If you search the internet you’ll find millions of free and also paid online affiliate programs.Most people have signed up in these online affiliate programs and tried to make money from them but failed miserably.They don’t know why.Are you one of them?If yes, read on to find out how to locate the right top affiliate program and how to promote it to start making money.All affiliate programs are not created equal.Some will make you money if properly promoted and others will not, no matter what you do.Why?Below are some reasons why.(1) The Right Affiliate Programs To PromoteMost people are under the mistaken notion that just because an affiliate program is free that they can promote it and get rich.Nothing can be farther away from the truth.The bitter reality is that if an affiliate program is free, then most likely thousands of people will want to sign up to promote it.Since thousands of people are promoting it, competition will be stiff and so the likelihood of getting rich from it will be slim because there will be more people promoting it than people who wish to buy it.When supply is greater than demand, profitability will nose dive.This is economics 101.So stay away from free online affiliate programs which hundreds of thousands of people are already promoting!The best online affiliate program which will likely make you rich will be the one that very few people are promoting and which is in great demand. The demand MUST be greater than supply.Most likely, such an affiliate program will not be offered free!You will have to pay for it to promote it.When people are required to pay to promote an affiliate program, then most people will not sign up for it, so only few people will promote it.This will then guarantee that the demand for it will be greater than the number of people who promote it and this means that the profitability for it will skyrocket.This is the kind of online affiliate program which can make you rich!There are few people online who are getting rich from online affiliate marketing and this is one of their sacred hidden secrets of success!(2) Build Landing Pages For Your Online Affiliate ProgramsYou must create a landing page at your website for any affiliate program which you desire to promote.At the landing page, you will then include a short introduction of the affiliate program, preferably, your own personal experience of using the program or a short review.Then at the bottom, include the link to the affiliate program website.This affiliate program landing page must be optimized also.You may also add Google AdSense ads and other pay per click ads as well as Clickbank products on this page to monetize it.This way, if your customer doesn’t click and go to the affiliate program, they may click on any of the pay per click ads such as AdSense or Clickbankbuddy or pay per click ad and you’ll make money.If you don’t know how to monetize your website with Google Adsense, Clickbankbuddy ads and pay per click products and ads, please contact us for free help.By having a landing page for your affiliate programs at your website, you have the advantage of not losing all the traffic you’ve built up if the affiliate program is stopped.If the affiliate program which you’re promoting is discontinued, you may replace it with another similar affiliate program and continue generating income from it.(3) Secret To Promote Your Online Affiliate ProgramOnline marketing has become more difficult than rocket science.During the past couple of years, most affiliate marketing strategies which used to work 6 yrs ago don’t work anymore.E-mail marketing has been dead for many years now.And the ISPs have added salt to the injury by creating so many filters which filter away your e-mail offers and so they don’t reach their destinations.Besides, most people don’t read their e-mails anymore.Most people have been bombarded by thousands of spams and offers and they just don’t have time to read these offers anymore.So e-mail marketing is completely dead.Free For All, FFA promotion is dead too.Banner advertising is dead too, unless you have thousands of dollars to promote it at highly trafficked sites.Search engine marketing, SEM doesn’t work any more because the search engines are constantly changing their optimization rules.It takes both Google and Yahoo several weeks to even index your page and include it in their system.You may optimize your website properly and attain a top ten position in a few keywords.But they never last long.In a few months when they update their search ranking, all your positions may likely disappear and your traffic will be gone too.You may try to promote through Google Adword campaign.But the truth is that not all programs can succeed in getting traffic from Google Adword or any other pay per click advertising.If you try to promote an online affiliate program, which hundreds of thousands of others are already promoting using Google Adword and pay per click advertising, you’ll end up squandering thousands of dollars! This has happened to many people already.So stop squandering your money in pay per click advertising.
