Does free advertising work for sponsoring affiliates?

1. Free advertising depends on what your advertising. To be truly effective in your FREE advertising campaigns you have to understand the resource, and its target market. Many people fail in the case of free advertising, because they do not take the time to understand how to target their market. Team member ads require different advertising resources, than Health products, and so on. You also have to understand the medium whether its social networks, blog posting, email marketing, and how to reach the right people. Your ad, will start targeting the right people, if you do the research first. Need signups, go where there are people looking for work. Need customers, go where there are groups of people that deal with the same issues..health, collecting, business tools... and so on. Understand how your customer or prospect will come to you, and work from there. Your first campaign, is always the toughest. The rest get easier, if you pay attention to what happened to the first. 

2. Free advertising does work, but where paid advertising costs you money, free advertising costs you time. Whether you choose classified ads, article marketing, or some other free marketing technique, you need to be prepared to spend several hours each week on this task. It will require more patience than paid advertising, but for those that have little cash to invest, this option will still allow you to build your business without breaking the bank.

3. Yes it does! I have been using all FREE advertising (with a share of my sponsors team co op) and I get about 50/50 with it. It does take more work with doing the searches for sites to advertise on, and setting up a trash email acct (a must for the amount of email generated). I place 3-5 ads minimum per day and let the ads run until they are not producing anymore. In 3 months I have 61 affiliates this way. I have a couple that are actually working their businesses. This does not include the Team Co op I have run a few times. So my answer is YES! It works! 

Yes, Free advertising does work in attracting new affiliates to SFI. Having said that... the "Free affiliates" retention rate may be a little lower than "paid affiliate" retention rate due to a higher number of "easy money" hunters looking for free money.

Do I need to have a website or my own blog to be successful with SFI?

Short and simple... no, you don't. But while they are not necessary, they can certainly help. 

Both types of sites have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Static Website 
Pros: relatively easy to setup and maintain 
Cons: harder to get listed in the search engines 
Primary uses: many use what is known as a static squeeze page. A squeeze page is designed to entice your site visitors into providing you with their contact details, thereby adding them to your mailing list. This list, most times, is loaded into your autoresponder account so that your list members receive timely, regular emails. You also have the option of mailing your list directly. Another use for static sites is to create a series of minisites, each one geared to a different aspect of SFI or focusing on a specific product on TripleClicks. 

Blog Site 
Pros: easy to get listed in the search engines, so long as you are providing unique, valuable content 
Cons: time consuming, unless you hire a freelance blog writer; then your main disadvantage is the added cost 

Primary uses: blogs are a great way to open up discussions on topics that are not only of interest to you, but also that you have knowledge to share; by providing useful content that is unique, then your blog can get picked up by the various search engines and you have the potential to build a relatively large base of followers who are interested in the content you are providing; once you have them engaged and have earned their trust, then they are naturally curious to know more about you and what you do 

How is communication best utilized to create robust duplication?

In SFI "duplication" is the action of generating a certain number of PSAs in your downline and teaching them to do the same. 
For example: acquire 5 active PSAs, who you then teach to acquire 5 each of their 
own active PSAs and so on ( up to 12 levels in SFI). 
Each must build their own team to succeed in generating a long 
term residual income. 

The idea is they will follow your lead with your support. 

-Your actions and progress in SFI carries the greatest influence on your downline. 
-You must be willing to teach duplicating methods, advertising, sales and so on 
in your daily/weekly communication with your team is very important. 
-Focus can be enhanced by using a reward system for sign up goals. 
-Consistent recognition of their progress is a moral builder. 
-You may try a freelance reward system based on progress for your 
individual achievers. 
-Use contests to keep them motivated and on target. 
-Encourage goal setting. 

Your ability to monitor your team and follow up with relevant information and 
tools to assist them in their business is key to everyone's success. 

Keep your Leadership Page up to date with tools and articles. 
 

To get your downline to focus on duplication, as a Team Leader you must have established a good relationship with them. Building a close relationship will take time. This can be in the form of group support message, promotion/incentive and recognition. Constant communication with your downline is very vital to build this kind of close relationship. If you have shown to them that you are there for them in their journey with SFI, then they will most likely listen to your tips and advice. 

By displaying your badges like, as a top enroller, S-Builder Co-op, Power Rank, etc. on your Leadership page, you are leading a good example to them. 

You can explain to them that they will be able to achieve the highest Team Leader, a PTL as they continue to step up their sponsoring consistently, keeping in mind the guidelines in “Be an Awesome Sponsor”. Let them know that by giving back to invest some of your SFI earnings in the form of promotions and incentives (Gift Certificate or TCredits) in helping them, you are performing duplication.

 The point to stress is that every business needs workers to take care of everyday tasks. So, also their business at SFI needs workers to do the daily tasks at hand and on a daily basis. 

Stress the fact that without their own downline, they will be like a small boat struggling in a high storm, being tossed about. 

You could also suggest to them to opt in to S-Builder, have a Standing Order and in general keep doing the daily tasks every day. I would suggest to them that they go over all the training that Gery has provided in SFI and not to just read it but to learn it. 

Going over the Launchpad would also help a great deal. 

They could start with family and friends, who are easier to chat to about SFI, and from there they can gain the confidence to speak to neighbors and work colleagues. 

Get them to send out E-Cards, post fliers, or send emails to only people that they know. There are many places where one can advertise for free as well.

What long-term goal(s) should an affiliate be setting for themselves?

