?If you build it, they will come,? may have been the mantra for the movie ?Field of Dreams,? but in real life that just does not work. A person or business can build the absolute best web site on the internet, offer the best product or service at the best price, and still not have any sales. They may even try to add franchises or affiliates to give their business a boost but the bottom line is without anyone knowing about the business, it will fail.

One of the keys to success for any business is advertising but internet businesses have a unique challenge in that there may be thousands of companies offering similar opportunities and which one the buying public chooses to visit is largely dependent on advertising. Slick campaigns and expensive marketing plans often fall short of expectations, especially when there are many distributors around the world, each conducting their own campaign.

While a few folks may benefit from a strategic advertising plan, on order for a business to grow it has to count on an advertising marketing network of distributors or word of mouth from users of the product or service. In a large sense affiliate marketing is one way of creating an advertising network, offering owners of other web sites a percentage of income generated by sales referred by advertisements on their web site.

Since the owners want to create sales for the companies with which they are affiliated, they typically advertise their web site. Once there, visitors can choose to visit the company's main site and make a purchase. The fee paid to the affiliated site for the sale is usually less expensive than any advertising the company would have to do to achieve similar results. For example, if each of 1,000 affiliates spend $50 to advertise their site, the business is receiving the benefit of $50,000 in advertising.

Granted the site will have more than only one affiliated business on their site, but the company can track which sites send them the most traffic and resulting sales. They can shed the ones that offer no help and additionally reward those with the best performing history to keep their best producing affiliates happy and willing to continue their advertising effort.

The need for advertising is another reason company's use testimonials from satisfied customers, looking to simulate word of mouth advertising, which essentially should be free. Customers are wary of paid endorsements, especially from celebrities, but unsolicited platitudes from everyday people can generate interest in a product for everyday customers. It is especially helpful if the satisfied customer tells a friend about this wonderful product and many companies offer referral rewards for such sales.

A few years ago, a national company embarked on a referral plan that noted how an individual can tell two people, who will each tell two people, who will continue to tell two people and so on that best described how word of mouth advertising was the best way to build an advertising network.