Best Earner : Creating the product or promoting it ?

Creating your own product is more profitable, assuming you have done as good a job as the product you would promote at choosing your topic, targeting your market and creating the offer/sales funnel.

The end objective should typically be to create your own products, doesn't mean you have to start that way today.

What we typically do when we enter new markets is the following:

1. Research the market to uncover the most significant demand, including the reasons why that demand exists (getting to the root of desired outcomes, transformations that are MOST important to them)
2. Look at the top competition - who is successful and why...and what potential gaps exist either in terms of content or format that we can take advantage of
3. We then *may* choose to promote a few products over a 3-4 week period to test for demand, begin to build a list/following and help choose between a few product titles we want to get feedback on
4. When we see traction and feel comfortable we have a handle on the market - we'll begin to develop specifically tailored content to "test" our product idea and positioning - then jump into product development and release our own product.

While this doesn't completely de-risk the process, it certainly reduces risk substantially. When we have followed this pattern we have never missed hitting the sweet spot - when we not used it, we have missed the mark and had to start over to find that sweet spot.

Jeff

as a quick vendor u make alot... but very not that long.
as a affiliate: you can make how much money you want, promote forever.
long vendor: alot of money (more than affiliate) can promote as long as u want

Creating, simply because you get the customers...

However, I prefer doing both as that's yielded me the best results.

(who woulda thought?)

Your own products

You can build your own buyers list
You have full control, vendors disappear
You can create sales funnels for upsells making you more money
Affiliates can promote you product doing a lot of the hard work

I have products over 10 years old still making sales with hundreds of affiliates selling. There is no way I could do all they do for promotion by myself.

Promoting affiliate products is a great way to learn and a faster way to get started, take the money you earn and build you own products..... my opinion.

As an affiliate I "get the customers" first.

Tip for potential affiliates: Always opt people into your own list first.

With your own product you:

-get full control over the product
-can keep 100% of the profit (if you drive your own traffic)
-can make the lion share of the profits (or all of it) on Upsells/downsells/etc
-can get affiliates to send traffic for you
-create your own buyer's list
-can promote lots of other products to your list over the years to come (so you have a long customer lifetime value)

I'm PRO product creation. I've made most of my money from my own products.. But with that being said, it's not for everyone.

There's also more moving parts. More things that can go wrong. And if you got a bad product in a bad niche and if your copy / funnel sucks.. You might not make a penny.


Meanwhile.. the advantage of being an affiliate is that there is a very low barrier of entry. It's easier to get started. Plus, you can find hot products with great funnels that are already proven and tested.. and just focus on sending traffic to that.

So it really just comes down to what model makes more sense for you.

If you really like the idea of having your own product.. go for it man. But make sure to do it right.
Don't slouch on copy. Make sure you build out a funnel with upsells, downsells, etc. and make sure you pick a niche where people are desperate and have money.


Or if you want to just keep things simple and don't want to deal with customers etc.. and just want to focus on traffic.. Then be an affiliate and get to it!

You can make millions of dollars from just being an affiliate. There are lots of guys raking in 7 and 8 figures online and they've never had their own product. They simply run banners or FB ads promoting CPA offers / supplements / etc. And just got really good at at a traffic source.

So both are viable options. Go with whatever one makes more sense to YOU.

why not both? i do all i can and focus on which one i do better, but i prefer stay with affiliate because you can earn long term

First learn to make the sales yourself as an affiliate. Creating your own product and getting other affiliates to promote for you takes showing that your product sells in the first place. You need to provide your affiliates resources to make our lives easier!

If you want to list a product on clickbank that is great but you need to drive the gravity up to put it on the first page and to get other affiliates to spend their time marketing it for you.

Sign up with my link below and I will give you your own sales funnel and show you different ways to go out and send traffic it and make sales. You pick it up and I will show you a way where you can get other affiliates to promote the site for you without you having to worry about traffic.

It's more profitable to create your own product. If you take the time to do research before making it you will make a good deal of profit when other affiliates seek your product for you. If you unsure about ideas or how to go about creating a product start by selling affiliate products till you have some more experience and knowledge.

You can promote other people's products until you make your own, then start promoting your own product. Because it's longer process and you can make good money while promoting someone else's.


Best regards,

CPA Beyond

I agree with Ghost on this one.

Product creation
-makes BIG money (Boooo for rinky-dink $20 commissions)
-AND people build your list for you when they promote


-HOWEVER-

As he said, it takes a lot for someone who doesn't have the experience.

-HOWEVER, However-


There's a solution I've used that's somewhat similar.

Buy and resell products that allow 100% commissions.


I've made $100 instant PayPal commissions by purchasing one course that shows people how to make money with YouTube and Facebook, because I was given 100% resell rights. And so is any other member of the course.

Also, Master Resale Rights is a website that allows you to buy digital products that you can sell for ANY price you choose. Which is also the next best things to product creation. Most even include sales pages and email follow up content.


I really think that's the best way to go short- AND long-term.


Hope this helps,
Frankie

These kinds of threads always amuse me...

