The Most Important Thing

14 years ago

If you don't have a product...you have NOTHING to offer, so with no offer...then there is no reason to even have a site...thus traffic or a sales page does nothing for you.

Of course, if you're promoting someone else's product....then that's a different story, but then again, SOMEONE has to have a product FIRST or else, the rest (traffic, or sales page) is worthless.

So product comes first in my opinion....whether it's from you, or someone else...but either way, you better have a darn good product/service to offer FIRST or else you are wasting your time.

Ken

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Barry Unruh

14 years ago

I'll agree the most important thing is traffic, for this reason.

When you have traffic you can test the sales page, you can test the product and you can improve those portions of your business.

Without traffic you cannot test anything.

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graemewallis

Banned 14 years ago

I'm surprise that everyone picked traffic. I say that a product should be the first thing. Because without a product why would you need traffic.

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x3xsolxdierx3x 14 years ago

Interesting to see NO votes for "sales page" yet....hm....

What do you all think of this?
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- Frank Donovan 14 years ago
  
  Actually, the first thing you need to do is a little research.
  
  In order to...
  
  1) Identify a potentially profitable market.
  
  2) Make sure you can reach enough of that market in a cost-effective way.
  
  3) Come up with a means of monetizing that market.
  
  These principles apply to any business, online or offline.
  
  Traffic, products and sales pages are irrelevant without the above.
  
  Frank
  
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SeanyG

14 years ago

Traffic amigo! I agree with you 100%!

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Traffic, sales page, product...if the point is to make money, do any two do any good without the third?

It's kind of like asking which is more important, your heart, your lungs, or your brain. You need them all and need them working well together.

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butters 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill

Traffic, sales page, product...if the point is to make money, do any two do any good without the third?

Affiliates come to mind and cpa ... Now did he mean a product in general or your own product. If he meant product in general, there is no right answer
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- Dennis Gaskill 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by butters
  
  Affiliates come to mind and cpa ... Now did he mean a product in general or your own product. If he meant product in general, there is no right answer
  
  Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, does it matter if it's your product or someone else's product? Or your sales page or someone else's sales page?
  
  I think not, so to me, you still need all three or your efforts are wasted.
  
  PS - The OP did mention a product, so CPA may not apply. Of course, you could equate the ad or promo for the CPA to the sales page, and equate a user taking the action called for as the product, and you still need traffic . . . so all three are still necessary.
  
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Chris Steiner

14 years ago

Definitely a lot of good points in this thread.

Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill

Traffic, sales page, product...if the point is to make money, do any two do any good without the third?

It's kind of like asking which is more important, your heart, your lungs, or your brain. You need them all and need them working well together.

In a sense I agree with Dennis, however...

If your lungs fail, there is a machine that can help you breathe, if your heart fails a machine can pump your blood, but they still haven't come up with a replacement for the brain. They are all vitally important, but I think traffic is the brain - there's just nothing you can do without it.

Chris

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EvcRo

14 years ago

Unfortunately, it seems like traffic>sales page>product. That's because buyers are not experts, they don't learn for months in a niche market, they don't read tons of reviews. It's not right but that's how it is.

You can see this in all those hyped im products that sell good but are full of bad reviews. People who lurk here 24/7 don't get fooled but the average guy ...

In my opinion, you can sell anything if you know how to drive traffic. The reciprocal is not valid.

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Brian Johnson

14 years ago

Originally Posted by EvcRo

After some years i strongly believe that the first thing to learn and the most important thing in IM is to learn how to drive traffic.

Sales pages ? You can get inspiration from top guys. Products ? Can be made. The only uncertain and mystic thing is still getting traffic (of course not 15$ per click adwords traffic, i mean traffic that makes you profit).

My advice for new people is to learn first about traffic methods. 50 threads per page ? select the ones with traffic and visitors in title. Free ebooks ? Read the ones about visitors and traffic.

If you know how to get traffic rest is a walk in the park.

I would very much agree, those that have the
power to drive traffic make money.

Adsense earnings, affiliate income, products sales ...
all can be driven with free seo traffic.

Years ago I focused on only two things:

- Ranking in Google
- Affiliate marketing

It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Best,

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Mukul Verma

14 years ago

Originally Posted by EvcRo

After some years i strongly believe that the first thing to learn and the most important thing in IM is to learn how to drive traffic.

Sales pages ? You can get inspiration from top guys. Products ? Can be made. The only uncertain and mystic thing is still getting traffic (of course not 15$ per click adwords traffic, i mean traffic that makes you profit).

My advice for new people is to learn first about traffic methods. 50 threads per page ? select the ones with traffic and visitors in title. Free ebooks ? Read the ones about visitors and traffic.

If you know how to get traffic rest is a walk in the park.

I totally agree with you. i think if there is 1 thing that I mastered, it is traffic. I got small niche websites close to 85,000 visitors a month. The other thing is targeted traffic is important.

