How To Choose a Product to Promote - Day 2

Let's get started with today's session.

It's considerably longer that the last one, but I don't want to leave anything out. So hopefully you'll find all the info useful - if not you're welcome to scan through and stop at the sections you fancy.

Presuming you have a ClickBank (CB) account now. Log into it.

Now go to their Marketplace - link's on top right hand side.

When you've done that, you should do a search for a product in the area you're looking to sell in…

Right - here is where I tell you that if you are planning on making money through CB you should definitely invest in CBEngine PRO.

The PRO edition is the one that comes with extra features that will make a huge difference in how you find the products to market.

It is only $9.95 for a whole 3 months, but it will give you an edge over the hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who are trying to find good profitable CB products.

If you're not too sure if you should get it, have a look.

Before we head off to CBE PRO, we need to decide where to start.

I already decided yesterday, have you made a decision of which market you most like to be in?

So, go to CBE PRO - Here

For now I want to start with the Categories section (LHS Nav) - because I have decided on my categories.

There are all in all 9 of them. I'll explain how I go about looking through one of them and then we'll move on. If like me you are willing to look at more than one - you just do it the same way for each topic…

I'll start with looking at the Health & Fitness Category. Into the whole of it - 899 products.

So I went to the Health & Fitness section and sorted the product list by %-age commission. For info products, as a rule of thumb, I will always look for 50% or higher commission products. 75% is really my goal.

That's not so much because I want to earn the extra dollars (although that's obviously a good motive). It's also because the vendors that are prepared to dish out that much of their earnings upfront, usually have a good product supported by a good back-end sales funnel - better converting marketing generally.

Because we're just starting out, we're going to look for the straight forward good products - more fancy techniques will come handy later - when we are much more experienced.

So next, let's look at the CB rank for the products. I've sorted them again by rank (lowest numbers on top). The rank number indicates how high up the chain the product is. So the smaller the number the better.

This is the short-list of four product I've chosen from this category:

1. Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle - I know the topic and I happen to know the man behind the product(which doesn't happen often but it can play a decision maker fact, because it establishes trust in my case(the man behind the product is very reputable).




2. 12 Hour Cure For Yeast Infection - is sounds like a problem people will want to solve very urgently and it offers 75% commission.




3. The Truth About Building Muscle - again I know about this topic and it will make my life easier in terms of selecting keywords and setting up a campaign.




4. Quantum Mind Power - I am very interested in the topic and it would be a pleasure researching it if I decide to go this route. And even at 50% commission I am still getting $44 dollars.

Although some of these have less than 75% commission next to them, I have picked them because I know about the topic better than some of the ones with more commission. With my comments next to each choice I hope you'll see that I don't look at any of the info components for a product in isolation.

You have to learn to look at the full picture. You can't just look at %-age commission. Or just at commission earned. You have to make sence of all those figures together. Then look at the historical data and so on.

Now that I have my short list - I'll dig a little deeper. You see the little icons next to each product on the right. Those are all the power that CBE PRO gives you - you won't find those in the standard CB interface.

I will go for the "Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle" first. This product obviously sells a lot (momentum of 100). And it also has had pretty consistent performance - Average change number is 1.

Finding out more details about your product

So let's dig deeper into "Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle" - click on the info icon on the right - it's the little "i" in a block.

You should see this screen now:

There are several areas where you should pay special attention. I've numbered them for you and will go through them one by one to give you an idea as to how I assess a product.

Keep thinking of the fact that you may find a better or easier for you way to asses these - you need to just train and practice in recognising the good signs.

1. Your commission per sale - that one's straight forward and does what it says on the "tin". Just keep in mind that higher commission doesn't always mean a better product to sell. Lower commission may mean that the product it cheap enough to sell a lot of and still make more profit at the end of the day.




2. The full price of the product - yes, the higher the price the more selling/convincing you and the sales page would have to do to get people to purchase. It could mean you get more commission, but if you can't sell much, what good is it to you? So don't get scared, just asses the full picture.




3. The gravity - this is as CBE says "Distinct # of Affiliates who Earned a Referral Commission for product." So it means that the higher the number the more affiliates are promoting this product. 309 is pretty high - this could be good or bad. Good, because it means that it sells - social proof :o). Bad - because it means a lot of competition. Here's where you'll be helped by being involved in, or knowing about the market. But you will also need to be a lot more 'creative' with your marketing tactics.




