Why would anyone pay for a clickbank product

[Spiderpig]

I been in the affiliate marketing world for about a year, had a sale here and there, but unfortunately no great (consistent) success as of yet. Then it dawned on me... why would anyone buy an ebook or information product off the internet, when anyone can get that kind of information for free anyway?

No matter what product is available online to pay for, there is always going to be an alternative free source that could give that information for nothing in return. Not only that but people are becomming more savvy with file sharing programs such as torrents to download paid products. (I always see a product name with the word "torrent" at the end when doing some keyword research)

Additionally I came across a thread where people can even hack into clickbank vendors download page...argh

so with all this why would anyone pay?

my real question is this, how do you get a potential buyer to become a buyer? Is there a magic phrase or some trick that makes somebody buy something that they would otherwise look online for free?

As an example, I have a website up that is reaching the 750 000 visitor mark..I have had a total of 5 sales, and the reason why is because they know that with a simple search they can find what they are looking for, for free.

What are your thoughts on this..any advice?

Thank you kindly.

[David McAnulty]

First of all let me say if you are reaching 750,000 vistiors and you only have 5 sales their is a serious problem. I suggest posting the site that hass the offering and allow fellow Warrior's and I to give you some advice.

My only advice I can give, of course if this scnario is true, is for you to abandon whatever you are offering or to reevaluate your plan. If you offering is the same thing as the free version then you have a problem. People pay for things they see value in. They pay for that value. If they can get the exact same features and functions for free or pay for the exact same thing you are offer this means you copy is off or your product needs more research and development.


As for torrents and things of that nature.

You have to understand Torrenters make up a small amount of the popoulation. If you have a good offer, with valuable information people will pay. Your asking a question like why w ould anybody by a $50,000 car as opposed to a $5,000 car or even $1000. We all know the answer to that question.

Same thing with your product. Why would somebody buy $1000 product, $100 product, or get it free. There is a difference between these products. You may be able to sale a few products, but if there is no value then your conversions will suffer. I think the biggest mistake most marketers make is thinking just creating a product and having traffic = Big Money. Big Money and many other opportunities come when you create a product that is truly valuable. The nature of the internet dictates that creating something that is new and helpful will be great for word of mouth marketing in the Internet Circles and with true value your product will gain a following.

Seriously though, if you are getting 750,000 visitors that are unique and targeted visstors it is hard to convince me that you are only able to convert 5. It seems a little ODD to me.

[Spiderpig]

Thanks.. an evaluation (positive or negative) would be wonderful. Its a squidoo lens.. I recently changed the hoplink to a forwarded domain that i brought off godaddy (a suggestion i read)
Here it is:

Ok so i cant post links I have need to post 15 times.


If you go to google and type in very easy guitar tabs My lens will be the second result.

[St Croix]

Omg I agree! Why would anyone want to pay for a bottle of water? You can get it free from a tap! But those clever marketers, they somehow managed to create a multi-billion dollar industry out of it.

Crazy times.

Seriously though, my advice is to work on one (or all) of three things. A better offer, a better presell or more targeted traffic.

The first thing I can see that you have identified for yourself to succeed immediately is to promote a product where you don't see the keyword +"torrent" on the first page. I doubt that the folks who buy the now infamous chicken coop product, ran into gen-y net savvy farmer kids searching for the torrent when they first decided they'd like to raise their own chickens. - Get my drift?

To your success!
Cheers

[Spiderpig]

I am promoting a guitar course, that teaches people how to play...my angle is that the course will teach you how to read music through guitar tablature as that is what beginners have trouble with. It was number one in google and i consistenty get over a thousand views per week.

[George Wright]

Why would anyone pay for Click Bank products, to me is not the question to ask, because there will always be crooks and scammers and cheapskates who won't pay.

The question is, "Do people pay for click bank products." The answer to that question is, "YES, they do."

It's a matter of convenience and other good reasons.

I know where to get free coffee downtown at the mission but I prefer to pay for my coffee at Starbucks and on budget days Micky D's. But I could get it free at the mission.

Starbucks doesn't have a sign up "Free coffee at the mission on Fifth and .... And I would never put on a sales page, "Now you know you can dig for this information and possibly steal it or find it for free but you should buy it from me because...."

It's all in the Marketing.

George Wright

[David McAnulty]

Originally Posted by Spiderpig

I am promoting a guitar course, that teaches people how to play...my angle is that the course will teach you how to read music through guitar tablature as that is what beginners have trouble with. It was number one in google and i consistenty get over a thousand views per week.

