Six Steps to Finding a Great Product to Promote

Author: Beau Blackwell, ClickBank | September 9th, 2009
Posted by: Simon Slade, Guest Blogger

Succeeding or failing as an affiliate marketer can often be traced back to the products you choose to promote. At first, selecting a product to promote seems simple enough. You sign up with ClickBank and choose from any of the thousands of products available from over 12,000 vendors, then create a HopLink and slap it on your website – done!

But then, a couple of weeks down the line, you begin to wonder why you haven’t made any sales. You start to get a sneaking suspicion that maybe you should have spent more time choosing the right product to promote!

Understandably, the sheer selection of products on offer at ClickBank can be completely overwhelming to a newbie. How do you know if a product will sell well? What about competition? What do all the numbers mean?

Although there is no 100% watertight method for finding a profitable product, there are a few things that go a long way to increasing your chances of success.

Here are six research steps we recommend for finding a profitable ClickBank product to promote:

1 – Brainstorming a niche – The first thing you need to do is think about what market you’d like to work in. Choosing a market related to your hobbies, skills, passions and experiences is an excellent starting point (after all, you’ll be spending a lot of time thinking about it!). Are you a cat lover? Have you had experience with a particular health problem? Did you ace languages at school? Do your friends come to you for relationship advice? Having an existing knowledge of a niche can be a big advantage when you come to marketing it, because it’s much faster and easier to write persuasive and credible copy for your sales pages when you know what you are talking about.

So, have a scroll through ClickBank’s Marketplace and create a shortlist of niches you think you could effectively promote. Of course, ultimately you need to choose a profitable market over one that you simply like talking about, so these next steps will help you whittle your list down.

2 – Understand your customers – Let’s say you added ‘playing guitar’ to your niche list in Step 1. If you wish to pursue this idea further, then it’s very important that you understand (1) who in this niche is buying, and (2) what they are buying. The easiest way to delve into the minds of your market is by browsing forums related to your niche. This is a great way of finding out buyers’ needs, wants, and problems. For example, some people in the guitar market will be looking for free guitar sheet music; these people probably won’t be interested in buying something from you. Others want to learn guitar fast so they can participate in an upcoming performance; these people are much more likely to want to buy something to help them achieve that goal. Reading guitar forums will help you absorb what matters most to people interested in playing guitar, which in turn will help you choose the best products to promote to them.

Some other things to consider while you read: How can you target impulsive buyers in this market? How narrow is your niche? If it is too narrow you may find your target market is too small to make sales. If it’s too broad you’ll find it difficult to get your site ranked in search engines so prospects can find you.

3 – Selecting best-selling products - By now, you should have a good understanding of who your market is and what they are looking for. It’s now time to go back to ClickBank and search for some good products to promote that will meet their needs.

ClickBank uses a measure called ‘gravity’ to represent how well each product sells, based on how many sales have been made and how recent these sales were. We recommend focusing on products with a gravity of 30+, because these products have a proven track record of selling well for a number of different affiliates. Once you get below a gravity of 30, the chances of wasting your time pushing a white elephant start to increase.

A very high gravity (i.e. 100+) will generally indicate that there is a lot of competition in this niche. Don’t let that put you off. Competition is good because it means there’s lots of demand for products in that niche. It also means that there are potentially a lot of people with lists who you could form partnerships or JV’s (Joint Ventures) with.

I should point out that sometimes a low gravity product can still be worth promoting – it might simply be new, or an undiscovered gem. So while gravity is a helpful indication of selling potential, you shouldn’t reject an otherwise high-quality product solely because of its low gravity score.

4 – Multiple Products – Ideally, you want to find a market that has multiple related products being sold through ClickBank. The reason for this is that if there is only one product available for the niche, even if it sells like hotcakes, you’ll almost certainly have a hard time competing with existing affiliates who are well-established in the market.

The other advantage of multiple products is that it allows you to create a review page, increasing your chances of making a sale. For example, if you are selling a “learn guitar” product, by including a few other “learn guitar” products on the same page, visitors will feel they’ve completed the evaluation phase of buying and are now in a position to purchase.

5 – High Commission Percentage (65% or greater) – Let’s face it: you’re not going to get rich on $2 commissions. In order for your marketing efforts to be worthwhile, you need to promote high commission products – that is, products paying out at least $18 per sale. Keep in mind that from a seemingly high commission, you’ll need to deduct your advertising expenses (e.g. AdWords) as well as your time. Of course, if a product has a high dollar value, then a lower commission percentage will still be a good investment.

