When you engage in affiliate marketing, you have to work hard to gain customer interest in your products. There is a lot of competition out there for customers' attention and just putting up an affiliate banner on a website is not enough. You need to entice your niche market with special offers and incentives.

These special offers and incentives are important for two reasons. The first reason involves your direct relationship with your target market group. The second reason involves your direct relationship with your downline.

Let's look at your relationship with your customers and potential customers. You are in business to sell. You have a product or products you believe your target market wants. However, they may not be as convinced as you are as to whether they need them. Your job is to convince them that they do. When you provide special offers and incentives, you spur people's interest. Typically, some may have clicked away from your website or banner ad. Now you have their attention because you are sweetening the deal for them.

With affiliate marketing you will have a customer segment that wants your product and will buy it regardless. This is whether you're running a promotion or not. You will also have a segment interested in your product, but who needs incentives to take a first step towards acquiring it. A quality special offer or incentive can achieve this for you. The key is the offer must give true value and benefit to the customer.

Customers today are a well-informed lot. They know if someone is taking advantage of them. You have to make sure your special offer or incentive is beyond what you normally offer. You have to offer them a discount price on your affiliate product or something else. That something else is a useful added accessory, another product, or a value-added service. In this way a customer sees they are getting more for their purchase than would usually be the case.

Once a customer takes advantage of a special offer or incentive you can work to provide them after sales service as required. Your customer will begin to bond with you in a way. That's because you offered them a special deal and satisfied their needs with a quality product. You then took the time to serve them after the sale. You are now a credible affiliate marketer in this person's eyes. It all began because you enticed them into a relationship with you via a special offer or incentive.

Now we will look at your relationship with your downline. This is not nuclear physics here. When you provide special offers and incentives to your customers you can also offer them to your downline. In concert with your customer promotions you can inspire your downline with them as well. Downline members appreciate rewards for their efforts. They like special offers from you, or the affiliate parent, as much as customers do. They also enjoy incentives that pay well for work well done.

You can offer your downline members extra commissions, bonus gifts, leadership level positions and the like for sales performance. You can offer to place more downline members under them to increase their affiliate income. Of course, you will also gain income as they sell more. It's all about making your affiliate business a team game with those above and under you in the chain.

Use special offers and incentives to create customer interest. In addition, use special offers and incentives to help your downline become better affiliate marketers. Special offers and incentives are important in affiliate marketing. They inspire the buyers and sellers alike of affiliate products.