(There is a better way. To learn more contact us for free help.)You may also try to use article writing to promote your affiliate programs.But very few people know the “SECRET” on how to write a highly optimized interesting article which will attain top ranking in the search engines and therefore produce traffic and sales for your online affiliate program.To succeed in doing this, you must know how to optimize the article, it must be interesting and you must post it where many people will read it.If you write and post an article but it can’t be found in the search engines when people search for the affiliate program which you’re promoting and if people are not reading it at the article directories where you posted it, you’ll not generate any traffic or sales!This is what many people are doing and among the TOP reasons why they are not making any money in their online affiliate marketing.(4) Traffic Is The Lifeblood Of Success In Online Affiliate Marketing ProgramThere are so many naïve people who have spent tons of dollars buying internet marketing e-books, programs and videos from so called internet marketing gurus and as if that is not enough, they have been suckered into squandering thousands of dollars attending seminars organized by these so called gurus only to find out that what they are peddling are outdated and archaic internet marketing strategies which don’t work any more.These suckers never to think about the truth.The truth is that no right thinking businessman will sell a secret on how to generate thousands of traffic daily to you for $50, when he knows he can keep his secret, use them to promote hundreds of affiliate programs and make millions.The real truth is that these so called gurus have no secret that really work. But what they have is a large e-mail list which they have built through e-zine and newsletter publishing for many years.So they make their money by marketing their e-books and affiliate programs to these mailing lists.If you have 50,000-100,000 e-mail lists which you have generated over 6 yrs, you’ll always manage to make a few thousands of dollars marketing any program to them especially if it is about internet marketing!In conclusion, there are still a few online affiliate programs which are easy to market and generate obscene income and there are still many jealously guarded traffic generating secrets which work and which can explode your website traffic and sales and so make you rich instantly.But they are not free. They will cost you some money.If you’re ready to pay to sign up in any of these few online affiliate programs, and to get the powerful traffic generating secrets of millionaire webmasters, then you’re serious about getting rich from online affiliate programs.May these insights about affiliate program, best affiliate program, free affiliate program, affiliate marketing program, top affiliate program, free online affiliate program, best free online affiliate program, online affiliate program, make money with affiliate program help you to attain success in your online business.Copyright Info: This article is copyrighted and you may publish this article at your website, in your e-zine (newsletter, blogs) or send it to a friend as long as you retain the author’s resource box, including the website address, and refrain from altering the content or using it in any re-direction manipulation scheme.If you don’t agree to these conditions, please don’t copy and use this article.Anyone who violates this condition will be subject to legal action and payment of damages for violation of our copyrights. Thank you.
Best Affiliate Program – Black Belt Marketing Success Secrets
Best in Class Finance Functions For Police Forces
Background
Police funding has risen by £4.8 billion and 77 per cent (39 per cent in real terms) since 1997. However the days where forces have enjoyed such levels of funding are over.
Chief Constables and senior management recognize that the annual cycle of looking for efficiencies year-on-year is not sustainable, and will not address the cash shortfall in years to come.
Facing slower funding growth and real cash deficits in their budgets, the Police Service must adopt innovative strategies which generate the productivity and efficiency gains needed to deliver high quality policing to the public.
The step-change in performance required to meet this challenge will only be achieved if the police service fully embraces effective resource management and makes efficient and productive use of its technology, partnerships and people.
The finance function has an essential role to play in addressing these challenges and supporting Forces’ objectives economically and efficiently.
Challenge
Police Forces tend to nurture a divisional and departmental culture rather than a corporate one, with individual procurement activities that do not exploit economies of scale. This is in part the result of over a decade of devolving functions from the center to the.divisions.
In order to reduce costs, improve efficiency and mitigate against the threat of “top down” mandatory, centrally-driven initiatives, Police Forces need to set up a corporate back office and induce behavioral change. This change must involve compliance with a corporate culture rather than a series of silos running through the organization.
Developing a Best in Class Finance Function
Traditionally finance functions within Police Forces have focused on transactional processing with only limited support for management information and business decision support. With a renewed focus on efficiencies, there is now a pressing need for finance departments to transform in order to add greater value to the force but with minimal costs.
1) Aligning to Force Strategy
As Police Forces need finance to function, it is imperative that finance and operations are closely aligned. This collaboration can be very powerful and help deliver significant improvements to a Force, but in order to achieve this model, there are many barriers to overcome. Finance Directors must look at whether their Force is ready for this collaboration, but more importantly, they must consider whether the Force itself can survive without it.
Finance requires a clear vision that centers around its role as a balanced business partner. However to achieve this vision a huge effort is required from the bottom up to understand the significant complexity in underlying systems and processes and to devise a way forward that can work for that particular organization.
