Internet Marketing with ClickBank Products…some suggestions

So, I was looking at Howie Schartz’s latest free pdf on traffic building (which is really a thinly disguised promotion for his latest $1,997 per month product) and it kind of got me to thinking.  Why do most internet marketers fail at making any kind of real money?  Mind you, when I say real, I mean making a living, not the typical coffee money that comes with most amateur internet marketing.  I think I know the answer…you tell me if I am wrong….

One Week Marketing Review by Pot Pie Girl is here….

Most beginner marketers get into making money online via affiliate marketing.  There is nothing wrong with this.  I push a lot of various products via the usual suspects,  pepperjam, clickbank, commission junction.  But I think that the first stop for a new marketer is Clickbank, primarily because that is what is in all of those “make money” ebooks that most of us are used to reading….

Clickbank is a wonderful affiliate program.  I make anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000 per month just from clickbank alone.  It wasn’t always that way though.  Most marketers, for one reason or another, seem to want to go with the guru route, regardless of whether they know what they are talking about or not.  And the worst thing is that the guru they hope to become happens to be in the make money niche.  If this is you and you are new, then you should understand that the competition you are facing is going to be very fierce.  I would have to believe that the make money niche is possibly one of the hardest niches to break into, affiliate wise.

If you are pushing affiliate products in the Make Money Niche, then chances are you aren’t making much money…

One of the best things that I ever did was gravitate away from the make money niche.  And I have reason to believe that all of those sales letters you see with the big numbers has to do with selling products not associated with the make money niche…that’s right….those gurus that you are blindly following are most likely making money by selling products that aren’t in the same niche that they are selling directly to you.

When Choosing Niches, Think “EVERGREEN” Niches

The reason why I mention this is because everyone gets so enamored with product launches.  Product launches are so hard to break into for a number of reasons.  

1. Everyone is trying to make quick money so the competition is extremely competitive…you will be competing against others than have more resources than you and can give away the house in bonuses and bribes.  The best have very large lists to market to and have groomed their list to accept them as an authority.
2. Once the product launch is over, you can pretty much count on all that work you put into it being done…in other words, you will have to build for another product launch.  On the flip side, an evergreen niche can be groomed and sustained for months…sometimes even years.

Evergreen products work because typically they are solutions to common (and not so common) problems.  Whether this is health related, game related (like a repair manual), dieting and fitness, computer related, dating, solutions to pet problems, home remedies, ect…..they all have people who are looking for a solution to a problem.  

In contrast most make money product launches are geared toward someone’s id.  They are one and done solutions that typically involve an impulse purchase.  And I don’t know about you but impulse purchases are becoming less of a priority these days given the world economy.

Marketing with ClickBank ETHICALLY

Want to know something that I bet you don’t know?  Most products on clickbank can be gotten simply by asking for it.  I am an ethical marketer meaning I won’t promote something I don’t believe in personally.  That would give me just a couple options when it comes to actually see what I sell.

1. I could pay for it (not cool as I promote currently around 400 products)
2. OR I could ask for an advance copy

I always will send the creator of the product an email asking for an advance copy to review.  Most of the time, they will send me a copy within a couple days.  Just to let you know…they want you to sell their product.  They want to make money just as much as you.  Ask for a copy of the product.  If you don’t get a response, don’t sell their product..choose their competitors instead.

On Clickbank Gravity

I know a lot of people are enamored with gravity.  I have seen many people talk about finding a middle of the road product, gravity wise, to promote.  The notion behind this frame of thought is that if you promote something with a high gravity, you will run into a ton of competition….and products with low gravity must mean something is wrong with their ad copy.  Personally, I don’t buy it.  One of my best sellers happens to be on a product that has very low gravity.  Just my thoughts though when you are reviewing options.

On Keyword Research

You have probably heard it before…choose low competition, high volume keywords.  The problem is that if you go this route, then chances are you will be searching way too long.  The reality is that these keywords aren’t that abundant.  The better route would be to find long tails with low competition that have ad volume and then testing the waters with mock campaigns (I use wordpress MU and web 2.0 properties to test).  Just because a keyword brings in 10 people a day doesn’t mean that you won’t make money from it.  Leave it to the other guys to search for those hard to find keywords.  Stop placing a value on volume and start looking for keywords that may produce sales.

Build a list of potential keywords and start building sites centered around those keywords.  Use parasite domains that already have trustrank to test it for faster results.

I kind of mentioned this in my internet marketing 114 points checklist but if you want to really test how much traffic a keyword gets, you can set up a mock PPC campaign.  The key here is to require the user to click something (anything) on the page.  This way you can get a pretty accurate view on not only traffic but conversion potential.

