Leveraging information is a term that we use to identify the means of capturing information and then distributing that information so that it benefits you. In today's day and age there is entirely too much information out there. A person could get lost on the internet researching just one item. For example, if you were to go online, go to a search engine, and use the search term "affiliate marketing" you are going to get over six and a half million results. That's a lot of information. Now imagine for a moment if this was one of your potential customers doing research on "real estate investing." That search term has over 22 million results. So part one of our formula to leverage information requires that you "capture information." Well how do we do that? Simple, you visit my website because I have done all the hard work for you.

By visiting my website periodically you will note that I have filtered all that information and only posted on my website the information that is relevant to the system that you are promoting with your affiliate program. Your job is to capture that information and use it to your advantage. What you want to do while you are on my website is to visit the "Blog." There you will find all the information you need. Pick a piece of information that you feel is relevant to your target audience. In other words, pick information from the "Blog" that you feel is particularly relevant to the people that you are going to be marketing to. You have now "captured information."

For example, let us assume for a minute that you have built a decent email distribution list of people that are particularly interested in how and where they can buy "HUD homes." If you were to visit my website and look for the Sunday, December the 14th 2008 blog entry you would find an entire article on the subject. According to our formula for "information leveraging" you would want to capture this information. You can do that by reading the information and taking precise notes on the subject and maybe even do a little outside research on it. Once you feel that you have a firm understanding of the information you are ready to distribute the information in such a way as it will benefit you.

So, we now have relevant and pertinent information that we want to share with our email distribution list. Don't worry, more on how to build email distribution lists in an upcoming newsletter. Now, the key here is to distribute the information so that it benefits you. You might want to send out an "email bulletin" or perhaps even think about generating your own monthly newsletter. The point being is that you want to get this information out to your potential customers. How you decide to do this is up to you. But, as an example, let us assume that we are going to do an "email bulletin."

You are going to want to take a moment to prepare a small email paraphrasing the information that you captured earlier. Then, very gently, you are going to want to work in your sales message along with this urgent bulletin. For example, in my blog you will note that I clearly stated that HUD only allows bidding for the first 10 days. So maybe we should go with a subject line for the email like

"Don't forget you only have 10 days!" or words to that effect.

Next, the body of your email bulletin should succinctly summarize the pertinent information you are trying to relay. For example;

Don't forget about HUD's time limit for open bidding; you only have ten days! Make it a point to take the time, since HUD normally lists its properties on a Friday, to view the properties over the weekend. This will allow you the time to find the right deal.

You may also want to remember that HUD will normally take a bid, automatically, that will net them 87% of the list price. So plan accordingly!

Remember, the point is that this is a bulletin and not a sales letter or a monthly newsletter. Remember to follow the format of what it is you are sending. Obviously if you are sending a monthly newsletter then you would not want to use the above "bulletin" format.

Once you have issued the information you are going to want to leverage. So at the conclusion of your bulletin you would put in your "leverage." For example;

You can learn about these and other insider real estate secrets with Alan Cowgill's Private Lending Made Easy program. Click here for your complimentary "How to get all the money you need to buy a property" e-book.

Making sure of course that it is a properly working link and that the e-book is properly "branded". Now, I should mention that this is the e-book that we will be discussing in a future newsletter and in that newsletter we will discuss how you go about "branding" this e-book and the power of viral marketing.

As you can see the point of the exercise is to capture relevant and pertinent information that is vital to your target audience. This ensures that you will get a high "click" ratio. Meaning people will actually click on your email and read it. This is your goal. The more people that read your email the more people are going to come to view you as a provider of good, vital, and pertinent information. Once that relationship is built and your reputation established it becomes easier to sell.

The selling, in reality, takes care of itself because all you are doing is leveraging information so that a person comes to trust you and the information you are marketing. A key point to remember here is the sale cycle. Most people tend to get frustrated and disappointed that they did not make a sale on their first contact with a potential customer. Never forget that over 80% of the people buy between the fifth and eight sales contact. So, by using "information leveraging," you take advantage of the opportunity to get yourself in front of a potential customer multiple times until they are ready to buy. Like I said, the selling takes care of itself.