Products
A product in this context is
anything you can charge money for. It could be an e book, a service, a
membership site, a newsletter or real physical items.
The physical items require you
to join an affiliate program that will keep stock and handle shipping
and so on. All you do is refer buyers to their site and you get paid
when they buy something.
The information products are a
different story. They don´t need shipping, people download them over
and over again. You basically sell the same product from your own or an
affiliate programs site. This is by far the most lucrative in my humble
opinion. A thing you can sell without having to re stock!
You can buy resale rights to
products, usually e books and put them on your own site for people to
buy. Or, write your own e book about something you feel passionate
about. If you have your own product to sell, and you want sales people
to sell it for you look no further! Clickbank.com is a marketplace
where you can have people sell your book for a cut, or you can find
books to sell for a cut.
There are new affiliate sites
popping up all the time on the Internet, some of them with good content
on how to make money. They all charge either a one time fee or a
monthly fee and allow you to refer people as an affiliate. You then
earn commission on your refferals and their efforts below you. The
product here is the membership of the site, and you need to sell
memberships to get paid.
To write your own content can
seem impossible at first, but just look at all the books you can buy
about writing e books....
Here is a commonly used e book
tactic:
Look at any e book you can find,
and I promise you will find links in it. Those links go to the authors
affiliate programs or his own site.
Example:
You are having trouble selling
your affiliate product, say soccer shoes. So you write a book for
soccer fans about soccer. Don´t make it a sales pitch, simply include
your links when appropriate. Remember, people paid money for this book
so they want content not adverts. Since I don´t know anything about
soccer I don´t know what you should write in your book. How about
discussing how soccer fashion changes over the years, how to care for
your gear, where to get the latest info (homing in for the kill here)
and an invitation to visit the authors (your) website. Bingo, you
sold a short book about a very narrow topic, and you sold it cheap.
Don´t write an encyclopedia, just a solution to a common problem. For
instance "Ultimate goal keepers guide to penalty shoot outs" would be
specific enough to get an audience. They know from the title what to
expect, and you deliver. This book is your sales letter, so you make it
just cheap enough for impulse buyers but not so cheap it loses
perceived value.
If you decide you´re not a
writer, but a salesman then you need a shop!
There are many generic sales sites on the Internet, and they all look
the same...
Making your own mini site is
recommended. Just like ABI, write about stuff you care about and give
good content to your readers. If they trust you they will buy from you.
The site you make could fall into one of two categorys:
Shop only, with ads supplied
from the affiliate programs you belong to. Recommend the products and
supply information on them.
Or,
an information site about your
niche. This serves as a pre sale, where you warm up your readers before
sending them off to the sales page. This is what I´m doing with ABI.
I´m telling you about the Affiliate business, and providing free
information so you can make an educated decision on what to do from
here. If you are still reading, it means you are interested and might
want to join one of my programs. The programs are the same no matter
who you join under, my only sales argument is that I believe in
teamwork. Not many affiliates care about their down line, and you could
end up feeling very lonely.