The Sales Page Matters…a lot actually

I only promote sales pages that utilize some form of user interactivity…this can be in the form of a quiz, a video or some other multi media property on the sales page.  I judge a website by a number of things when I consider promoting it:

• The headline should be compelling
• There should be various ways for the visitor to interact with the page (video, reading, listening, ect.)
• Social proof- there should be testimonials all through out the sales page.  If there are video testimonials, that is even better.  ”As seen on:” types of copy is also good.
• A very strong call to action- Need I say more?

If a sales page is lacking any of these but the product is good, then I will ask the product creator if I can build my own sales page.  Most of the time they won’t have a problem with this as they want to make money.

Test and Track EVERYTHING

So, you have a product you are testing.  You go to clickbank, grab a hop link and then throw it across your various websites that you are promoting it on.  Guess what?….if you are doing this, you are doing yourself a disservice.  If you are doing this, there is no way to determine what or where the clickthrough’s are coming from (if you are using web2.0 properties).  Separate the campaigns between sites.  Some keywords will work better than others.  Others will need to be honed to bring in the most clicks.

You should know the CTR and conversion rate for all of your pages.  A lot of marketers get lost when it comes to the analytical side of marketing.  It is necessary and it does separate the good marketers from the great ones.  It is the difference between making $5,000-30,000 a year and making $100,000+ a year.

You are going to need a lot of campaigns

Howie is right about one thing (he is actually right about a lot of things)….in order to really drive sales, you are going to need more than just a couple campaigns.  A more recent campaign of mine involved nearly 50 pages of content strewn throughout the internet.  This was on a subset of keywords that I thought would be profitable.  Out of those 50 pages, roughly 25 proved profitable.  

Not a day goes by that I don’t create at least one property online for marketing purposes…in most cases, I create 4-5…..

Casting your net across the web is essential in this day and age.  You rarely hear of a person making real money online with one website.  It simply doesn’t happen as much as you would think.

My non-profitable pages were re-honed and I use them as link farms for sites in the same theme SEO wise.

Your Product Promotions Should be Above the Fold and easy to spot

Ever wonder why ezine articles puts your bio at the end of your article rather than up top?  The reason is simple.  Most people who arrive at a page will spend less than 5 seconds on that page.  Typically, they will either press the “back” button or will click on the first interesting URL they find.

The majority of adsense publishers who make money will tell you to place the ads above the fold for this reason.

And this is the reason why you should give them the option to go to whereever you want them to go when they first get on your page.  But it isn’t enough to simply place a link on the page.  You are in charge here.  Create an “ad” that will instantly draw their eye.  Use different colors schemes to separate the text you want them to see from the body text.  Make it above the fold though so you give the majority of visitors that option to click away.

Use things like pictures (make them clickable) to your advantage as well.  Anything that draws the eye should be reason enough to include a promotional link.

Purchase your own domains and then redirect them to the product sales pages

I know, it is easier to simply cloak your affiliate link and move on, right?  You don’t have the money to afford the $10 a year that a domain will cost you.  Well, most affiliate marketers that are making money have figured out that nothing quite feels as good as a domain with your keywords in them when you are promoting someone else’s product.  Take the lumps.  I will buy a domain with a keyword in it and then use it on 50-100 properties online.  It looks like I am the person selling it and it can be something that you could brand.

After all, which would you be more likely to click on?  

• yoursite.com/recommends/volvorepairguide4beginners
• volvorepairguide4beginners.com

Redirect that sucker straight to the sales page.  If you are doing article marketing, this is a must have since EZA won’t allow you to go direct to a sales page but will allow a redirect from a top level domain.

 

Make a separate persona for each campaign

I do this for a couple reasons.

1. Nothing spells “I am a marketer with no credibility” than to have several different niches on the same account. It just doesn’t look right to someone when they see a few articles where you are talking about your expertise in auto repair next to a few articles that are about eco-friendly make-up solutions.  
2. Other Marketers will try to reverse-engineer your marketing strategies.

Buck it up.  Typically, I will build 1-4 personas for every campaign (remember…campaigns can have 50-100 pages on separate web2.0 properties, article directories and personal websites).  I won’t link them together.  They will be…well, separate.  Build an excel sheet with various email addresses and passwords as well as a persona description.

That’s it for today.  Just some thoughts on niche marketing with ClickBank and internet marketing in general.  See you next week…..

Oh, one more thing.  I did happen to look at a make money product that is all that and a bucket of ice cold water that kind of discusses this in more detail and is perfect for newbies trying to fight out of the proverbial make money paper bag…you can check it out….

One Week Action Plan

I know….I just broke all the tips I just gave but I don’t typically promote make money products often…there will be no 50 properties promoting this…just a one and done sales pitch.  Check it out, if nothing else but to see if it is a good fit for you….and yes…it is an affiliate link, uncloaked in all its ugliness….