Thats excellent. The first thing I would suggest getting that level of traffic is to set up A Music Newsletter of some nature. That way you can capture a percentage of those visitors you are getting and market to them through your list.

With all those visitors you could build a great list where you do not only have to limit yourself to this single product. With the list you can diversify your product offering within the same category.

[Will Edwards]

There are some great replies to this interesting question above!

Friend - it's all about Value; and how the customer perceives it. < --- Not just words but a real key!

Good luck to you.

Will

[satrap]

i have never understood that either, like why would you buy a product from a guy who is telling you, this the secret to getting reach and so and so, and not even stop for a second and think that hey if this really works, why is he telling everybody else ( ok lest assume he is a nice person) but if it really can help you become financially free and have a great financial life, then why dos this guy needs to spend all this time and effort to make money selling me something?
i guess it goes back to our human nature. we always think somebody else has the answer, while its true in many ways and in many areas of our lives, this isn't one of them.

[chrisgarrett]

People have all kinds of reasons to pay when they don't have to, but the important part is they do buy. Well, the honest folk do

As others have mentioned, we buy bottled water rather than get it from the tap. We buy Starbucks rather than bring a flask from home. We pay double to get half as much coke in a can rather than buy big bottles from the supermarket.

My friend Darren packaged up posts from his blog that anyone could read for free and he sold tons of ebooks. Seth Godin does it all the time.

My recent ebook created in association with Wordtracker is 100% original but some of my readers bought it without knowing what it was about, just because they trust my name and because it was a way of saying "thanks" for all the free content I put out.

You mention your site is a squidoo lens. I think that has a lot to do with it.

A big part of if you are going to get sales is not traffic but trust. Your conversion rates will depend on good copywriting, user experience, etc, but a huge element is trust. My course members have had what they think are miraculous increases in conversions with some very simple tweaks, but I do not take credit, it's a simple case of thinking as a reader/visitor rather than someone who is trying to sell something

[jazbo]

People pay for convenience, the bottle water analogy is the ultimate example of that.

[jamestame]

It is indeed strange that you haven't had much success with that many visitors... Hmm... have you thought about using some of that incoming traffic and monetizing it with adsense at least... I know this sounds typical but you would be surprised how much you can make if you place adsense ads in the right places within your site... if you are not having too much success selling that guitar product then you may as well try with adsense maybe?

Just a suggestion...

James

[Spiderpig]

Chris, Im interested in why you think a squidoo lens might be a problem. Ok, so i am still pretty new to this and would like to become an IM without to many costs. I keep hearing squiddo is the best way to do it. Is it possible that squidoo pages are becoming associated with IM in a negative way?

[chrisgarrett]

A squidoo lens is a "thin" site, it does not instill a great deal of trust. From a normal visitor point of view it is not much better than a craigslist post or classified ad. Normal readers do not know the difference between blogs, websites, lenses, but they do pick up the non-verbal cues and can tell deep, rich experiences versus made for adsense etc. Squidoo unfortunately is mostly used for the latter rather than the former.

Build a blog, fill it with useful content, and incentivise people to keep returning. You will have a much better response.

[jamestame]

Also, may i add that Squidoo has recently changed their TOS and screwed over a few hundred big affiliates had most of their affiliate businesses based on squidoo... Squidoo changed their terms of service and made a lot of their lenses not compliable with their new TOS and simply deleted them...

I was a victim of that also, i had a squidoo lens with 763 really quality backlinks and had it ranked in google in 3rd place for my keyword of optimized competition of 213,000 and was making an average of $150 a week just with that lens... Squidoo management has come along and just deleted it because it had 2 affiliate links in the whole thing... Just like it did to thousands of other lenses that people worked so hard on!

My point is... Buy your own domain name... Only $5-$10 bucks these days... set up wordpress on that domain name, and run a blog as suggested in coments above... That way you can post whatever the heck you like and have as many affiliate stuff on there as you can fit providing that you post a lot of useful content and cleverly place affiliate links in amongst the text so its not too suggestive as " CLICK HERE AND GO BUY NOW!" you know what i mean?

Don't place links in your posts and after the posts that are too suggestive, most people wont click those!

A nice set up wordpress blog looks clean and professional, i suggest you do try that, if you want you can even post the content that gets you heaps of traffic of your main site and tweak it a little untill it starts converting...

