-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clickbank is good for affiliates and newbies to Internet Marketing, essentially all you have to do is promote a link and you get a % of the sale, you can use various methods to promote it and hopefully you'll get a few sales. The problem with clickbank is that you cant get access to your money instantly and really your only ever making the vendor rich, yes most are generous with thier commission rates but I firmly believe the way to make money on a long term basis is to have your own product. Now I bet your thinking doing this would be difficult but its not, I have been involved in Internet Marketing for less than 5 months and I personally believe although affiliate marketing is easy to set up its becoming more and more difficult to get sales, newbies who come into it are often promised by various sales pages that all you have to is post your link in a few places and you'll get sales. Affiliate marketing takes time and effort, I think to many people read one ebook and expect to have everything they need to be earning $xxxx per month, when it doesnt work they often blame themselves and think they must have been doing something wrong, perhaps someone recommends them another ebook, they read this ebook and think they finally have enough to make that first sale. My point is that the real money is made from having your own product and getting newbies to sell it for you, theres no risk to you because its thier time and money they are wasting away, lets face it many of us will have bought a product that contained out of date information or information that was just reworded from another ebook and had a few extra things tacked on. The way to create a decent level of income is to create your own product and make sure its an excellent product and then show people how to promote it, newbies always start out going for the big money and end up pushing the same product that every other newbie does, by making sure they enjoyed your ebook they are more likelly to promote it to other newbies and everyones a winner, you get more sales, the newbie gets the affiliate credit and the buyer gets a quality ebook.
All very well said and good, but creating your own product is out of depth for a lot of people. They pay every 2 weeks so you can't ask for much more then that.
The trick is to create your own product that will actually sell... and THEN having/finding enough power affiliates to go out and promote it. You could create the awesomest thing ever, but if you don't have any affiliates signing on to sell it for you, you're back to your own game of having to go advertise.
What I don't like about Clickbank is that you don't know who bought to follow through with other offers, unless you create some sort of opt-in page to capture their contacts. One more thing is that I can't get a Clickbank account from where I live. I have to use a virtual office in a nieghbouring country to get a Clickbank account.
I agree with Decristo that creating an Ebook might be out of scope for alot of people. Also, when creating an Ebook and listing it on Clickbank, you now must rely on others to promote and sell it. If they fail, you make zero. Selling other peoples stuff is not only easier, but it gives YOU the control to succeed! Personally I think clickbank is awesome. The problem with Newbies is that they read all these Ebooks that tell them how to succeed using Google Adwords...and this costs money. I don't spend a penny on advertising, I sell everything through the "WorkHorse Method" that is described in Affiliate Project X.
Open office has a free PDF creator to make your own E books click bank works....why reinvent the wheel
mspace is right in that selling your own product gives you more control--and eventually more revenues--than being a middleman. but being the creator is not an easy road, either. Search CB and see the pages and pages and pages of advertisers who have this: $/sale: - | %/sale: - | %refd: - | grav: - There are hundreds of advertisers out there trying to get affiliates. I'm not saying it can't be done. But I am saying that you shouldn't abandon one technique just because another one looks easier.
So let me get this straight, you just found out that there is not one way to make $ on the Internet? Yes you just realized that you need a great diversity and pigeon-holing yourself is a good roadmap to failure. Now what are you going to do about this???
I agree it would be nice to have my own product but I think the quickest and easiest place to start is by selling other people's products first. This really gives you a good understanding of how the entire process works and it's fairly quick, especially if you already have a site. While you're selling other products you can be writing your ebook and introduce it to the market down the line. I agree with another poster that for most people the question becomes, "what the heck should I sell?" Creating a product that others would actually want takes time and effort.
Having a pen and a paper doesn't make you an instant writer. And by the way, simply not to miss the occasion to whore myself: if you want an e-book written drop me a note. I wrote 3 so far. You must come with the topic and the angle though. Regards, George
How does the work-horse method work? Maybe I should buy Affiliate Project X...anyone have an affiliate link?
The whole point of the work horse approach is the fact that you are doing everything. Create the website, promote it and in some cases even create the product. No reliance on external sources, only on yourself. This is what I think of it anyway. As someone who has actually tried it, I must tell you that it can become overwhelming, but if it works you've hit the jackpot (for me it didn't) Regards, George
affilate is better for newbies because if anewbie makes an eBook and he can't promote it, it was a waste of time. but if he promoting a publishers eBook and this ebook going bad he can switch to another one. but if you have free time you can try both methods.
I learned the workhouse method before the affiliate project X in the secret affiliate weapon member area. Ewen Chia called it The "Lifetime Traffic". You submit articles to article directories sites with your affiliate links. Rince and repeat in many niches. You can even add the bum marketing method twist and make more cash.
About product creation, there is even easier than an ebook. Just do an audio, you will sell it faster. Make a search for the underachevierlife and register in the free forum there, you will have everything you need about product creation in video. You can do your audio alone with audacity free audio software, or you can pay someone on elance or rent a coder. Then sell that and make big bucks. If you don't have money, write a PDF and sell it through paypal. Easy, but your ebook has to be good. Affiliate marketing rocks. Although there is a lot of negative points, I like affiliate marketing. You make money in any niche when you want. You can't do that with your own products. Also, almost every product owner upsell with affiliate products...
Yes, article marketing works very well but I would always advise someone to sell other peoples products first and only when you can sell them sucessfully then try to sell your own. It's far better to make mistakes with another persons product than with one you've spent time and effort producing. Also don't forget video products..
I've created a product on Clickbank and some of the affiliates promoting it make around $30+ a day easily - but I do offer a generous percentage.. which is good and bad!