You can hire someone to make a sales page and I will get to products below.

Originally Posted by Ken Troyer

If you don't have a product...you have NOTHING to offer, so with no offer...then there is no reason to even have a site...thus traffic or a sales page does nothing for you.

Of course, if you're promoting someone else's product....then that's a different story, but then again, SOMEONE has to have a product FIRST or else, the rest (traffic, or sales page) is worthless.

So product comes first in my opinion....whether it's from you, or someone else...but either way, you better have a darn good product/service to offer FIRST or else you are wasting your time.

Ken

The whole affiliate marketing industry driven off not having a product, so I think traffic is king.

Check my signature to learn how to get free traffic (plug which can help people from someone who has done it)

Cheers,
Mukul

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square1services

14 years ago

I would have to say traffic too. IM is not "A FIELD OF DREAMS" If you build it they will not come unless you tell them where it is. No one knew who Walmart was in the 1970s. After billions of dollars spent in advertising, they dominate the marketplace. The old saying is the money is in the list. The money is in the relationship with your customers. Once you get the "TRAFFIC" you must provide more than the customer expects. Long term money.

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Matt Bard

14 years ago

I agree 100% with Frank and Dennis, and this reminds me of a Monty Python skit...

The Cheese Shop.

A customer goes into the cheese shop and asks for a type of cheese, the owner says "Sorry, but we don't have that".

The customer asks for another kind of cheese and again the reply "Don't have that either".

After a few of these exchanges, the customer says "Well what kind of cheese do you have"? the owner, after looking through the shop replies "I don't have any". "After spending money on the shop and the advertising I didn't have enough for the cheese".

So the customer says "Why did you decide on a cheese shop if you couldn't afford the cheese"?

The owner answers "Because I heard it was a good business to get into".

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John Atkins

14 years ago

Originally Posted by EvcRo

If you know how to get traffic rest is a walk in the park.

Wrong. I can send targeted traffic to any product in any
niche.

That doesn't mean that I'm always going to make money
though.

If I send traffic to a good product with a stupid salespage, I ain't
gonna generate sales.

If I send traffic to a crappy product with a good salespage, I
will generate sales, but I'll probably lose most of those
sales from refunds.

Therefore, they're all equally important.

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Matt Bard

14 years ago

Originally Posted by cjmo75

It has to be good targeted traffic to convert.

There it is. The dilemma.

How do you get targeted traffic, if you don't know what the product is?
You have to know what the product is in order to appeal to a market so they will come to you.
This is why so many people are in the mess they are in when it comes to making money.

Traffic means nothing if it isn't targeted and you can't target it without knowing what you're selling.

I have used this analogy before but it is a good one to illustrate the point.

Let's say you have an ice cream shop. So which of these choices would you rather have,
100 people a day coming in to your shop and asking you where McDonald's is...

...or 10 people a day coming in and asking what flavors of ice cream you have?

Traffic is useless unless you know how to capitalize on it and you can't profit from it if you don't know what to sell them.

Until you know what you are going to sell them, they are just a bunch of numbers.

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Tina Golden 14 years ago

I actually chose product, but what I would prefer is the term offer which encompasses the product and how it's presented. You can be an expert at driving traffic, get thousands of visitors - but if your offer isn't something anyone wants, you still get zip in your bank account.

Tina
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thebitbotdotcom

14 years ago

All three...

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Raydal

14 years ago

They are all important but to rank them then product would
come first. I wonder how Google gets traffic. How did they
get traffic when they first started out?

If you have a great product it basically would sell itself by
word of mouth--thus the traffic would come. The sales
message would rank last. (Don't tell anyone I said that.)

But there is no [honest] sales letter than can sell a BAD product,
but a bad sales letter can sell a great product.

-Ray Edwards

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Steiner

In a sense I agree with Dennis, however...

If your lungs fail, there is a machine that can help you breathe, if your heart fails a machine can pump your blood, but they still haven't come up with a replacement for the brain. They are all vitally important, but I think traffic is the brain - there's just nothing you can do without it.

Chris

My analogy may have its weak points, but that doesn't change the fact that you need all three, traffic, sales page, and product, all optimized and working together to have any real success. If any one of the three are a weak link or missing link you're lost. No two items will produce a significant amount of money without the third. There is no "most important" to it, IMUHO.

If anyone thinks otherwise, then answer this:

1. If you have a product and a sales page but no traffic, how are you going to make money?

2. If you have traffic and a product, but no sales page, how are you going to make money?

3. If you have traffic and a sales page, but no product, how are you going to make money?

- With no traffic no one sees your sales page or knows about your product, so you make no money.
- With no sales page no one knows about your product, so you make no money.
- With no product you have nothing to sell, so you make no money.

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The Most Important Thing

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