The much talked about QR Codes have proven to be an excellent and power marketing tool in the digital space. It not only opens doors to creativity, but it is also extremely effective considering the number of people that are now moving on using smart phones.

The reason behind its reigning popularity is because of its reach and also because it is among the simplest codes to create. It is essentially designed on the principal of bar codes and can contain much more information than the conventional bar code.

These codes have the capabilities to link users to large amounts of contents and URLs for the sake of effective marketing communication.

Many brands around the world are using QR codes fully fledged and have found it to be an extremely useful tool in meeting their marketing goals. Here are some interesting ways in which marketers chose to use these codes to link audiences to relevant information:

1. Payment Receipts:

Payment Receipts are a simple yet interesting medium where brands can print their codes. This is not yet commonly in use, but they definitely make for an innovative point of contact to engage audiences with smart phones.

2. Labels of Products:

This can be effectively implemented especially in the fashion retail sector, where information such as washing instructions, information on fabric quality etc can be stored onto the code.

3. Mails to Customers:

An elementary option is placing a brand’s QR Codes, is printing them on direct physical as well as well as e-mails to customers through which you can direct them to relevant pages with more comprehensive information.

4. At the Store:

There are a number of opportunities presented at a company outlet or store where one can place these codes. Shop windows, billing counters, display racks are some of the popular options.

5. Buses and Metro Trains:

Inside of and in the sides of public transport such as buses, trains and even taxi cabs are effective options to put up your QR codes. These could be coupled with some print advertisement and cab be effectively used to link users to your company URL. Many brands even choose to go the extra mile and print these at the back of every seat to ensure maximum exposure and reach.

6. Seminars and Business Conferences:

Information such as conference itineraries as well as relevant corporate data can be stored on QR Codes and communicated with attendees of seminars and conferences. If you are a stall owner at some such convention, you could further engage with audiences by providing links to pages specific to your business.

In addition to this, marketers can guide their clients to place these codes across a various number of platforms depending on their objectives and type of business. For example, business cards are a universal medium to exploit one could also print them on newspaper ads, prescriptions in case of medical professionals, etc. Professionals who are not necessarily backed by a brand can effectively make use of this system to engage with audiences by linking them to their social networking pages and profiles across the internet.

Despite the popularity of affiliate marketing, some people still ask the question “What is affiliate marketing?” or “how can I make money with affiliate marketing?” This article will answer that question and tells you what you need to make money in affiliate marketing.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is a kind of marketing strategy whereby a person (the affiliate) promotes the products/services of other people or companies for a commission. The company whose product the affiliate promote is called the merchant. In some programs, you get commission when people just sign up or download a software through your link.

You can join an affiliate program through affiliate networks. An affiliate network serves as a broker between the affiliate and the merchant. The network handles payment processes and ensures that no one is dupe. Few examples of affiliate networks are ClickBank and Commission Junction (cj.com). While registering with an affiliate network, you’ll be required to provide some personal and payment information. Once registered you are free to choose and start promoting any product of your choice. For each product you want to promote, you will be provided with a special affiliate link. Whenever somebody makes a purchase through your link you’ll receive a commission. Apart from crediting you for a sale, another thing the affiliate link does is to drop a cookie into the computer of anyone who clicks on it. This way, even if the person who clicks on your link does not buy immediately, you will still be credited if the person comes back and buy within a period of 30 or 90 days, depending on how long the cookie is made to last.

The above is basically how affiliate marketing works, that is, you sign up with a network, choose some products and start promoting them through your affiliate links. This is not as easy as it sounds; the real work is in the promotion. There are many smart tactics super affiliates use in their promotion but the most important is lead capture. To make it big you must capture the email addresses of visitors to your website. This is because in order to persuade a visitor to buy, you must educate them on the benefits of the product while feeding them with valuable information. Having your visitor’s email means that you can sell more than one products to a customer.

Another important thing you’ll need to make money with affiliate marketing is traffic, you have to be conversant with both free and paid methods of traffic generation. You can get free traffic from article directories, blog comments, forums, social networking sites, search engines and free to use websites. Paid advertising can be in the form of pay-per-click, link advertising or cost-per-mile advertising.

There are other things you need to make money with affiliate marketing, for example, you have to choose the right niche and products if you want to see good result. You also have to learn things like search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, HTML coding, how to use autoresponders effectively, how to write engaging articles, article marketing etc.

The final truth is that making money with affiliate marketing requires some work and effort. You must be determine and believe that you can succeed. Many new affiliate marketers fail because they lack an action plan. Your action plan contains a list of things you’ll do daily in order to achieve your goal. Having a sort of one week marketing action plan can go a long way to help you.

If you want to fasten your learning process and learn how to do things the faster way, then you have to get a good affiliate marketing guide that already contain a step-by-step one week marketing action plan.