How To Monetize -- What Would You Do Here?

10 years ago

If you were not happy with the product then you most certainly can't expect other people to buy it.

Hand over all your content to a ghost writer and have them put together a product for you.

There is a little bit of setup required to sell your own product but nothing you can't handle.

The sooner you learn, the better. You don't want to always rely on having to sell other people's product. Selling your own products will give you higher profits and also mean you can get affiliates promoting your product.

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Chris Pambos

10 years ago

I would approach this by creating my own information product if I was confident in the fact that my information totally dominates the competition, sure it takes a bit of time but they payoff is worth all the effort.

Depending on what kind of budget you are working with you can easily outsource and streamline the creation of your information product otherwise if I was in your situation, I would man-up and put in the hours needed to create the information product myself.

The approach is that if you are not willing to put in the work then I guess you are not willing to make the money.

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MelanieandMiles

10 years ago

Definitely lean towards creating a product of your own... Many benefits. But the feasibility analysis makes sense.

Here is a little 'trick' we use to get an idea if a niche we are targeting is valuable or not... Go to Google and type in the main keyword phrase that your average user would type in... What we call our 'most valuable keyword phrase'

Are there paid ads showing up? If so... Some vendors/affiliates are making enough to pay for clicks. Good news! If not... ouch. Strike one.

Really, in the whole 'Is this niche big enough to make lifestyle-income' question, competition is your best friend... If there is no competition, there is probably a reason for it. If there is competition (especially ppc competition) that really is a sign that people are making money in this niche which means move forward!

Good luck in your endeavor!

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carlo_sim

10 years ago

Create your own products or service and
create your own brand

Study copywriting and use it to draw people
to buy your stuff

Then get traffic from targeted sources such as
forums and facebook. Lastly, talk to other industry
experts and connect with them

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natas105

10 years ago

I suggest you find your audience and offer your content or a a part of your content as a freebie to build your list. Splitting the content up to build a list and warm them up for the actual complete product might work very well for you in this case!

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bennie07

10 years ago

It seems as though you've stumbled onto a golden opportunity. If what you offer is better than what you had planned to sell from Clickbank, you should definitely create your own product. With your background experience, it would be authentic and the health/fitness industry is evergreen.

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wmrwl

10 years ago

Rather than creating your own product or being an affiliate, have you thought about setting up an ecommerce "shop" on your site?

You can setup accounts with suppliers of products in your industry and become a reseller. I would imagine the margins in the fitness industry are huge. There are probably tons of supplements and other products you can sell.

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imogenhobbs

10 years ago

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

So I've been building a site in the fitness niche. Previously in life I had a lot of experience in the fitness industry, so I tend to know more than most affiliate marketers who make websites in this niche.

Coupling that with some specific research on the matter; I've been able to write really good workout related articles and routines for people suffering with this "problem".

Site was made with the intentions of selling high price clickbank or similar high commission products. There is not a lot of pages to this site so it would not do so well with CPC, nor is there lots of ways to monetize with amazon either.

Now on clickbank there is really only 1 product that has a good sales pages and is 100% specifically targeted to my niche/problem. The vendor is nice and responsive as well.

So I've purchased a copy of it, and well, its really not all that great. Visually its a nice e-book but the information on my site is far better and more complete. The ebooks info is decent and hits on some of the points I emphasized, but overall its kind of generic and not as thorough as my articles have been.

Now I'm kind of torn what to do here. I originally thought the products would be fine but after putting work into the site, its hard to sell stuff at a lower standard than I convey across my site.

Making my own product and selling through my site would be ideal, however that would be time consuming and I have not yet seen proof of concept. Site is published but seo efforts are in their infancy stages.

Anyone else run into this type of issue?

Alan, think of win-win.

You see, when you think win/win, both sides stand to gain - both sides win. When you're powerless, you need to stand on the shoulders of giants.

A lot of newbies make this mistake... They think they want a successful business, but you see - if someone is already powerful and trusted, what makes you better than them? You need a better angle... And the sad truth in this world is that however good a product is, if the marketing is not good or decent, it will never go big enough.

You said that the ebook is not impressive... right? Then how about this... You contact the owner and tell him that you can sweeten his offer if he includes your short report at a 100% affiliate commission (or just give it free but remember to recommend your product at the end of the report). What you can do here is to offer your own credentials to reinforce his offer. Tell him that you'll reciprocate in future. Of course, what you want to do is not directly compete with him. Instead, make a product that is supplementary to his product, not a competitor.

Think about it this way: "What can YOU offer to him so that he'll be willing to promote for you?"

As you said, he is already successful and he probably has a huge customer base already accessible through mailing. His list is an asset.

But you noticed a problem... His product isn't impressive. But in what way? Would the customer really benefit with extra information? Can you provide it?

