Consider These Things When Choosing Products to Promote as An Affiliate
Once you have identified the niche that you want to target as an affiliate, there is still a little bit of work that needs to be done and they are set out below.
Profit
This is obviously the first thing that you should look for in any product that you want to market. Affiliate marketing is a business, and just as in any other business, it is profits that matter. All decisions therefore have to come down to this baseline, and if you, after all the research in the world find that the product is not profitable, there is no point in going any further.
This is the reason why there are a number of people who would have started out with affiliate marketing, but would have had to give up half way, because there is no money to be made. This is also the main reason why newcomers are advised to go for those products that are already selling well. That way there is not much decision making regarding the product to go with. You will therefore have to concentrate only on improving your ranking in Google and while the competition is also much stiffer, you will at least know that if you are not able to sell, it has nothing to do with the product.
It is important to make a distinction between profit and profitability. Most people go with high profitability, which means that you get high margins on sales. While this may be a good income stream, it may be a good idea to take a look at the low margin, high volume segment. Many times the quantity of sales will be such that your total profits will be more in the low margin products than in the high margin ones. For example, trying to sell an eBook for $60 a book may give you a commission of $5 per sale but if you are netting only 20 sales a month, you are earning only $100.
Instead, if you go for the ones that sell at $10, your commission may well be only $1, but if you are able to make 200 sales, you earn $200. This is only an example but it serves to illustrate the point.
Marketability
The first point dovetails into this. You need to find products that are marketable. Unless there are people to buy what you have to sell, there is really no point in you even trying to sell it. You need to make sure that there is a market for your product before you try to sell it.
There may be geniuses who were able to create a market, but this rarely happens. For the vast majority of us, selling products that already have an existing market is the only way out.
Stick to consumables
This is good advice because only consumables are sure to give you repeated sales. For example, dog food may not sound appealing, but there are more than 1,500,000 people searching monthly for it, and they will have to buy dog food the next month and the month after that. This way, even if the size of the market is low, you are guaranteed recurring sales because as long as you give a good deal, buyers will return to you.
Of course there is always the fear that repeat customers will go straight to the home site, but your advantage as an affiliate is that you are not stuck to just one product. You can have as many brands as you wish and as long as you make sure that there is something different about your site, like a new brand that you feel is better, or something else, people may very well try out different products from you. It is easier to remember just one site and bookmark it, rather than 10 different ones for 10 different products, and so you are ensuring that they will keep coming back to you first before going elsewhere. As long as they do that, you will be credited with the sale.
Quality
This is important because although the net gives you a lot of anonymity, purchasing is still governed by old fashioned values like quality of the product. You are putting your reputation at stake by saying that a product is good quality, so either make sure that the product really is as good as it says it is, or give an honest review. Either way you will have to try the product to build up consumer confidence in your site.
It is not necessary that you sell only top quality products. High quality generally means high price but more people are satisfied with fairly high quality, but lower price product. Just don’t say that something is really good when it is not.
For example, if you are selling cameras, there are a number of low cost, good enough cameras that will probably make up the bread and butter of your sale. You cannot afford to not sell them as the high priced ones are not as often sold. Yet, you need to make sure that the purchaser gets good value, so inflating specifications, and giving opinions like something is really great when it isn’t, should be avoided.
Honestly saying that something is good only for a certain use, and that if you want more functionality you should go with another model, is more appreciated than if you say that it is the best that money can buy. Many sites offer customer reviews as their marketing ploy thinking that a customer who finds a review by another customer will be more inclined to believe it. Unfortunately, not all customers leave a review, which means that many of these sites resort to putting in reviews under different names just to bolster their site. This also means that you will have reviews that are not entirely accurate, meaning that you yourself are bringing down the value of your site.
A much simpler and as effective way is to just give an honest review and as long as you have taken the time to review the product properly, you will find people respect your opinions. This may take longer, but in the long run, is easier.
Popularity
Look into the popularity of the product first. Affiliate marketing is not as easy as just creating a site and becoming an affiliate. A lot of legwork is needed and just because you find a product that is searched for does not make it a good niche to be in.
For example, there are a large number of people who search for anything “Labrador”. Yet, this is of no use to you because most of these people are looking for information. Few people buy puppies online, and although you have the option of marketing various dog products, it is still not a very profitable niche to be in. Even people who like their dogs very much generally get what they need at the supermarket, and unless you can offer a really good deal on your products, they will not buy it.
This is just an example of something that is really popular, but does not net you anything in the form of money. Of course, if this is a niche you really want to be in, you could do further analysis on finding out why exactly people do not buy, and then create a site that takes into account all these problems. This is not only time consuming and expensive, there is also no guarantee of success.
Conclusion
We have discussed a number of different way in which niches can be identified, products chosen and what the basic research into doing this is. Unfortunately, because affiliate marketing is so dynamic, and relies on a number of different things, not just the product, it is not always as easy as you think. Just increasing the page rank does not depend on just one factor, but many different ones, and when you include marketing a product into the mix, it gets much more complicated.
Affiliate marketing is the way to the future, especially if you do not have any products of your own to sell. Most sellers are only more than happy to have as many affiliates as possible, because it just means that they are increasing their sales that much more. The money paid out in terms of commission is nothing compared to what they will earn through you.
Anyone who has done affiliate marketing will tell you that it is not easy. While you can afford to relax a little after you have a stable set up. You will always have to watch trends to ensure that you are not left out when they change. For example, if you are selling clothing online, there is huge potential for it. Last year alone saw a 15{495e61a8be0728ba5e4172c16a68a1b05f8df91b32cf783b0a6ac5a97f0ba813} jump in online sales of clothes and this is only rising. Yet, you will have to ensure that you stay ahead of the curve here, as if you sell stuff that is out of fashion, your high page ranking is not going to help you.
Depending on the kind of niche you choose and the product you go with, you will have to make small changes to the strategy to give you the best returns. There are also a number of unexplored ways of not only choosing a product to sell, but also to sell it better, and newer ways are constantly being adopted. Making money by selling affiliate products is easy only for those who are already set and can afford to experiment. For those of us who are starting out, it is as difficult, if not more than selling in the real world.