6 – Persuasive Vendor Pitch Page – Finally, don’t forget to take a long, hard look at the product’s sales page, since you will be relying on it to convert your HopLinks into commissions! Does it look convincing? Does it address the concerns of the market? Is it persuasive and credible, or does it sound over the top and unbelievable? Would you buy from a site that looked like that?

Choosing the right product to promote is the first stage of being a successful affiliate marketer, and if you do it right, you can drastically improve your chances of earning a good income. But even if you get off to a good start, don’t just set up your offer page and forget all about it. Keep a close eye on your ClickBank reports, and using Tracking IDs to see what pages and products are performing the best so you know where to focus your efforts and resources.

By following these proven techniques for finding good products to promote, you’ll be reaping the rewards of greater sales and bigger ClickBank checks!

Hope you enjoyed these tips for choosing a good ClickBank product to promote. Please let us know if you have any special strategies of your own!

About the author

Simon Slade is the CEO of Affilorama, an affiliate marketing training portal that offers free video training, education and software tools to both beginning and advanced affiliate marketers.

Posted in Strategies for Success | Tags: affiliate, beginner, marketplace, products, promote

3 Reasons Beginners Should Choose an Internet Marketing Affiliate Program over Product Creation

My focus today will be on how to begin your business. I will share with you what's taken me too much time and too much money to learn. My hope is that my experiences will save you many years and many dollars.

I've spent several years studying Intenet Marketing. And it troubles me to hear one of the "Guru's" in the industry say that to be a success, you've got to have your own product-that is So Not True!

Product creation is overwhelming to me, and probably you too, if you are just beginning to explore Internet Marketing. I've studied what goes into product creation-the time, knowledge, money, experience.. I've purchased Ebooks, courses, and audios with enticing titles such as "How to Create Your Own Information Product in 30 Minutes." Not Possible for the Average Joe!

Maybe these "courses" work for people who just want to make a little quick cash and don't really care about quality or long term success. Or maybe they work for really experienced marketers to whom product creation is easy. But that's not what you hear. The big name marketers always talk about the chaos the week before a product launch. About being up all night. And, inevitably, about how their server crashed on launch day or how Paypal cut them off after they brought in too much money.

I've been a part of more than one Internet Marketing Affiliate program. I've also taken steps towards Product Creation. I've found three reasons beginners should choose an Internet Marketing Affiliate Program over Product Creation.

A Good Internet Marketing Affiliate program is FAST, EASY, AND FREE!

Product Creation is Time Consuming, Hard, And Costly.

Which one sounds like an easier and less stressful path to successful marketing?

Affiliate Internet Marketing is FAST.

You can be set up in an hour.

• Go To Clickbank
• Search in a Niche that interests you.
• Pick a Product with a high gravity and nice Pitch page.

Boom! You're on your way to affiliate marketing success. It's not possible to create a quality product and convincing sales page in the time it takes to join an internet marketing affiliate program through Clickbank.

Affiliate Internet Marketing Is EASY.

You don't have to come up with the product idea. You don't have to figure out how to create an Ebook or how to produce and deliver a physical product. You don't need copywriting skills. You don't need the technical ability to put up a website. It's all done for you. How much Easier could it be?

Affiliate Intenet Marketing is FREE.

There's no cost to sign up with an affiliate program. There's no cost to create, set up, and host a web page, or to hire someone to do it for you. It's all done. Product creation involves all of these costs. Even if you're good, you can't realistically do it alone. You'll need to pay people to help with some aspects of the creation, promotion, and launch of the product.

If you are new to the Internet Marketing business, start with the fast, easy and free method. Your chances of Affiliate Marketing Success are way greater than your chances of Product Creation success. Save that for when you are making a little money, able to quit your job, and have some time on your hands and some experience to ease the pains of product creation.

Too many people quit trying to make money online because it "Doesn't Work". The fact is, they just didn't know HOW to make it work. They didn't follow the Fast, Easy, Free Method that can result in Affiliate Marketing Success, with just a little persistence.

Now that you know the Right Steps to Follow, You Have No Excuse For Failure.

Take the first step in Creating the Life of Your Dreams by Claiming Your FREE Infinite Income Report Here

THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS TO TAKE ACTION NOW-SEE YOU AT THE TOP!