Imogen

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Alexa Smith

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

I originally thought the products would be fine but after putting work into the site, its hard to sell stuff at a lower standard than I convey across my site.

Not only "hard to sell", but also of rather limited value even in actually making the sale? Because if what you recommend doesn't really impress your subscribers, they won't be back for more, and even the open-rates for your emails to them may drop dramatically.

Don't lose sight of the fact that in successful affiliate marketing, most of the long-term income comes from making multiple, repeated sales of different products to the same captive audience (which is, of course, part of the reason why it's so important to "capture" the audience with your opt-in process: from the perspective of ClickBank sales, there's no real income without that: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7110523 ).

Excuse an unhelpful comment (except maybe for next time?) but it's always important to know that there are a few good-quality products to promote before putting up a niche site.

I think, in the circumstances, your four main options are probably (i) to choose a new niche, or (ii) to look at places other than just ClickBank (there are many others, perhaps?), (iii) adapt the site to some other niche of "fitness" which does have several suitable, high-quality products available, or even (iv) to create your own product (though that's a radically different proposition from being an affiliate marketer, of course, and raises all these issues, among others?).

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

Site is published but seo efforts are in their infancy stages.

No loss there, anyway: search engine traffic, in the "fitness" niche (actually it isn't a "niche" at all - it's a "market", and a huge one!) presumably wouldn't be the road to riches, anyway: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8659398 .

.

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AffiliatingAlan

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Not only "hard to sell", but also of rather limited value even in actually making the sale? Because if what you recommend doesn't really impress your subscribers, they won't be back for more, and even the open-rates for your emails to them may drop dramatically.

Don't lose sight of the fact that in successful affiliate marketing, most of the long-term income comes from making multiple, repeated sales of different products to the same captive audience (which is, of course, part of the reason why it's so important to "capture" the audience with your opt-in process: from the perspective of ClickBank sales, there's no real income without that: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7110523 ).

Excuse an unhelpful comment (except maybe for next time?) but it's always important to know that there are a few good-quality products to promote before putting up a niche site.

I think, in the circumstances, your four main options are probably (i) to choose a new niche, or (ii) to look at places other than just ClickBank (there are many others, perhaps?), (iii) adapt the site to some other niche of "fitness" which does have several suitable, high-quality products available, or even (iv) to create your own product (though that's a radically different proposition from being an affiliate marketer, of course, and raises all these issues, among others?).

No loss there, anyway: search engine traffic, in the "fitness" niche (actually it isn't a "niche" at all - it's a "market", and a huge one!) presumably wouldn't be the road to riches, anyway: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8659398 .

.

This is a 2 month bump though I have turned away from that site for a bit, I am looking back at it because I know there is money to be made here. So I didnt wanna start a new thread for this.

Hope Alexa replies to this as Im interested in her opinion here.

I will say it is hard to find a niche like this where competition for some terms is low yet for these type of queries the demographic is definitely likely to be the highest type that would be of a buying nature.

Therefore turning my back on the niche for moral or ethical reasons seems stupid, however, I do find it hard to throw away my logic.

The problem I have with pitching products in niches like this where I am or become informed in (through article writing related research or past experiences) is the fact I have to actually consciously try to dumb myself down and dismiss logic if I want to actually sell things (especially CB products to people).

For example I just watched the 3 week diet sales video and a lot of whats said is complete bullshit. "calories dont matter, its the calories we show you about that matter", "losing 14lbs per week is easy and actually good for you if you do it right". Lulz.

I understand this stuff is what sells but its hard to build up good blog with a lot of effort and research only to push sub-par shitty products to your visitors.

But of course what actually works doesnt sell because it requires actual effort and not false claims. The venus factor for example has done well at selling people what they want yet giving them more or less what they actually need. Of course thats why its saturated and rightfully popular. It does what so little products I see on clickbank seem to do. The norm seems to be they are either hypey/good salemanship and then suck. Or contain bad salesmanship/too technically minded and are good.

The technically minded or poor salesmanship product that is good will not sell. And the excellent salesmanship products simply never meet my personal quality standards because I myself know that it is bullshit.

TBH I have more success when I just read the sales page, dont even actually ever see the product, and just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Once I read the product I either find flaws or wind up portraying points that bring people back to reality even though I find them to be rewarding or desirable.

I've always had a lot more logic and common sense than people that buy CB products clearly. I frequently underestimate their capacity for stupidity and in turn it hurts my profits.

Simply put people dont want what works. They want false claims, lies, and over night solutions. The problem is after putting so much effort into a microniche niche site that specifically goes against that type of mentality, its hard to shift shit their way and maintain your persona.