I hope this is helpful to some of you

James

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by satrap

i have never understood that either, like why would you buy a product from a guy who is telling you, this the secret to getting reach and so and so, and not even stop for a second and think that hey if this really works, why is he telling everybody else ( ok lest assume he is a nice person) but if it really can help you become financially free and have a great financial life, then why dos this guy needs to spend all this time and effort to make money selling me something?

I think the credibility/plausibility problem you're describing there is one that's more or less specific to the "make money online" niche, though? It's not an argument that applies to skin-care or 500 other niches, is it?

[dndoseller]

1. I think you are way way overestimating the amount of tech savvy in the general population. I have worked at a help desk so trust me.

2. Most people are not willing to steal. If the product is for a market that does hack and torrent, like black hatters, then sure you will have piracy.

3. If the exact information in the product is avaiable for free and it is as easy to find, then that product is not great - so find a better product.

4. With those sales figures you are definitely not targeting a thirsty crowd with with what they are desperate for. You need the conduit method which is how I have sold any clickbank product.

[KristieDean]

Originally Posted by dndoseller

1. I think you are way way overestimating the amount of tech savvy in the general population. I have worked at a help desk so trust me.

2. Most people are not willing to steal. If the product is for a market that does hack and torrent, like black hatters, then sure you will have piracy.

3. If the exact information in the product is avaiable for free and it is as easy to find, then that product is not great - so find a better product.

4. With those sales figures you are definitely not targeting a thirsty crowd with with what they are desperate for. You need the conduit method which is how I have sold any clickbank product.

I agree; many people will steal, but there are also those that won't. It's like in a store - there will be some shoplifters, but most people will pay for the product.

[Rhett]

First off, let me clarify that I am both a guitarist and a fellow IMer. Self-taught in both areas, of course.

I have to say, I think the issue is the product selection, or how you are presenting this product. If I Google "How to read guitar tabs," I will find a perfectly FREE result, which tells me exactly what I need to know (also considering it takes less than five minutes to learn to understand tabs).

Also, tabs are akin to sheet music. While your lens presents itself as a collection of very easy tabs to learn (or at least, that's what I understood the topic to be), it isn't; it's a course on a musical instrument. See how you might be struggling with conversion? People are coming to your lens expecting one thing, and receiving totally different information.

All in all, good luck to you; hopefully you can make adjustments and start the cash flow.

[Hesaidblissfully]

Marketing revolves around presentation. Like a few posters above pointed out, people spend money for stuff all the time that has free alternatives available, because they think that the paid version is somehow better. In the book All Marketers Are Liars, Seth Godin talks about this being the "story" or the "lie" that people tell themselves. Part of marketing is having a strong USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for your product that not only makes it seem superior to all the free information/solutions available, but also all the other competing paid products.

Another aspect is simple convenience. Sometimes reading a 200 word blog post tells you all you need to know about a topic. Other times, you need a detailed guide that spells out everything you need to do. For example, I could learn everything I need to know about training and rasing a puppy from searching and reading various articles online (from different authors and sources, often with competing advice), but it might make more sense to me to just spend $20 on a book that explains everything in one fell swoop.

As for piracy. Well, it's here to stay. Having said that, I'm fairly web savvy, and the one time I tried to use a Torrent to download a movie online, I gave up because it was taking too friggin' long and seemed more complicated than it was worth. There's sort of a certain culture of internet users who regularly use Torrents and file sharing, but it's not the majority (I'm sure it's more common in certain niches than others though).

[winebuddy]

I also play guitar and DO NOT read any music. When I want to learn a new song I just type in "how to play "song title"" and there is almost 15 videos with people showing me how to play the song.

Pick a different product.

However...

I also have a great little "how to make wine" site and all of the info is available everywhere online. The difference is that I give people a lot of free content and a newsletter and just ask them to buy later - - and a lot of them do.

[The Oilman]

I agree some clickbank products are stupid crap.

But why would anyone go to a bookstore to get a nonfiction book when they can look anything up on the net for free?

Well, because its condensed organized information.

Lots of internet searches bring back vague, scattered info.

[TommyBussey]

Originally Posted by winebuddy

The difference is that I give people a lot of free content and a newsletter and just ask them to buy later - - and a lot of them do.

I think, in addition, to the statement above, people are willing to pay for aggregated information.

