Here's the thing. If we were to tell our affiliates to advertise at "Website XYZ," that Website would instantly and immediately be reduced to no value for anyone. Like a good fishing hole, if everyone fishes there, there will no longer be any fish to catch for anyone. Hence, we simply cannot recommend specific places to advertise.
That said, here are a some tips for finding good advertising sources:
1. First, we suggest you stop by the SFI Forum. There, you can ask fellow SFI affiliates questions, brainstorm, and share ideas about all aspects of running a successful SFI business, including effective advertising and marketing tips, strategies, and resources. Be sure to access the Marketing and Sales sub-forums in particular for specific advertising advice and help.
2. Next, there are BILLIONS of Websites and blogs on the Internet. Use a search engine like Google to find Websites and blogs that interest you. Now start surfing. When you find one you like and/or that you know has a good amount of traffic, contact the Webmaster (there's usually a "Contact Us" link in the footer or header of most sites) and ask about advertising on their site. You might be shocked at how cheap you can get banners on some fairly high traffic sites.
Also, don't be surprised if some of the Websites you start advertising on decide to become affiliates themselves (sponsored by you of course). Each time this happens, you will have just created FREE (which is even better than cheap) advertising for your business!
IMPORTANT! Do NOT broach the topic of them joining SFI initially or they will consider your contact to actually be SPAM and they will probably report you as a spammer. Get your ad on their site first. Later, you can start dropping a few hints (e.g. "By the way, you might want to consider allowing me to sponsor you in SFI. It's free to join, but I can show you how you can earn about $60 a year on each person who signs up from your Website."). You can have them sign up immediately under you by clicking on your banner on their Website. Over time, you could have dozens or even hundreds of popular Websites carrying your banner ads for FREE—generating a commission check that grows and grows every month.
3. Think newsletters! Hundreds of thousands of Websites publish newsletters that they send to their subscribers daily, weekly, or monthly. Many Websites feature a newsletter signup link on their homepages. When you find one, contact the Webmaster and ask if they will run an ad for you in their newsletter.
Here again, you may be amazed at how cheap newsletter advertising can be, and yet many of these newsletters have a large and dedicated readership. That is, they have a LOT of subscribers, and their subscribers carefully read every issue of the newsletter (including your ad).
For sample ads you can use to attract new SFI affiliates or to refer new customers, see the SFI Marketing Center.
Or, if you're a Gold Builder or above, you can submit your own ads at:
https://www.sfimg.com/Input/SubmitAd
By the way, just as the first strategy created FREE Website advertising for you, so too can this create FREE newsletter advertising for you. Just remember to be patient in soliciting the newsletter publishers. Start running your ads BEFORE you ever bring up joining SFI, and when you do, do it tactfully. If they see it, they'll get involved. If they don't, that's OK too.
Here are a couple more tips related to newsletter advertising:
• Generally, you'll get a much better rate by agreeing to run your ad in multiple issues as opposed to just one issue. Be sure to check on this. Running an ad multiple times is also important because most people dismiss an ad the first time they see it. It may take five to seven exposures before the reader decides you must be legit or you wouldn't keep advertising and actually inquires.
• If the newsletter doesn't accept advertising, ask if you could "sponsor" the newsletter. That is, at the top or bottom of every issue, it would say something like:
Southwest Garden Tips Newsletter is sponsored by
SFI
200 Countries. 24/7 Income.™
<Your /free Gateway URL here>
4. What about OFFLINE advertising sources? Because SFI is so rooted in online marketing, many affiliates never consider offline advertising. The fact is, there are huge opportunities for successful offline promotions still out there as evidenced by the continued onslaught of direct mail pieces in your mailbox, billboards, radio ads, etc.
Now, unless you're highly experienced in the field of advertising, I do NOT recommend newspaper ads or advertising on radio or TV. A possible exception would be if you were doing it as a co-op and sharing the costs with several other SFI team members. Even as a co-op though, I advise proceeding very carefully in this area as the risks are high. That is, you could put out a large amount of money and get very, very little return.
What DOES work offline is classified ads in magazines. There are tens of thousands of magazines. Many of them have a classified ads section. And many even have a Business Opportunities section. Not only that, but rates are often quite reasonable.
What magazines might you try? I won't suggest specific titles, but there are, no doubt, thousands of titles that will probably pull for you. The only way too know for certain what will work and what won't is to actually test them by running an ad.
For sample ads you can use to attract new SFI affiliates or to refer new customers, see the SFI Marketing Center.
That said, here's one good piece of advice to keep in mind. To use another fishing analogy, "fish where the fish are biting." In other words, if you see a publication that has business opportunity ads in it, it's probably working for them and probably will so also for you. You can confirm these even further by looking through back issues (people generally don't run the same ads repeatedly if they're not getting results).
Of course, the opposite COULD be true, too. In other words, If there are no biz opp ads, you may want to avoid the publication. However, again, the only way to know for sure if a source will work is to test it.
One more thing to keep in mind: What we've found in offline advertising in the last few years is that you will often not get great QUANTITY, but the QUALITY is excellent. That is, the people you get from offline advertising will generally be much more responsive and active affiliates.
Q: Can I use these strategies and advertising sources for co-ops?
You absolutely can and should! This is, in my opinion, THE best way to build a growing SFI business. It's a win/win for you and your SFI team members.
And if you're at least a Silver Builder, you can use SFI's Co-op Manager to set up and maintain your ad co-ops at no cost to you! SFI does all the heavy lifting. All you have to do is set up your co-ops and place the ads. Just give the URL for each ad that you place a key code that corresponds to your co-op.
Example: You and nine team members put in $50 each for a classified ad that runs for three months in Money World Magazine. The URL you use in the ad (for readers to sign up at) is your basic /free Gateway plus the key code 123. You've set up a co-op with your nine team members for key code 123. Each time a signup is generated over the next few months from this key code, you or one of your nine team members will be automatically assigned as the sponsor (the Co-op Manager rotates all signups equally so that each of the the ten co-op participants get basically every 10th signup).
To learn more about the SFI Co-op Manager, see this page.