I couldn't care less for future credibility, ethics, moral, or future sales. With organic seo most of the times you have to pick sites based on potential rather than passion. And I simply do not have enough passion for this blog as it sits on my hosting account next to my many many others to care to write dozens of future articles unless they boast low competition keywords or I start seeing dollar signs somehow.

This site was intended to be a 10 page website that will rank and bank based purely on potential with the hope of $100-500$ per month revenue. Rather than twiddle my thumbs over the lack of quality out there that I can sell and earn commissions on; I am strongly debating to stop trying to give people what actually works and being truthful and rather push a diet pill instead of even a program.

I am fairly certain that I would make between 100$-500$ per month within a couple of weeks after I alter some articles to promote a fat burning pill I know will not work.

The fact is trying to take traffic that wants info on diet pills and weight loss and trying to redirect them, educate them on why these things dont work, give them a solution that does work and then bank from it is very hard in affiliate marketing it seems.

People are looking for a quick fix and just want you to convince them to buy it. They want to be sold lies, they just want you to validate there decisions to buy into them.

Putting morals and ethics aside it looks like I'll also have to let go of my own engrained logic and "what is right", if I want to sell shit

Again I vastly underestimate the stupidity of people who buy stuff online, and it does hurt profits.

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Alexa Smith

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

Hope Alexa replies to this as Im interested in her opinion here.

Apologies for not having seen your post until a moment ago.

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

I will say it is hard to find a niche like this where competition for some terms is low

When you say "terms", are you looking at it from an "SEO" frame of reference? I'd like to think we both have "bigger fish to fry" than that, Alan? Almost nobody's getting rich by using search-engine traffic for affiliate marketing: those are visitors who opt in least, of almost any traffic source (and buy least often, too!). I always suggest to people that they shouldn't put time and effort into trying to attract SEO traffic, for two main reasons: first, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost; secondly, for me, search engine traffic, in every single one of my niches, has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use) but I'd hate to have to make a living just from that traffic. If you have a good look round the forum, you'll also see plenty of other Warriors making exactly this point. We surely need a better context for discussing it than that?

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

Therefore turning my back on the niche for moral or ethical reasons seems stupid

I look at it very differently indeed.

I regularly turn my back on countless niches for moral and ethical reasons.

I'll offer just one example: the niche I know most about (because I'm a part-time forex-trader, and because it's been how my father has made his living since before I was born, and because I make regular, steady income from my own trading, and because I've read probably 50-60 textbooks about it - some of them nonsense, "surprise surprise") is forex-trading - but in spite of being an article marketer and in spite of it being a subject about which I can most easily write (and have actually written quite a bit, one way and another), it's still a niche I won't touch, as a marketer, for exactly the "moral and ethical reasons" you've mentioned: I think the products suck, big time, and the sales pages are scammy and revolting, and I don't want to encourage people to get sucked into something many of them are going to treat with a gambling mentality and probably lose their funds. That's "moral and ethical", isn't it?

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

The problem I have with pitching products in niches like this where I am or become informed in (through article writing related research or past experiences) is the fact I have to actually consciously try to dumb myself down and dismiss logic if I want to actually sell things (especially CB products to people).

I hear you. My solution to that is to choose other niches.

On ClickBank alone, there are over 15,000 products, and hundreds of different niches are represented.

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

For example I just watched the 3 week diet sales video and a lot of whats said is complete bullshit.

That doesn't surprise me. I promote nothing in that niche at all (I don't say there's nothing I would/could promote, but I take you point that there's a lot of crap, too.)

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

I understand this stuff is what sells

I don't know whether or not that's true.

I think it's very easy to assume that "hype sells" because one sees so much hype. Whenever I've seen "hype" and "non-hype" split-tested, "non-hype" has actually converted better.

Call me a skepchick, but I believe the majority of markters perpetuate and copy what doesn't work, because they wrongly believe it works, simply because "everyone else is doing it".

To some people that suggests it works. To me, it suggests that it probably doesn't.

In a field of enterprise with such a low overall success-rate as internet marketing (or "as affiliate marketing", if you prefer to specify that), I think we should expect that "what most people do and perpetuate and propagate", most of the time, is going to be nonsense. Seems logical to me, anyway.

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

But of course what actually works doesnt sell because it requires actual effort and not false claims.

Here, I think you're thinking, perhaps, largely of IM-related and/or MMO-related products?

We don't need to discuss those in a ClickBank context, I think? No informed affiliate is going to promote IM/MMO-related products from ClickBank, surely, because of the obvious hazard that so many of the customers will buy those through their own hoplinks rather than through the hoplinks of the referring affiliate anyway? That's a peculiar. specific ClickBank/IM/MMO problem, because ClickBank allows people to buy through their own hoplinks, but it does mean that you very often don't get paid (or even know how many sales you really referred), in those niches.