That is to say that people don't mind spending money to buy a product that has combined a ton of different information, research, and real-life experience into one, easy-to-digest format

It saves them hours of research and real-life experience and they don't mind paying for that. Especially, when you do like my winebuddy and actual provide some great free content!

[SEOsoftware]

Originally Posted by The Oilman

I agree some clickbank products are stupid crap.

But why would anyone go to a bookstore to get a nonfiction book when they can look anything up on the net for free?

Well, because its condensed organized information.

Lots of internet searches bring back vague, scattered info.

Agree. Why people buy newspapers when they can watch tv?

[steveblum]

People buy stuff all the time. No one knows everything so people are willing to pay to learn something. I've been doing online marketing for years and I learn something new at least a couple times a month.

Sure most of the information is available for free online, so why would anyone buy an e-book or product if they can find it themselves?

That's the problem. They can't find what they're looking for all the time. So they take the shortcut and buy a book or product from someone who has already done the grunt work of finding out what works and what doesn't.

I periodically buy e-books and courses because that person on the other end potentially has what I can't find and need. He/she solves my problem and I am a happy consumer- usually

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by Spiderpig

so with all this why would anyone pay?

Most people aren't criminals.

Originally Posted by Spiderpig

As an example, I have a website up that is reaching the 750 000 visitor mark..I have had a total of 5 sales, and the reason why is because they know that with a simple search they can find what they are looking for, for free.

What are your thoughts on this..any advice?

Thank you kindly.

Sounds to me like it's not a "buyer" niche. Hard to tell without knowing more.

[Spiderpig]

Ok thanks guys, appreciate all the input. Im beginning to see where the problem might lie. Rhetts thoughts were particularly interesting. At least i can take solace in the fact that im helping people. Just wanted to say thanks to you all for helping me out.

Karma is your friend

[bretski]

Originally Posted by dndoseller

1. I think you are way way overestimating the amount of tech savvy in the general population. I have worked at a help desk so trust me.

2. Most people are not willing to steal. If the product is for a market that does hack and torrent, like black hatters, then sure you will have piracy.

3. If the exact information in the product is avaiable for free and it is as easy to find, then that product is not great - so find a better product.

4. With those sales figures you are definitely not targeting a thirsty crowd with with what they are desperate for. You need the conduit method which is how I have sold any clickbank product.

GREETINGS FORMER HELP DESK GEEK! (I did 2 years help desk hell!) and I have to agree with you. Most people are somewhere in the middle of not realizing that they could research and find a lot of information free on the internet and being scared of buying stuff online. Many people still think that aol is the internet btw...

I was suprised a couple of weeks ago when I went to an end users desk to work on her pc and as I was closing the 10 windows that she had open I found a landing page for a weight loss product and I had to laugh. It wasn't mine but it just made me think. I am marketing to the people that I support at work who want to lose weight, get their ex back, find out how to make money online so they can quit their job, flatten their stomach, teach their dog not to pee on the rug, whiten their teeth, quit smoking, be sexy...I don't know...bend spoons with their mind? If they want a cure for what ails them bad enough they'll pay to find something that is backed by social proof and makes sense to them.

[misterwrecker]

I took a look at your lens and it is for guitar tabs. This is one of those products that it is very easy to find free guitar tabs online. That is like trying to sell a product filled with song lyrics. We all know we can get song lyrics with a simple search.

Your lens is targeting guitar tabs and then when you click your "favorite link" you are sent to a sales page about learning to play the guitar. This is not directly related to your lens but I do see how you could easily think they are related.

The bottom line is you have to give the searcher what he is actually searching for. When you give them what they want you will be rewarded.

I would take your knowledge in traffic generation and couple that with being more specific with the keywords and product selection and you should have a winner.





-John

[Rhett]

Originally Posted by Spiderpig

Ok thanks guys, appreciate all the input. Im beginning to see where the problem might lie. Rhetts thoughts were particularly interesting. At least i can take solace in the fact that im helping people. Just wanted to say thanks to you all for helping me out.

Karma is your friend

I wouldn't give up just yet. Instead, create a network of lenses focusing on teaching different aspects of guitar technique--you have reading tableture, now branch out and create a lens on sweep picking, pinched harmonics, scales, and tapping. Redirect to a squeeze page for email captures.

Head over to ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS ARCHIVE | 300,000+ Guitar Tabs, Bass Tabs, Chords and Guitar Pro Tabs! and re purpose the free lessons there into various free reports on each topic (what I mean is rewrite/use for research. Or contact the original creators). Distribute as a free download, or put it up as a cheap ebook with 100% of the commissions going to your affiliates.

