I've picked a product I would like to promote, its an info book on a niche I have an interest in, however how can you promote a product when you dont really know what is in it? I was planning on using article marketing, was planning on writing an article about the topic the book is based on but wondering if what I am about to write is going to be included in the ebook and I am going to be going into too much detail, but how can you know? How did you decide how much to write about in your articles?
You can ask for a review copy. Contact the vendor and say you're a potential affiliate and be open and honest and explain your problem and that having a copy will help you to promote it. It might work; it might not. Otherwise you just have to buy it (using your own Clickbank affiliate link, of course - so it won't cost you much anyway? This is expressly allowed by Clickbank, it says so in the "rules"). The other thing you can try, temporarily and really a "last resort" is searching high and low on the internet for other affiliates' "reviews" of the product, hoping that reading them will inform you a bit better until you decide to buy a copy. But be careful not to copy their words, of course. (How do you know you want to be an affiliate for it, without having seeing it? Rhetorical question only - no answer needed/expected!).
Good tip, Alexa. I'd say that if a vendor is not willing to send a free copy (of an intangible digital product no less) to someone who's willing to spend their time and effort to promote it, the vendor is definitely not worth the effort. There will be issues with the vendor down the road, guaranteed.
another reason to write an article or set of articles depending on how competitive the term is, is to get that article ranked in the search engines. you can just summarize the product on the statement of the sales pitch page. you will need to start that way in order to get some traffic to the site via your affiliate link, so just starting is a great way to get going! get going and start making some money!
I'm inclined to agree. I do think some vendors probably get a lot of requests for free copies, though, and maybe it depends on how serious you make your email look. When I've done this, I've always tried to "present myself well" and made myself sound like someone who might be a really serious affiliate who has some real ideas for making sales and "knows the business". So this might help; I'm not sure. I've had a couple of "no's" as well, and have bought the products for 25% of the price by using my own link. What I really don't like is when they don't reply to an email at all. Those I really do cross off my list, because if they won't even reply to a potential business associate, I expect their customer service (if someone has already bought the product) will probably be non-existent, too.