EDIT: Just confirmed with Erick at Market Leverage, this is allowed. Good luck! 
I’ve always recommended doing things like freelancing (content writing, forum posting or design) to get yourself the first few dollars you need… it doesn’t cost you anything and although it’s not ‘fun’ in the traditional sense it is easy to get the first $20 – $30 you need for a domain and hosting as long as you’re prepared to work.
The thing is… especially when I started out, I hated writing articles. Blogging is fine, because well – you get to interact with people, network etc but writing keyword stuffed articles when you have thousands of competition charging lots lower just isn’t much fun. The standard going rate on various forums is around $0.01/word… that’s $5 for a 500 word article. Considering said article could take you an hour to write, that’s $5/hour, or less than minimum wage in most developed countries. WORK!
You know how much I hate work. 
Okay… I thought this up yesterday when I was watching the football, so I have not tried this myself. This is just a warning for you lot; if you see any potential downfalls, let me know.
So, making $5/article when you start out… what if you could make $30 for writing the same article?
Here’s what we do.
Affiliate networks quite often have ‘incentivized’ offers… offers that you are allowed to offer incentives to users to do. These usually won’t be free, but they can often pay well; for example, one of the offers on Market Leverage pays you $30 for a $4.95 referral. (Yes.. that is an affiliate link, but it shows an example. Do not buy anything there).
Not, you usually can’t offer cash for these incentivized offers, as that would be foolish on their part… but you usually are allowed to offer other things like for example, an eBook – or even services.
In the above example, you have a product that people who own websites should be somewhat interested in (how to SEO and make money with Google) and remember, they’d pay you $5 anyways for the 500 word article. So offer them one article… in exchange for signing up for the package through your affiliate link.
You’re still delivering a targeted signup, as this is a webmaster with websites and if the course is any good he will renew, and the webmaster is still paying the same amount or slightly less even. The difference of course, is that you net $30 for work that would normally have net you $5.
If you’re feeling lazy… say you sell an eBook or product at $10 normally… why not offer a discounted copy at $5 if people sign up for an offer similar to the one above? They get it at half price, you get three times what you normally would.
Obviously, check with your affiliate manager about whether this is allowed for the specific offer; I can’t see why it wouldn’t be (if you can’t incentivize with an eBook or targeted service, what can you incentivize with?) but you want to check just in case.
Feel free to let me know what you think.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Jason Another nice Idea. I may like to do some freelancing. I love to write articles and design logos.
Agent 001’s last blog post..Full Free Internet Upgrade to WEB 2.0
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June 16th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Jason, where does it say ML will let you offer incentives? I read this from the Publisher T & C, section 1.3 “(f)may not offer incentives to users to click on advertisements, such as awarding customers cash, prizes, points, awards or other items of value to click on such advertisements”
Justin – Web Development Blog’s last blog post..Friday Roundup for June 13, 2008
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June 16th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I don’t know about ML specifically, but there are other networks where something like this could work out. Nice out of the box thinking on that one Jason.
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June 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Justin – they have special offers where you CAN offer incentives. In most of them, they are not allowed but they have a special ‘incentivized’ category.
Of course, check with your affiliate manager at any network before you try this
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June 16th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
That’s pretty smart as an idea Jason.
Here’s the downfall:
People that are willing to pay these content-creators to do the building for them, clearly don’t have all the time in the world to sit down on their computers and work out all these details. Similarly, these offer websites come with hidden fees (your offer is $59.90 if you don’t cancel in 14 days) that many are wary of. Despite the fact that canceling might be an option, people are usually skeptics in completing offers for cash.
The problem is that people willing to pay for your services, don’t want to deal with this crap. Its easy to send $5 on PayPal. It’s difficult to force someone into completing a contract just so they can pay you. This might work in certain situations, but I would estimate that less than 10% of your clients will allow this as a payment alternative.
Jim’s last blog post..Quesion and Answer Session with The Net Fool – Win a Free Prize!
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June 17th, 2008 at 3:15 am
I think that’s a good idea. You’re coming up with more sign-up ideas than before. However, NBA don’t have many of these kind of offers.
eBenji’s last blog post..Keyword Management – A Lesson
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June 17th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Well I second Jim’s comments I think it can sometimes be a problem… btw, i think i have done forumsfirst before and i just cant remember how much money dd i make from it…
Melvin’s last blog post..Did You SEO Your Site?
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June 17th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Jason – excellent post, I’ve often wondered why anyone would want to get $5.00 per article. A lot of pain, for very little gain. But if you’re a prolific writer and can pump out dozens of articles per day it could be worth your time. Not for me, certainly.
I’ve recently signed up to Market Leverage and will take the exact same formula you’ve discussed here to drive visitors to some of the offers. As with everything, you need to test and see what works, and what does not.
Take care,
Mo
Mo’s last blog post..The Future Of Web Video
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June 17th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I hate writing as well. So I guess I am on the flip side. If anyone plans on trying this let me know, I will complete your offers in exchange for articles.
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Interesting idea. It’s worth to try it.
Aleks’s last blog post..Funny picture – Beautiful faces
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June 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
This is a pretty good idea, especially while watching football (real football, not American right?)
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Gone In An Hour
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July 16th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Interesting concept. I got a little confused though
ps. I love how you have a “Top Commenters” section. It encourages me to comment a lot more so I can appear on it
How did you get it I would love to put it on my site. Please email me the details.
Also you should look at trying “Comment Relish WordPress Plugin” (just google it). It is a plugin that automatically emails someone when they leave a comment for the first time. You can say whatever you want in the email. But you should encourage them to come back to your site and signup for your RSS feed. This is a great way to increase subscribers.
Ryan McLean’s last blog post..Ten Tips on How to Write a Successful Budget
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July 23rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
yep this works.i had tried it when i was a writer a writer around few months back though not with this offer.
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June 14th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
4 ways to entice your competitors to help you build your buyer list (this secret alone is worth ten times the price of this course).
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