How could anyone possibly know the right answer for the OP?

What are his/her skill sets? How much experience at either
activity does he/she have? Has he/she ever been successful at
anything?

Are there absolutely great product creators who can't successfully
sell hookers in a lumber camp? Are there absolutely great marketers
who couldn't create a decent product if they had the entire creative
team from Apple to help them?

Yes... of course... both of these types of people exist. Which, if either,
is the OP?

The funny thing is the OP will read all of these responses as if they
make valid points!

Here's the thing. They are both profitable. From a business perspective, creating a product would ultimately be more lucrative. However, in order to be a successful product vendor or an affiliate, you have to know what you are doing. Each requires specific knowledge and skill sets in order to be successful.

When someone is starting out, it makes more sense to do so as an affiliate since you will be using some of that knowledge to launch a successful product (plus more). It's like a natural progression to go from an affiliate to product vendor. With that said, you don't ever have to become a product vendor to be successful.

I'll use the film and television industry as an example. An actor can land a bunch of major roles and make millions of dollars in the process (like a lot of actors do), but the wealthiest actors also produce the television programs and films they star in. When an actor also produces projects, they also create opportunities for themselves that they might not of otherwise had.

There are certain people in Hollywood that pretty much only star in stuff that they produce: Will Smith, Queen Latifah, Denzel Washington, Jennifer Lopez (Boy Next Door movie did 9 times gross profit in comparison to its production budget) and others.

Joey

Creating your own product is the certainly the best earner, that is how the big boys make
there money, they in turn get affiliates to promote there products and to skyrocket sales.

Making your own product can make you much more money, but promoting product can give you direct money.

For example: I'm already developing a product for several years, and very soon it will be on the market.
I believe in this product, but it has to proof itself. In the last years we invested 200.000$ in it, without making any money.

Now the moment we release the beast, and then we will ask affiliates to promote it for us. If it is as good as we think, they will make money from the first sale. Where we have to make first our initial 200.000$ back before we start making any money.
But after making back the investment, from that moment, yes making your own product is more profitable.

If product created is within an evergreen and hungry market and is of such a quality that lot of affiliates are confident that they will make good money for sure by promoting that product then product creator is the best earner amongst those affiliates.

If an affiliate marketer has a skill and resources to promote lot of such products simultaneously then he or she may be in more profit compared to a single product creator.

Create a product on sell it on Kindle!

I think the best route would be to do both...

Creating a product(s) gives a totally different dynamic to your business. You begin to create a true leverages assest: i,e Your buyers list. Having a buyers list is worth 10X more than just a freebie list in most cases. Another great thing about having your own buyers list is this: They're known buyers. Buyers BUY. So that will simultaneously make you a better affiliate because you'll have a better list to promote to which will increase your EPC's, possibly your payouts, and opportunities you have to make even more money.

Having your own offers opens the doors for more income.

Creating your own product is always better.
Preferably away from the IM niche though.

I find your two options curious.

How is Option 1 going to work without "promotion"?

Option 1 usually means creating a product, promoting to affiliates, and self-promoting to customers..

Option 2 is an excellent source of added income to go alone with Option 1, as you build your list.

As many others pointed out, ideally you may want to combine the two.

Here is what you have to consider...

While creating the product, you don't make any money. Then the sales letter and all promotional tools have to be created. Then you have to get the launch set up and ready to go. During this entire process you are not making any money. You are probably spending money for graphics, copy writing, possibly programming and website development.

As an affiliate you can promote other people's products without all the product creation responsibilities, but trying to build a prospect list you can promote to when you launch your own product. When promoting affiliate products you are NOT building a buyer list. But when you launch your product you will be able to build a buyer list.

When your product is ready to launch, you do all the launch stuff but you also promote your own product as if you were an affiliate for your product.

Promoting as an affiliate you will have learn some strategies to promote your own product. Plus you will be making money during the product creation process that does not make your one single cent.

So product creation and affiliate marketing go hand in hand and should work well when done at the same time. There is no real good reason to not do both unless you want none of the product creation hassles.

Best regards,
Steve Yakim

Since you're asking this question, then most likely you're not in a position to create or even test your own product...

Most of us start as affiliates to understand how the whole process works, gain experience, become familiar with promotion technique, then we begin experimenting with product creation. It's quite obvious that being an affiliate requires much less investment or in fact, no investment at all, to get started.

Best thing to do for you, is to promote some products, make sales, save up some cash and when you understand how it all works, you can try creating your first product.

Whether you're the shovel seller or the shovel digger... you still have to market it to the right people. You can make $100,000 being any kind of person in the scenario you described. Do you want to be the best earner, or have enough of *sufficient* money to live a 1-hour work day lifestyle?

Well I guess there is no "right" answer, you can start by being an affiliate and then develop you own product once you get the feel of the market or once you have a client list, I guess it depends.

Many are good promoting but not just quite as well as creating or managing, or maybe you just plainly want to change your niche or pursue both approaches as well.

If the choice would be mine, I'd start as affiliate.