Who in his right mind would refuse a freebie? Out of 10 people you ask, only about one or two will forego a freebie for some strange reason. The rest will gladly accept it. It's simply a part of human nature to be appreciative of gifts, particularly useful ones. This is also something that advertisers and business owners understand fully well and thus use to their advantage.

In affiliate marketing, the use of freebies can be especially beneficial, provided of course, that you understand how to deploy them strategically. Find out how to use the power of offering freebies to your affiliate site's visitors and reap the rewards:

Freebies should be integrated into your marketing campaign

Freebies can be quite powerful as marketing tools for affiliate marketing. If visitors to your website find that free stuff is available, they will stick around and be more willing to come back for more but only if they find it relevant to their needs ? the very reason they came to visit your website in the first place.

Consider each affiliate marketing campaign you perform and find out how to use freebies strategically. Just because something is free doesn't automatically mean that people will visit your affiliate website and grab what you offer. There has to be a relevance between the freebie and the main product or service you are promoting.

Let's say your main product is an e-book that teaches the secrets of the affiliate marketing trade to affiliates. A good freebie to offer with this campaign would be a short report on the top 10 mistakes that affiliates make that cause failure in affiliate marketing. Or you could offer a freebie in the form of a script that could help affiliates track their own stats.

Remember that the power of freebies when offered in affiliate marketing is only limited to its relevance. The free stuff should be something that can supplement the main product or enhance its use. Otherwise, your visitors will simply have no reason to try to obtain it.

Offer something better

Just because you're offering freebies to your affiliate site's visitors doesn't mean you should allow them to completely ignore your premium offers. If you let this happen, forget about earning an income from your affiliate site.

Remember that all those free stuff you offer are part of your strategy to attract more visitors and affiliate prospects to your website. If you find out later that you're dealing with visitors who are mainly freeloaders, you might want to rethink your career as an affiliate marketer and switch to becoming a charitable foundation instead.

Always offer your affiliate site's visitors some form of incentive to persuade them to purchase, subscribe or sign up for membership. Offer a product or service that is considerably better than the freebie as an alternative. So instead of just providing a link they can click to download or obtain your free stuff, you could also say something like:

"Get our free version now OR buy the premium/complete package for just $$$. This is a limited offer and will expire soon. ACT NOW!"