Once you have this list, you can market not only your course (which you can present as "filling in the gaps" of their musical knowledge), but use affiliate programs through Musician's Friend | Your Online Music Instrument & Pro Audio Store | Best Prices, Great Service or Amazon to market physical products such as steel strings, pickups, picks, stands, or even full blown guitars.

This way, you'll make a sh*t ton more off of your initial efforts than marketing just one product.

/end rant

[Black Hat Cat]

No offense. but there is no way 750,000 visitors have only generated 5 sales. If true, something is very wrong somewhere. Still, just for future reference, conversion rate on Squidoo sucks. Not .00000000000000000000000000000000000000001% sucky you're currently getting, but sucky nonetheless. Whoever told you Squidoo was a good way to make money on the cheap...well, stop listening to them.

Now, to your immediate problem....I visited your lens, clicked through to your site, and was forwarded to the merchant site. I then clicked on the buy button and was taken to the checkout page. Guess what I saw at the bottom of the checkout page? [affiliate = none]. For some reason, your cookie isn't being passed, and you aren't being credited with sales. Is dk129 your affiliate ID? Check to make sure your affiliate link is right. I created a link using my id, and it works just fine. I suspect you've messed your link up somewhere.

[ddistco]

Hey All,

There are some great responses here on the forum. I believe that the reason why people buy from clickbank is because it is convenient and that there is value in the product. Also, I agree with a previous comment as the bit torrent population is limited and really only for people that are real techies. The majority of people that really are techies is a small percentage of people. Clickbank markets to the masses of the niche market and because it is convenient and easy to find and purchase and download digital products.

In reference to your site that has had over 750,000 visitors I curious if you have a unique selling proposition or a way to build your subscriber list. Also, curious if you created your sales copy or if you hired someone to create your copy.

I think you will need to make some changes on your website because with that many visitors you need some better site metrics and implement some split testing and continue to test, test, test.

Good luck to you and your business.

Mark

[Spiderpig]

Hiya, ok just for clarification I checked my sales for my product since i put up my lens. Your right I havent made only 5 sales, i have actually made 12.. so i aplogise for misleading you, that was really an off the cuff statement. The point i was really trying to make is the sheer number of visitors, the number of clickouts to the vendor in comparison to the number of sales. I put the lens up about 2 years ago and have had a solid position ever since. In case your curious I found the keyword using micro niche finder. I was speaking to someone from wealthy affiliate about the word and he said i could make quite a lot of money, so naturally i was excited. I only have made a few (is that only a few?) so was a little dejected about the whole IM thing and needed clarification as to why..hence my post.

Black hat cat...this concerns me greatly, I have checked to see if my ID was being passed on two computers and it appears it has, but I will look into this further to make sure...boy will my face be red if thats the case... :P

out of curiositys sake here are some stats for the lens:

Total pageviews: 23885 (last 3 months)
Clickouts: 1,242 (last 30 days) - to vendors site.

Thanks again peeps!

[moneysoapbox]

It's all in the marketing.

Pure CRAP products exist on Clickbank, but they sell anyway - why? Because somebody hired a damn good copywriter to give the emperor some new clothes.

Not to say that all CB products are bad, but the moral of the story is, it really is possible to sell just about anything.

[snowtigress]

I agree. You can have a horrible product and still make money. You seem to have the visitors but not the sales. It's the COPY that sells products, not the products. I've spent months learning how to write copy and it targets very specific psychological and emotional buttons to get people to buy something. Send me your ad and I'll take a look at it and share some tips on tweaking it. (No, I'm not going to re-write your whole ad for you for nothing, so please don't ask). I CAN, however, offer you my new client special, if you really are interested in getting a great ad to bring in sales. But send me your ad anyway and I'll give you some free juicy tips to get you going.

[Rory Wilkinson]

"First of all let me say if you are reaching 750,000 visitors and you only have 5 sales their is a serious problem." Spot on.

If you think that people can just get the information that you are trying to sell for free then why are you in that niche??

From what I can see, that is your only problem.

If you are able to generate that many visitors then you must be doing something right. Use your skill and start marketing in niches that people are willing to spend money in. HINT: There are plenty of niche products on clickbank that people spend money on.

Hope this helps

[Stallion]

Why would anyone buy veggies, when they can just grow it in a garden? Oh because it's a hell of a lot easier. And that is the answer.