Extra Income
Apart from selling products, Network Marketing provides you with earning opportunities through members recruitment as well. So you can earn from both selling and recruitment activities.
- Teamwork
In-Network Marketing, other members of the network can support and encourage you with sales activities. Everyone in the network usually works as a team so that all members can share the benefits
- Business Freedom
Once you have recruited enough or required a number of downline members into the network, you can earn from those downlines’ sales and recruitment activities even if you do nothing.
Which should you choose?
Both Affiliate Marketing and Network Marketing have their own advantages. So, it depends on what you like to do, how you like to do it, and what your goals are. If you want to work with a company and a group of people while sharing benefits, then you can choose Network Marketing or MLM. If you just want to make sales by yourself, earn a commission, and be done with it, then you can go for an Affiliate Marketing program.
Whether you want to join an MLM business or Affiliate business, you can get better results with a good MLM software or an affiliate marketing software. So before joining, it’s important to check that the company you wish to join uses the best software for managing the business and their activities.
