Health Savings Account (HSA): How Do I Invest It?. Niche Marketing: The Affiliate Angle.
The Health Savings Account (HSA) is an amazing tool that a lot of people have been talking about. It is meant to help you save money on insurance and make your life simpler, maybe even help you be healthier.
A Health Savings Account is an investment. You may not have thought of it that way, but it is.
When you open your HSA, your insurance agent or financial advisor will ask you "How do you want to invest this?"
Your answer to that question might mean the difference between having money for that emergency operation or not having it.
There isn't room here for a big explanation of investing principles, but I can tell you that there are volatile investments and stable investments.
A volatile investment would be putting money into a fast-moving stock on the stock market. One day it's up, the next day it takes a dive.
The most stable investment is a bank account. You get paid a certain interest rate and that's that. No volatility. And not much benefit either, because the interest rate will be quite small.
My recommendation to you is to invest your HSA money into a bond mutual fund. Bonds are a special type of investment that are less risky than stocks, but more beneficial than a bank account.
By investing in a bond mutual fund, you'll have a steady rate of growth with no big up's or down's. Some months your investment might go down a little, but it won't be dramatic. And, over time, you'll beat that bank account interest by several percentage point.
Bond mutual funds are your best option for HSA investment. Ask your HSA custodian if they offer this type of investment for their HSA. If they don't, shop around until you find one who does.
If you cannot find someone offering a bond mutual fund, then stick with a money market account. That is your second-best choice. You want something very stable, because you never know when you'll have to tap into that money. Healthcare emergencies don't give us advance notice, do they?
Health Savings Accounts will change how we think of healthcare. They are the key to fixing the current healthcare crisis in America, and they will help your small business, self-employment or individual healthcare situation.
Daryl Kulak is the author of the book "Health Insurance Off the Grid - A Wonderful Way to Use Alternative Medicine and Save Money on Insurance Using the New Health Savings Account (HSA)." The book is available for sale as an e-Book or paperback at the Website http://www.healthoffthegrid.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
If you're just dipping your toes into the waters of Niche Marketing for the first time then Affiliate marketing is the ultimate low risk choice to get you started.
Affiliate programmes cost nothing to join and present an almost infinite choice of products and services from which to build a niche business.
If you're not familiar with Affiliate marketing, let me quickly explain.
An Affiliate acts as an independent "middle man" between a Merchant and consumer by introducing new prospects and customers to the Merchant. In return the Merchant pays a commission to the Affiliate on all sales that result from his or her introductions.
OK. So now you know what Affiliate Marketing is, how do you find suitable affiliate programmes for you niche?
Here are a couple of options to get you started - Search Engines and Affiliate Networks.
Search Engines
Go to www.Google.com and type in your Niche description e.g. "low carb diet" followed by a plus sign (+) and the word "affiliate" - the search query should look like this :
low carb diet+affiliate.
In the results you will get all the pages with the term "low carb diet" and the term "affiliate".
Go through the first and second pages and list all of the sites that show relevant products with affiliate programmes. Hopefully this will give you 10 or more affiliate programmes to choose from.
You could also repeat this exercise on www.Yahoo.com to give your self more options.
Affiliate Networks
An Affiliate Network acts as "middleman" between Merchants and Affiliates, providing a centralised service where Merchants can list details of their products and Affiliate programmes, providing Affiliates with a broad and varied selection of products and services to promote.
Here are some highly reputable networks you should visit to find suitable niche products and services to add to your list of prospective Affiliate programmes :
�€� ClickBank - http://www.clickbank.com - specialises in downloadable digital products.
�€� Commission Junction - http://www.cj.com - probably the most popular affiliate network has a broad range of mainly physical products. CJ has a gate way to the "Be Free" another huge network.
�€� LinkShare - http://www.linkshare.com - runs the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet.
�€� clixGalore - http://www.clixgalore.com - one of the larger affiliate networks with over 4500 Affiliate programmes to choose from.
�€� Digital River - https://www.regnow.com - specialises in software products including games, anti-virus and anti-spam titles.
Add all the relevant programmes to list of those you gleaned from the Search Engine(s).
Selecting Niche Affiliate Programmes
Be selective in your choice of affiliate programme. Don't just signup for all of the programmes you have listed, visit each site and check each one out and make sure you "read each Merchant's terms carefully".
Here are some points for you to consider when deciding which programmes to promote:
�€� Commission rates - rates vary considerably, check them out to make sure get the best deal possible.
�€� Commission type - does the Merchant pay on a pay per lead, pay per click or pay per sale?
�€� Frequency of payment - most important. Payment frequency can be weekly, two weekly, monthly, quarterly - I've even seen six monthly.
�€� Minimum payout - what is the minimum commission amount the merchant is prepared to pay out on. You don't get paid until the amount reaches that minimum.
�€� Cookie duration - cookies are set to capture your referral code and expire after a specific amount of time. Make sure you get the longest time possible. Very few of your referrals will buy on the first visit, you want enough time for your referral to visit again so that you get the commission.
�€� Minimum traffic requirement - you don't want to find out that your account has been terminated because you aren't sending enough traffic to the Merchant's site.
�€� Are sales tools available - it's in the Merchant's interest to help you as much as possible. If they provide sales and marketing tools it makes getting started a lot quicker and shows that the Merchant values their Affiliates.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. As I said earlier, check all the terms carefully, then select and sign up for the programmes which best suit your niche theme and you're ready to start promoting.
Copyright © 2005, Andr�½ Anthony Niche Market Know-How
Andr�½ Anthony owns and operates Niche Market Know-How a resource for beginning Niche Marketers. Visit http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com today to find strategies, tips, tools, products and resources for effective niche marketing. Get his Niche Market Know-how Mini Course here: http://www.nichemarketknowhow.com/course.htm
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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