Is developing your own product an absolute must to make money using affiliate marketing?

If you're wondering whether you need an original product of your own in order to become a successful in affiliate marketing, and if you're thinking whether or not to buy a PLR product and make it your own, then read on. I truly hope this article will be of some help to you .

"To Have or Not to have your OWN product?"

I've heard this countless times since the day I started in affiliate marketing. Part of why this question is asked so often is maybe because everyone you ask has a different answer, a different opinion or view to share. But broadly there are two types of people you come across -

The ones who say it is an absolute must to have your own product - who truly believe that in order for any one to succeed as an affiliate marketer, this is surely the best way.

And there are the ones who say, why wait to create your own product when there are so many out there, all you have to do is make your pick and get started with instant commissions. Having your own product is definitely not a necessity in their view.

Now, which could it be?

The truth is, these two opposing views are both correct.

Hear me out, I'm not trying to take a diplomatic stance on this, and i'm surely not trying to confuse your further. If you have your own product, that's great. You can develop your website and affiliate program around it and focus on getting that product out there, working tirelessly to garner sales and simultaneously gain your authority through that product.

And if you think that making your own product is time-consuming, you want to take action right away, there is an ocean of products out there that you can promote instantly and make sales to grow your commissions.

Whichever side you want to be on, the one critical requirement is that you are passionate about the product(s) you are promoting. You will be a lot more convincing to prospect customers if you are a true believer of the product. People are more likely to see through someone trying to do the "hard sell". Find or Create a product that you 100% believe in, which in turn will drive your ambitions for the long haul.

At the end of the day, your success is directly proportional to your effectiveness in marketing the product using the techniques you've learnt on your journey. Don't lose your focus, it kills success. Every shiny new object along the way doesn't need your time and attention. Grow and nurture your product, you will be able to reap the benefits soon!

The Best Way to Optimize Your Paid Traffic

I recently found out that the best way to make sure you've got a winning campaign on your hands is to first determine the answer to this  - How much time are you willing to spend waiting before making your $$$$??

If the answer to that is anywhere between 6 months to a couple of years then you could sit around waiting for organic traffic to build gradually over time that you actually be spending making money.

But if you're the type that's keen to take action immediately, then by default, paid traffic will be the most obvious choice. However, I'd like to point out now - rather than at the end - that there is no "magic button" that you can press to get you that money right this very moment.   After careful review of the methods followed by successful funnel leaders, I've managed to capture briefly the 6 STEP PROCESS SHOWING THE BEST WAY TO OPTIMIZE YOUR PAID TRAFFIC

So... What works?

Step 1: Understanding your audience

Figuring out who will be your audience is a lot harder than you'd think. Often, what happens with young entrepreneurs pushing niche products is that they tend to think more about the various possibilities where the product can be used only keeping in mind the various features they offer and applications for those said features.

Instead, imagine all those thousands of potential customers as one person - what does that one person / customer get out of buying your product.

Who are they? Their age, gender, employment status, and financial status are some of the things to consider.

What are their wants? Can your product resonate with them by providing appropriate solutions to possibly problems / frustrations they might have? 

Answering these questions will help you develop your "Customer Avatar". There are many customer Avatar worksheets available online for free that will cut this work down in considerably.

Step 2: Writing ads for your target audience

Sounds simple enough - write some really cool ads for the target customer you just identified by going through step 1. Don't rush through the process, give the headlines and ad copies you are going to write a lot of thought. I mean it. The most common reason your ads fail is because : a) you didn't identify you target customer properly and b) you didn't put enough effort into creating the best headlines you probably could. 

Another way to find out the exact terms to use for your ads is to pose as a customer for someone who is already doing really well in the same space / niche market as you. You can look at how their pitch their product to their audience directly with what you've come up with to really compare and understand where you will need to make changes.

Step 3: Split Testing

Set up multiple landing pages with the ad copies you've made and make sure to test them with different traffic sources. Test everything you've got control over - be it the color scheme, fonts, headlines, no detail is too small to be split tested.

Setting up a solid split testing foundation is what will make sure you get your money's worth and more in the later steps.

Step 4: Conversion Tracking

You can add a conversion tag or code snippet to your page to help you track valuable data that will inform you which keywords, ads, adgroups have a lower Cost Per Conversion (CPC) so that you can then filter and eliminate the ones that have a significantly higher CPC.

Step 5: Build your campaign

Phase I: Discover

Launch your paid ads keeping in mind all that we've learned from steps 3 and 4. They don't have to cost you a significant amount of money - even a small budget of 5$ - 10$ a day will enable you to build your database. You will need to run them for at least 2-3 weeks.

Phase II: Fine-tune

Make a note of which landing page works for each traffic source, which days of the week and at what time of the day do you get the most leads and fine-tune your ads spends accordingly.

Phase III: Scale

Scale up your ads incrementally, slowly and stop when the ratio of ad spend to returns maxes out. You will then need to scale out - find new target audiences, markets and traffic sources and repeat the process.

Step 6: Setting up a Brand Campaign

Now that you've understood your customer's journey to find your brand, you will need to set up a brand campaign to ensure that you increase the number of positive engagements and increase brand loyalty among those customers you have worked so hard to identify.

Say your audience remembers your ad from Instagram or any other platform and then consequently looks for your brand by searching online your ad needs to pop-up at the top of the search listings to ensure that that conversion goes to you. You could end up losing potential sales without a campaign and hence it is an absolutely critical aspect in this journey to finally reaping the fruits of all your efforts thus far.

Make your money work for you the right way with the 6 Step process above. I will be back with more Pro-tips and Hacks to help you along the way to finding your millions.

Thanks!