(I'm not in any IM/MMO niches, never have been, and don't wish to be, anyway.)

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

The venus factor for example has done well at selling people what they want yet giving them more or less what they actually need. Of course thats why its saturated and rightfully popular.

Sorry - haven't heard of it, don't know what it is, and can't comment.

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

TBH I have more success when I just read the sales page, dont even actually ever see the product, and just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Once I read the product I either find flaws or wind up portraying points that bring people back to reality even though I find them to be rewarding or desirable.

Not something I've ever tried (or wanted to), so again, I can't comment.

I do increasingly suspect, from many of your comments above, that the "big concealed issues" here, behind many of your points, relate perhaps to niche-selection and to product-selection? http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post2161932

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

With organic seo most of the times you have to pick sites based on potential rather than passion.

Sorry, but I'm basically unwilling to discuss it in terms of SEO traffic. There's no money there, worth talking about. That's just not worthy of our time and attention.

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

I simply do not have enough passion for this blog as it sits on my hosting account next to my many many others to care to write dozens of future articles unless they boast low competition keywords

Articles have nothing to do with "keywords".

And in any case, publishing articles just on your own site isn't a traffic-generation method. (The only traffic that can ever bring you is a little bit of close-to-worthless, gradual, slow, eventual search engine traffic, anyway.)

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

The fact is trying to take traffic that wants info on diet pills and weight loss and trying to redirect them, educate them on why these things dont work, give them a solution that does work and then bank from it is very hard in affiliate marketing it seems.

I'd think so, yes.

Trying to educate/re-educate people is terribly difficult, and all-too-often thankless. That's among the many reasons why I strongly prefer well-educated subscribers, myself.

Again, that's also why I don't touch "forex trading", myself.

It seems to me that perhaps you shouldn't touch "weight-loss", for similar reasons? (I have no experience of it, myself. Not weight-loss - I'm worryingly thin at the moment and have far too much experience of that

, but "weight-loss marketing".

)

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

People are looking for a quick fix

I understand.

Time for a new and more carefully selected niche, I think?

Weight-loss is horrendously competitive anyway, I think?

I prefer very small, deep niches: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8561081

I strongly prefer "enthusiasts' niches" to "problem-solving niches", for all the reasons explained here: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post9408026

Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan

Again I vastly underestimate the stupidity of people who buy stuff online, and it does hurt profits.

There are other huge markets full of other, vastly different demographics, too. My traffic demographics are very similar across all 9 of my niches. They're educated, upmarket, affluent, slightly older people. There are endless millions of them, worldwide, and it's comparatively easy to market to them, by doing more or less the opposite of what most marketers do, but very few marketers seem interested in trying. It makes no sense at all to me. Just my perspective.

(Not sure that I've actually helped you, here, but I responded, anyway

).

.

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jeremy49

10 years ago

Hi Alan
what struck me about your post was the realisation that you need to prove the concept first before you spend too much time. Whilst I agree with the others that providing your own product is the best way forward in the longer term or even medium-term, you first need to check whether you will be getting traffic to the site and whether you are solving a problem that customers want solved.

One way out of this problem of investing before you know that it's worth investing, is to presell something before it is built. I would be tempted if I was you, to advertise your product before you have written it or had it built.

The beauty of this approach is that firstly you only build something when when there is proven demand and secondly, you can ask real customers what they want you to cover in your new product.Just a thought, instead of offering in e-book or course whatever you are planning, how about offering the first few customers a 15 minute free consultation. During the consultation, you will discover what the customers were real problems are and how you may best be able to help. After a few interviews, you have an idea of the demand and how to pitch it.

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onlineleben

10 years ago

As the product you want to promote is not 100% up to your standards but you are laking alternatives I suggest to create a short report thta would 'enhance' the shortcomings of the product.
When preselling the intended product, offer the report as a bonus they only get when they buy through your link.
Doing this, you get a few things accomplished:
- you make affiliate income
- you create a mailing list (from those CB customers requesting the bonus)
- you have enough time and money to invest into creation of a superior own product
- you can later sell this superior product to your email list and via affiliates

Hope this helps.

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hellosomen

9 years ago

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fxstay

9 years ago

Create your own successful products or service needs good money if you really want to make money .

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Carter Boatright

9 years ago

I am a fitness person myself and have had the same problem. All of the clickbank products in the fitness niche spread too much misinformation.

The solution is to create your own products. That's what my plan is.

Sales funnel would be something like - low ticket --> mid ticket course ---> done for you nutrition plan/workout plans ----> 1 on 1 coaching.

The beauty of doing this is that you can gather much more targeted opt-ins from your blog since the readers have already qualified you as a good source of information if they choose to opt-in.

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