The success of any change management program is dependent on its execution. Change is difficult and costly to execute correctly, and often, Police Forces lack the relevant experience to achieve such change. Although finance directors are required to hold appropriate professional qualifications (as opposed to being former police officers as was the case a few years ago) many have progressed within the Public Sector with limited opportunities for learning from and interaction with best in class methodologies. In addition cultural issues around self-preservation can present barriers to change.
Whilst it is relatively easy to get the message of finance transformation across, securing commitment to embark on bold change can be tough. Business cases often lack the quality required to drive through change and even where they are of exceptional quality senior police officers often lack the commercial awareness to trust them.
2) Supporting Force Decisions
Many Finance Directors are keen to develop their finance functions. The challenge they face is convincing the rest of the Force that the finance function can add value – by devoting more time and effort to financial analysis and providing senior management with the tools to understand the financial implications of major strategic decisions.
Maintaining Financial Controls and Managing Risk
Sarbanes Oxley, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Basel II and Individual Capital Assessments (ICA) have all put financial controls and reporting under the spotlight in the private sector. This in turn is increasing the spotlight on financial controls in the public sector.
A ‘Best in Class’ Police Force finance function will not just have the minimum controls to meet the regulatory requirements but will evaluate how the legislation and regulations that the finance function are required to comply with, can be leveraged to provide value to the organization. Providing strategic information that will enable the force to meet its objectives is a key task for a leading finance function.
3) Value to the Force
The drive for development over the last decade or so, has moved decision making to the Divisions and has led to an increase in costs in the finance function. Through utilizing a number of initiatives in a program of transformation, a Force can leverage up to 40% of savings on the cost of finance together with improving the responsiveness of finance teams and the quality of financial information. These initiatives include:
Centralization
By centralizing the finance function, a Police Force can create centers of excellence where industry best practice can be developed and shared. This will not only re-empower the department, creating greater independence and objectivity in assessing projects and performance, but also lead to more consistent management information and a higher degree of control. A Police Force can also develop a business partner group to act as strategic liaisons to departments and divisions. The business partners would, for example, advise on how the departmental and divisional commanders can meet the budget in future months instead of merely advising that the budget has been missed for the previous month.
With the mundane number crunching being performed in a shared service center, finance professionals will find they now have time to act as business partners to divisions and departments and focus on the strategic issues.
The cultural impact on the departments and divisional commanders should not be underestimated. Commanders will be concerned that:
o Their budgets will be centralized
o Workloads would increase
o There will be limited access to finance individuals
o There will not be on site support
However, if the centralized shared service center is designed appropriately none of the above should apply. In fact from centralization under a best practice model, leaders should accrue the following benefits:
o Strategic advice provided by business partners
o Increased flexibility
o Improved management information
o Faster transactions
o Reduced number of unresolved queries
o Greater clarity on service and cost of provision
o Forum for finance to be strategically aligned to the needs of the Force
A Force that moves from a de-centralized to a centralized system should try and ensure that the finance function does not lose touch with the Chief Constable and Divisional Commanders. Forces need to have a robust business case for finance transformation combined with a governance structure that spans operational, tactical and strategic requirements. There is a risk that potential benefits of implementing such a change may not be realized if the program is not carefully managed. Investment is needed to create a successful centralized finance function. Typically the future potential benefits of greater visibility and control, consistent processes, standardized management information, economies of scale, long-term cost savings and an empowered group of proud finance professionals, should outweigh those initial costs.
To reduce the commercial, operational and capability risks, the finance functions can be completely outsourced or partially outsourced to third parties. This will provide guaranteed cost benefits and may provide the opportunity to leverage relationships with vendors that provide best practice processes.
Process Efficiencies
Typically for Police Forces the focus on development has developed a silo based culture with disparate processes. As a result significant opportunities exist for standardization and simplification of processes which provide scalability, reduce manual effort and deliver business benefit. From simply rationalizing processes, a force can typically accrue a 40% reduction in the number of processes. An example of this is the use of electronic bank statements instead of using the manual bank statement for bank reconciliation and accounts receivable processes. This would save considerable effort that is involved in analyzing the data, moving the data onto different spreadsheet and inputting the data into the financial systems.