4. Look at the graphs on offer - these are really useful. Have a look at them - they speak for themselves, and are a good way to spot trends that you could exploit. I'm leaving these for when we are more advanced…




5. The web site, i.e. sales letter: Sales page

Right, this is where you need to pay extra attention. Go to the URL and read the sales copy - top to bottom.

Go on - go read it :o)

The Vendor's Sales Letter

This isn't meant to be a copywriting lesson - so I will give you the major points to think of when reading.

As you read along, make notes on things like:

• How long is it? There's no right or wrong answer for how long the copy should be - it should be as long as it needs to be to give enough info to make someone purchase.




• Is it using testimonials? These are usually a big plus to help a sale - again social proof and good choice of testimonials would usually indirectly answer the main niggling questions in the prospect's mind.




• Is it believable?




• Does it seem like the person knows what they are talking about?




• Are there any bonuses offered? Big plus, in fact these will most often be the one thing that will swing a sale ;o)




• Is the headline captivating, i.e. would you keep reading?




And very importantly:

• Would YOU buy from this guy, if you've just stumbled on this product, providing you're looking for something on the topic?

Here are some other points that you'll need to also consider:

Are there any 'leakage' points? By that I mean, is he selling them another product, or often sending them off to some other page or site through links on the page? Those are bad, because they dilute the message and divert the attention of the prospect. You don't want those on the page ideally. Sometimes that would be a "deal breaker" for me, especially if the vendor refuses to do anything about it…

As I mentioned before, I know the guy behind this product and he happens to be a very good marketer. He's been on the top of the CB rankings for a long time - consistently, so we should only expect the best of him.

A particularly good tactic on his page is the floating pop-in offer for a free report. It's good as it means people will most likely enter their details to get the free report. So later even if they don't purchase in this session, they will be emailed with messages that will attempt to convert them into buyers - which means more commissions for you!!!

The affiliates materials/support the vendor is willing to offer: - Affiliate Area
Here is another sign of great marketingsmenship (my own word :o) - I shall coin that in :o) is the fact that he realises the value of affiliates. He values them so much he makes sure they have their own area where they get not only support, but marketing materials. Stuff that you could take and use "out-the-box"…

'Nuff said!

OK, we've covered a lot of ground in this and the previous sessions, and I feel the need to recap briefly.

This is the short list of steps we take to choose a market and product to sell from CB:

• List the possible markets to choose from, depending on your interests and expertise.
• Search through the different product on CB within the chosen categories - strongly recommend to use CBEngine to support your decisions.
• Compile a short list of possible products within each of your possible markets you listed.
• Choose one product you can sell following the different selection criteria discussed earlier.
• Do initial research into the product and it's landing page.

In conclusion, choose your product wisely.

It is a very important decision and it will mean the difference between success and failure. Play on your strengths as much as you can, as this will give you an advantage over the competition.

Go for a strong market at least at first until you get more experience. The "strong" markets will guarantee at least market volume, so you'd be left with figuring out how to convert that volume.

In the opposite scenario, if there's not enough traffic/volume you have extra work to tery and get people to convert in the first place.

Finally, the reason I chose this product "Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle":

• I happen to know the vendor is a good marketer which gives me confidence that I will sell better than other products that may have less experienced vendors.
• It is a topic that lies in an area I have experience with, so it will be easier for me to do keyword research and write ads to get traffic with - understanding your market is the most important thing in marketing(we'll cover that in one of the next case studies).
• It is also a topic that is a "pain point" for many people, and it will keep being so for a long time to come. Which means people will keep wanting to spend money to relieve the problem.
• The commission is good, although not great, but considering the product isn't expensive the entry level will be accessible to more people - meaning I'd make up for the lower commission with volume of sales :o)
• The sales letter is strong with all the right ingredients.
• There's an extra opportunity to convert by using that pop over bonus offer.
• There is good affiliate respect and support.

So that's all I have to say on this topic.

I hope you followed along. Remember I want these to be interactive, so question when you need to - I will try my best to answer your questions, or at least direct you to the answer :o).

Stick Around

Yes, you'd want to stick around till Friday - that's when I will take you to the next step in this process. Until then you can go and do the stuff we've covered in this first case study.

Our next Case Study will be on how to do your Keyword Research and Keyword List Preparation for your campaign.

I'll take you through the process step by step - real life.

Till then, you'll have some time to choose your own product and join in - the next steps will be really interactive so to get the most out of them you should find a product you want to set up a campaign for.

Till next week guys & gals - happy product hunting.

Anita

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