So you’ve started your online business, built up your website, and have carved out a nice little niche you’re sure has profit potential. Time for the money to start rolling in.
What’s that? You’re not making as much as you expected? The pressure of creating products – products that sell – getting to be too much?
Not to worry. I have a great tip to help your business boost its profits quickly. Or, if you don’t have a business already, you’ll get to avoid all the usual business start up headaches and be profitable sooner than you thought possible.
You could soon start seeing the kind of money you dreamt of when you first started your online business. I’m talking about promoting affiliate products through ClickBank.com.
What’s ClickBank?
Put simply, ClickBank is an online retail site where online businesses (that’s you) can find new digital products that you can then market. Here’s an enticing figure: in the past 14 years, ClickBank has made over $2 billion for their clients. That’s right, $2 BILLION. And there’s no reason why you can’t get a share of all that money.
In just a few easy steps, I’ll show you how to register and find exciting new products for you to market. And then you’ll start selling and making money like never before.
Sounds Too Good To Be True. What’s the Catch?
There is no catch! Being an affiliate with ClickBank doesn’t cost you a dime. You register, find products in the ClickBank Marketplace that you’re interested in selling, and start marketing. ClickBank only gets paid when you get paid, a miniscule percentage per transaction. But there are so many sales on ClickBank each day, they don’t mind.
As an affiliate you don’t have to worry about customer service or fulfilling a product. You simply offer the product for sale through affiliate links on your own website and sales pages and get a cut every time somebody buys.
ClickBank sellers offer very competitive commissions – often 75%. That’s much better than most affiliate networks you’ll find. It’s perfect for any online business: big or small, new or established.
Ready to get started?
How ClickBank Works
There are actually two ways you can put ClickBank to work for you and boost your revenue. The first is to use it to sell your own digital products. Basically, you create a ClickBank account, submit your product for approval, pay a small fee, and begin selling to ClickBank affiliates. This process will be covered in a future article.
In this article, we’re going to focus on the easiest way for you to use ClickBank to boost your revenue: becoming an affiliate marketer with ClickBank. It’s absolutely free and can be a lot of fun.
Affiliate Marketing with ClickBank
To become an affiliate marketer with ClickBank, first go to their website and create a user profile. Like I said before, registering doesn’t cost you a dime.
Once you have your account, it’s time for you to browse the ClickBank Marketplace and find a digital product you would like to promote. There are tens of thousands of digital products – this means they are instant download, which buyers love – for you to choose from. Everything from field guides for bird-watchers to bone-chilling murder mysteries, in many different languages!
A big bonus is that most sellers also offer sales copy you can use to promote their products.
Still, I recommend picking a product covering a market you already know about or are interested in, because it’s best to familiarize yourself with the product you’re trying to sell before jumping in and starting to market it. It’s Sales 101.
Remember, the more you know about what you’re trying to sell, the more confident you’ll come across, which equals more sales for you and more money in your pocket. You don’t have to be an expert, though… you only have to seem like one!
I like to keep an eye on the top seller for a given category and then browse around to see if I can find a product by the same company or author that isn’t selling as well. It’s already been proven that the company can create marketable products… and I may be able to find a gem that only needs the right marketing nudge to make it a bestseller, too.
Here are a couple of tips for browsing the ClickBank Marketplace:
- Use the filters
In the menu on the left of the page, you can narrow your search result by many attributes, such as language and billing type. Say you want to market to German-speakers… after choosing your category, scroll down and select the radio button for German. All the search results will now contain German-language products only.
- Find the bestsellers
Again, choose the category of your choice. Then, have the results sorted by “Popularity” from the drop-down menu near the top of the page. All the results will be sorted from most popular to least.
Strategies for Selling
Now that you’ve chosen a digital product you know you can sell, and you have done a little bit of research on it, you’re ready to sell. You’ll be using your personalized affiliate link that ClickBank provides – this will keep track of all your referrals and lets ClickBank know how much money you made.
Here are a few tips for online marketing that will have you making money in no time. These come in handy if you don’t have an online presence yet… or are struggling to get noticed with your existing Internet business:
- Start a blog
Starting a blog is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to improve the web-presence of just about any product. But because you’re marketing digital products, creating and building a blog makes that much more sense. They’re also fun and easy to do.
If you’re operating on a small budget, use Blogger.com. It’s completely free and comes with many beautiful and customizable templates for you to choose from. On a blog, you can write short articles on the product you’re marketing, add pictures, create short promo videos, even put ads and create a second revenue stream!
A friend of mine recently started her own blog about tattoo design. It has been a longtime passion of hers, so she recently started reviewing different tattoo parlors in the town I lived in, showcasing the work of her favorite artists, and making a tidy little monthly sum buy placing small ads on her blog’s homepage. When I told her about ClickBank, she went online and found a number of different digital products on tattoo design. She picked a few she liked, reviewed them on her blog, and is now making almost $1,000 from those reviews alone.
- Create an email newsletter
Another great way to market online is to write and send out an email newsletter. These can be short and sweet, and like a blog, they’re lots of fun. You offer a little information, provide your affiliate link, and watch the sales rack up. Email newsletters can be a very powerful way to engage customers.
- Get active in online forums
The beauty of the Internet is that it brings people together. No matter what you’re interested in, you can be sure that there is already at least one forum dedicated to that very subject. A simple Google search will let you find them, and once you’ve registered as a user, start posting there.
You can post small messages, comments and so on, and after a few weeks, you’ll have gained that forum’s trust and can post reviews of the product you’re marketing. You’ll be providing your affiliate link, of course, and you’ll have a targeted audience reading it!
Another great thing about ClickBank is its reach. As the leading online marketer, ClickBank offers you an unsurpassed global reach. You’ll be selling your digital products to folks around the world… and around the corner! That $2 billion I mentioned above? It’s growing everyday. The potential for you to earn money is simply staggering.
Best of luck!
Mark Edwards
P.S. I’ve just outlined the ways you can make big money by using ClickBank. But here are a few resources to help you along.
Resources
Where to Register
www.clickbank.com
Promoting ClickBank Products – Tools and Strategies
ClickBank MarketPlace (browse for bestselling affiliate products to promote): http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm
The ClickBank Blog (great resource for marketing tips): http://www.clickbank.com/blog/
Blogger (a free, one-stop blogging service): http://blogger.com
WordPress (another free solution to create your own blog or website): http://www.wordpress.com
GoDaddy (where to buy your URL and get web hosting): http://www.godaddy.com