Organizations that possess a silo operating model tend to have significant inefficiencies and duplication in their processes, for example in HR and Payroll. This is largely due to the teams involved meeting their own goals but not aligning to the corporate objectives of an organization. Police Forces have a number of independent teams that are reliant on one another for data with finance in departments, divisions and headquarters sending and receiving information from each other as well as from the rest of the Force. The silo model leads to ineffective data being received by the teams that then have to carry out additional work to obtain the information required.
Whilst the argument for development has been well made in the context of moving decision making closer to operational service delivery, the added cost in terms of resources, duplication and misaligned processes has rarely featured in the debate. In the current financial climate these costs need to be recognized.
Culture
Within transactional processes, a leading finance function will set up targets for staff members on a daily basis. This target setting is an element of the metric based culture that leading finance functions develop. If the appropriate metrics of productivity and quality are applied and when these targets are challenging but not impossible, this is proven to result in improvements to productivity and quality.
A ‘Best in Class’ finance function in Police Forces will have a service focused culture, with the primary objectives of providing a high level of satisfaction for its customers (departments, divisions, employees & suppliers). A ‘Best in Class’ finance function will measure customer satisfaction on a timely basis through a metric based approach. This will be combined with a team wide focus on process improvement, with process owners, that will not necessarily be the team leads, owning force-wide improvement to each of the finance processes.
Organizational Improvements
Organizational structures within Police Forces are typically made up of supervisors leading teams of one to four team members. Through centralizing and consolidating the finance function, an opportunity exists to increase the span of control to best practice levels of 6 to 8 team members to one team lead / supervisor. By adjusting the organizational structure and increasing the span of control, Police Forces can accrue significant cashable benefit from a reduction in the number of team leads and team leads can accrue better management experience from managing larger teams.
Technology Enabled Improvements
There are a significant number of technology improvements that a Police Force could implement to help develop a ‘Best in Class’ finance function.
These include:
A) Scanning and workflow
Through adopting a scanning and workflow solution to replace manual processes, improved visibility, transparency and efficiencies can be reaped.
B) Call logging, tracking and workflow tool
Police Forces generally have a number of individuals responding to internal and supplier queries. These queries are neither logged nor tracked. The consequence of this is dual:
o Queries consume considerable effort within a particular finance team. There is a high risk of duplicated effort from the lack of logging of queries. For example, a query could be responded to for 30 minutes by person A in the finance team. Due to this query not being logged, if the individual that raised the query called up again and spoke to a different person then just for one additional question, this could take up to 20 minutes to ensure that the background was appropriately explained.
o Queries can have numerous interfaces with the business. An unresolved query can be responded against by up to four separate teams with considerable delay in providing a clear answer for the supplier.
The implementation of a call logging, tracking and workflow tool to document, measure and close internal and supplier queries combined with the set up of a central queries team, would significantly reduce the effort involved in responding to queries within the finance departments and divisions, as well as within the actual divisions and departments, and procurement.
C) Database solution
Throughout finance departments there are a significant number of spreadsheets utilized prior to input into the financial system. There is a tendency to transfer information manually from one spreadsheet to another to meet the needs of different teams.
Replacing the spreadsheets with a database solution would rationalize the number of inputs and lead to effort savings for the front line Police Officers as well as Police Staff.
D) Customize reports
In obtaining management information from the financial systems, police staff run a series of reports, import these into excel, use lookups to match the data and implement pivots to illustrate the data as required. There is significant manual effort that is involved in carrying out this work. Through customizing reports the outputs from the financial system can be set up to provide the data in the formats required through the click of a button. This would have the benefit of reduced effort and improved motivation for team members that previously carried out these mundane tasks.
In designing, procuring and implementing new technology enabling tools, a Police Force will face a number of challenges including investment approval; IT capacity; capability; and procurement.
These challenges can be mitigated through partnering with a third party service company with whom the investment can be shared, the skills can be provided and the procurement cycle can be minimized.
Conclusion
It is clear that cultural, process and technology change is required if police forces are to deliver both sustainable efficiencies and high quality services. In an environment where for the first time forces face real cash deficits and face having to reduce police officer and support staff numbers whilst maintaining current performance levels the current finance delivery models requires new thinking.
While there a number of barriers to be overcome in achieving a best in class finance function, it won’t be long before such a decision becomes mandatory. Those who are ahead of the curve will inevitably find themselves in a stronger position.
