In order to make more money, you have to reach a broader audience as well as spread your niches. The truth is, some niches can go so much. The best thing to do is perfect a system and then replicate it on different niches. So if you have $200+ days, you need to figure out how you got those days, do it again for the same niche as well as other niches. Then try new methods (only after you have perfected one). Drop what doesn't work and scale up what does! Hope that helps
Surprised at the level of intelligent responses in this thread. Of course, one way that hasn't really been mentioned in this thread (slightly off topic) is working with other affiliate networks besides Clickbank to supplement/increase your income. Then you don't have to worry about refunds...and the revenue/sales tracking usually seems...more accurate. Anyway, just as one can use article marketing successfully on Clickbank (but there is a fair amount of competition in many niches), writing articles for offers from sites like NeverBlue, Azoogle or CJ can also be really profitable. Of course, in the case of a network like CJ, you're often only making a small commission (like 20%), so it's harder to build up to $100+ days, but you're also selling higher quality (often brand name) products. I guess my point is - if you're having trouble finding products at Clickbank to work with for whatever reason, you should try diversifying to other networks.
Good point dlm...Most people do try to focus solely on Clickbank it seems. I'm guilty of it myself for the most part. I'm accepted to a lot of the bigger CPA networks so I've really been thinkin about trying to promote some of their products that pay a good amount per lead. Seems like the conversion would be much higher too.
Its really not the program (clickbank, CJ, regnow, plimus etc.) *per se* - its the product(s) they offer. CB is not worse than the others, CB just has more cr@p but this doesnt mean it also has some gems I agree with tracking tho since CB tracking is still rather..uhm..."rudementary". agree...but its a LOT of work. Don't get me wrong, i dont have a problem to put up new sites anymore, i know some SEO and know what to look at. But its still a lot of work and EACH site needs maintenance and continued SEO, backlinks..content...etc..etc... That's why i am saying rather try a big niche maybe (like weight loss)...what i am trying right now, but found out the domain i bought had a penalty on it since someone did blackhat with it years ago. (i filed a re-inclusion request now) As for CPA....i still shudder at the thought when i promoted colon cleanse and acai and all that BS
The good thing about your situation is that you already are earning some decent income, so all you need to do is simply scale it. It might sound too difficult, but it's not really, because you've already got it working, right? What you need now is MORE of what you are doing. If you want to earn more, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to start doing other things, which you weren't before. All the stuff that was mentioned here before, like PPC, CPA, etc will require time AND money to make it profitable. If you already has something working for you, why not simply scale it? As you said, try to hire more writers or ask your writers to write more articles, and see how it goes from there? It's all about testing - try something, see if it works, then keep doing it. If not, then dump it, and move on.
Why not? $200 per day average is only $73k/yr before costs. $200/day average sucks! If you're into making money that is.
I believe one should stay diversified at all times, regardless. I've learned in the past not to put all my eggs into one basket. Case in point, look what happened in April '09 when Clickbank dropped a lot of their money making products, it sent people into a panic stricken scramble to replace those products else where. I even brought that up to Clickbank's CEO (Brad) at their NY cocktail party but he seemed reluctant to discuss it. I also wanted to bring up people suspecting "commission theft" but something told me I'd have been tossed out of there quite quickly.
If those numbers are correct that's actually a pretty low ratio. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the month an extra 9 grand is nothing to sneeze at however, for the amount of money being tied up, for every dollar they're spending they're only getting back $1.20, 1:1.2 ratio. We're getting anywhere from $1.75 to $3.82 back on the dollar depending on the product. Our average is $2.57 for every dollar spent. Something we've incorporated into the business is extensive reporting capabilities (we're number feaks). We run daily performance reports on every product, SE and AP along with daily totals and that all translates into daily averages, period totals, monthly totals, quarterly and annual totals. We also use charts for tracking and comparison purposes. Quite a few benefits come out of this, some of them being, our reports calculate how much to bid, at a glance we know on a daily basis how much we made after costs (or in rare cases lost), we know if we're within budget or have to divert funds, it shows trends and if something changes suddenly (good or bad) we'll see it immediately and we can take action, refund amounts and percentages and ROI. From these stats we always know at any given moment where we stand, we can set realistic goals for growth then also know if we're reaching them. We also know the best way to spend our advertising dollar for maximum effect. Basically, it's a bird's eye view of everything, a road map.
Hi, precious 007, thanks for your great information, I did learned a lot. The longer post which means you did put your thinking cap on, and sincerely try to help people. Greatly Appreciated ! Warm Regards Miss Sunpoint
Precious007, I like the part where you say that changing niche is like changing a job. I think it's more like a career change than just a job. It's not just the keyword difference, the target audience is completely different.
I think article marketing is very much scalable. The one thing it comes down to is being able to pick products that.. A.) YOU can promote. (i.e. you either already have experience in the niche or know the niche, or its something you'd be interested in learning about) B.) CONVERT. And "article marketing" is such a loose term now as well. Why do I say that? Because article marketing does not consist of just writing articles, publishing them to directories and watching sales come in. It's a process of writing quality articles, publishing to many directories, optimizing them for search engines, applying social media marketing to boost ranking and traffic, and much, much more. Article marketers dab into a little bit of everything. You not only have to know how to write a captivating article that will entice a reader to click a link, but you also have to have a great pre-sell page set up for them to land on and have both your articles and landing pages optimized and promoted properly. Article marketing may very well be the single most time-consuming promotional method available. But it is a great learning experience as well. But it is very much scalable and can make 5 figure incomes every month if done correctly and have a stroke of luck as well. Learn the niches, learn what works for you, build upon that. Also, if you aren't already doing it, BUILD LISTS. I slapped myself for not figuring that out in my first month (November 09) of IM. I literally doubled my income from November in December using lists. It's crazy how many people come to your pre-sell and just aren't ready to commit, but DO come back to buy after you've laid some sugar on them with your autoresponder messages! As far as PPC goes.. I've had some success with it, but it's very touchy. You WILL end up losing money in the beginning, as mentioned before. I stopped using PPC because it was a bit confusing for me. It's not just a matter of choosing the right keywords but a matter of figuring out where each individual product performs best. You have to almost pin-point countries, days, times and so much more to really make a campaign worth your time. I'm very satisfied with the results of my article marketing campaigns and I'm continuing to build them up. That's what I've found to work for me and that's what I'm sticking with for now.