Goals are inspirations and guide posts that can serve as guide as you progress in your SFI journey. Example, if you will be happy with $2,000 income per month then make it a goal. If buying a new car is what will make you happy then earn the price of the new car. So, what will make us happy and satisfied is a worthwhile goal. 

Our long term goals is something that will give us satisfaction and will make you happy, therefore it will differ from person to person. 


Now what is important is how to reach that goal. Usually, our goals here at SFI can be translated into monetary form. We should therefore disect the factors that will lead us to earn our goal. 

Here at SFI there are three major success factors that we can translate our monetary goal to each of these factors. 
1. Active affiliates - Active affiliates are the once that will give us income and build our organization. We need at least 5 to 10 active affiliates to start the explosion of our business. But in reality, only 1 to 5 percent of our total affiliate might become active. so therefore we make it a goal to have 500 to 1000 PSA's. 

2. Personally Earned VP - This will give us the rank that will enable us to partake in the executive pool. Each of the rank has its corresponding VP needed. So, make it a goal to earn those points as your active affiliates starts to increase. 

3. Duplication - Make it a goal to spend time to your enthusiastic affiliates to the point that he is doing exactly what you are doing. 

So we create a chain of goals from goals of satisfaction and happiness to monetary goals then to success factors goals. 

ALSO
Long term goals are going to be as individual to each affiliates. When we each signed on to SFI we were asked what our #1 goal was for joining. I have seen affiliates answers vary from “to get out of debt” and everything in between “to be rich.” The thing we need to remember is SFI is an international company, where affiliates come from a vast array of different cultures, economic background and needs. Therefore, their long term goals will be individual to them. 

However, there are some basic goals in SFI which will help affiliates to grow within SFI. Goals we are reminded of through the forum and other ASK SC answers. These goals/tasks are the daily log-in to complete the tasks of reading the tabs, which help us learn about SFI and become familiar with the workings and “how to” of SFI. Then there are the monthly goals we can set, which is one of the daily tabs we review to help us keep on track with our goals. These monthly goals can help us to learn how to do advertising to bring new affiliates, who in turn will help us to build our teams and grow our own SFI business, along with advertising TripleClicks. 

Through the monthly tab, we see our long term goals listed that we set when we signed up wit SFI, which we can always adjust. Goals are fluid. We can adjust goals as needed. As we work on a goals we may find it is not exactly what we need to work on, but there is a more appropriate goal we should work towards. It is okay to set or reset our goals. Another thing about our goals is the time limit we set may have been to lenient or strict. This is a benefit of goal setting. We can learn from them. This is what I mean by goals are fluid; they are adjustable. Sometimes we need to give ourselves more or less time on a goal. 

It is important to review our goals, see where we might need to adjust them and reset our goals which will help us reach our long term goals. The importance of the daily, weekly and monthly goals are to help us reach our long term goals. They are not separate from our long term goals. They should all be working together to help reach our #1 goal for joining SFI. 

Another important thing to remember about goals: They can be helpful or hurtful, depending how we use them. Goals are to help us accomplish our desires, NOT to beat us done when we failed to reach them. We should never feel we have failed when we do not reach our goals. We should use it as a learning time and build from it. 

So, now that I have written a lecture, I will return to your question once more. The long term goal being set by an affiliate will be as individual as each affiliate is individual. You need to decide what it is you want, where you want to go with your SFI business and how you will determine to get there, then set your goals. It is your long term goals you should set first, then break them down into the smaller goals of yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. But remember, we can always change our goals, including our long term goals, because our needs and desires will change.

What ads have been the most effective for you in sponsoring quality affiliates?

(1) Banners in various sizes and purposes 
(2) Text ads in simple and powerful words 
(3) Splash landing page designs used in our SFI gateway links etc. 

In addition, there are so many key words suggestions in ASK SC and Forum sections for text ads which can be modified by your own imagination and communication skills. 

Where do you use the above to get the most effective results? 

(A) Internet blog or cafe in local language and/or in English as well 
(B) Facebook or Twitter - our profile section with relevant size of SFI banner 
(C) In traffic exchange sites (manual and auto) 
(D) In free credit based email marketing on safelist sites 
(E) PTC sites with cheaper ads costs etc. 

Actually I have done nearly everything of the above during the past 5 monthS since I joined SFI, in addition to the purchases of PSAs from TripleClicks, it's like a lottery to find some good active results. However, my best results of active members up to now came from my local language blog visitors, for whom I just provided with banners and relevant honest information about SFI in a form of some simple clear articles, quite driven by the original wordings given to me by SFI. 

You will find a lot of differing opinions with your question. Do not be alarmed. 
What you must do is take it all in and decide what will work best for you. 

I started out using the standard proven text ads and banners provided by SFI. 
Most of which very well. 
I think the best successful ads are the ones you have fine tuned to your target market. 
You must pick your market first. Then prepare your own ads. 
Study the ads provided by SFI. Study the ads you come across as you are 
searching classified advertising sites, traffic exchanges, listing sites. 
Join a few Facebook Internet Marketing Fan pages. 
Open a Twitter account and follow fellow marketers. 
Do not forget Pinterest and Video possibilities. 
All will provide access to various target markets. 

You need to try them all to find what works best for you. 

Keywords are another special ingredient to a successful ad campaign. 
There is another ASK SC question and good answers with regard to Keywords. 
It would be a good read. 

Still I am trying to find out which one will be best suited for me in terms of my time, energy and cost. It's going to be a never ending interesting & challenging game, I think!