SPDN: An Inexpensive Way To Profit When The S&P 500 Falls
Summary
SPDN is not the largest or oldest way to short the S&P 500, but it’s a solid choice.
This ETF uses a variety of financial instruments to target a return opposite that of the S&P 500 Index.
SPDN’s 0.49% Expense Ratio is nearly half that of the larger, longer-tenured -1x Inverse S&P 500 ETF.
Details aside, the potential continuation of the equity bear market makes single-inverse ETFs an investment segment investor should be familiar with.
We rate SPDN a Strong Buy because we believe the risks of a continued bear market greatly outweigh the possibility of a quick return to a bull market.
Put a gear stick into R position, (Reverse).
Birdlkportfolio
By Rob Isbitts
Summary
The S&P 500 is in a bear market, and we don’t see a quick-fix. Many investors assume the only way to navigate a potentially long-term bear market is to hide in cash, day-trade or “just hang in there” while the bear takes their retirement nest egg.
The Direxion Daily S&P 500® Bear 1X ETF (NYSEARCA:SPDN) is one of a class of single-inverse ETFs that allow investors to profit from down moves in the stock market.
SPDN is an unleveraged, liquid, low-cost way to either try to hedge an equity portfolio, profit from a decline in the S&P 500, or both. We rate it a Strong Buy, given our concern about the intermediate-term outlook for the global equity market.
Strategy
SPDN keeps it simple. If the S&P 500 goes up by X%, it should go down by X%. The opposite is also expected.
Proprietary ETF Grades
Offense/Defense: Defense
Segment: Inverse Equity
Sub-Segment: Inverse S&P 500
Correlation (vs. S&P 500): Very High (inverse)
Expected Volatility (vs. S&P 500): Similar (but opposite)
Holding Analysis
SPDN does not rely on shorting individual stocks in the S&P 500. Instead, the managers typically use a combination of futures, swaps and other derivative instruments to create a portfolio that consistently aims to deliver the opposite of what the S&P 500 does.
Strengths
SPDN is a fairly “no-frills” way to do what many investors probably wished they could do during the first 9 months of 2022 and in past bear markets: find something that goes up when the “market” goes down. After all, bonds are not the answer they used to be, commodities like gold have, shall we say, lost their luster. And moving to cash creates the issue of making two correct timing decisions, when to get in and when to get out. SPDN and its single-inverse ETF brethren offer a liquid tool to use in a variety of ways, depending on what a particular investor wants to achieve.
Weaknesses
The weakness of any inverse ETF is that it does the opposite of what the market does, when the market goes up. So, even in bear markets when the broader market trend is down, sharp bear market rallies (or any rallies for that matter) in the S&P 500 will cause SPDN to drop as much as the market goes up.
Opportunities
While inverse ETFs have a reputation in some circles as nothing more than day-trading vehicles, our own experience with them is, pardon the pun, exactly the opposite! We encourage investors to try to better-understand single inverse ETFs like SPDN. While traders tend to gravitate to leveraged inverse ETFs (which actually are day-trading tools), we believe that in an extended bear market, SPDN and its ilk could be a game-saver for many portfolios.
Threats
SPDN and most other single inverse ETFs are vulnerable to a sustained rise in the price of the index it aims to deliver the inverse of. But that threat of loss in a rising market means that when an investor considers SPDN, they should also have a game plan for how and when they will deploy this unique portfolio weapon.
Proprietary Technical Ratings
Short-Term Rating (next 3 months): Strong Buy
Long-Term Rating (next 12 months): Buy
Conclusions
ETF Quality Opinion
SPDN does what it aims to do, and has done so for over 6 years now. For a while, it was largely-ignored, given the existence of a similar ETF that has been around much longer. But the more tenured SPDN has become, the more attractive it looks as an alternative.
ETF Investment Opinion
SPDN is rated Strong Buy because the S&P 500 continues to look as vulnerable to further decline. And, while the market bottomed in mid-June, rallied, then waffled since that time, our proprietary macro market indicators all point to much greater risk of a major decline from this level than a fast return to bull market glory. Thus, SPDN is at best a way to exploit and attack the bear, and at worst a hedge on an otherwise equity-laden portfolio.