Choosing my Affiliate Product

For my second post, I wanted to take a few steps back and discuss the product I chose and why. Over my last few months of affiliate marketing, I have promoted over 2 dozen different products. Of those two dozen, I only had two that ever produced a single sale. Mind you, at the beginning, I was promoting about 3-5 products at a time and really did not focus on a single campaign. My first lesson that I have learned:

* As a beginner, focus on only ONE campaign!

I understand the "draw" to do as many as you can...You come up with a "great idea" or product to promote and play with it for a few days before you think of another "great" one, so you kind of shelve the first one and start the new one. You still follow the older ones, but your focus is really on the latest and greatest. Additionally, you get caught up in the whole notion of "if one sells x, them 10 will sell 10x!" This may be true...in the long run, but not at the beginning.

* A campaign takes TIME and DEDICATION to ever get off the ground.

Before ever starting a second campaign, I would recommend getting the first campaign to start making you money.

The next thing I have learned in the past few months is:

* Know, use and respect the product you plan on promoting.

This may not be the case all the time, but in the initial phases of internet marketing, it is a really good idea! One of the toughest things concerning internet marketing is trying to sell your product through ads and promotion. Writing ads that stand out is not as easy as it seems! If you KNOW your product and LIKE it, it will come out in your ad copy! People will believe you more because your ads appear more believeable (the ads are genuine, not artificial). This is a huge advantage over a lot of the competition! Remember, to get sales, your promotion needs to stand out and be above and beyond everyone else!

Finally,

* Choose a product that pays (initially)

For your first few campaigns, you will probably be focusing on a single product or two. One of my first campaigns focused on Amazon.com products. I was actually getting a few sales here and there, but at a whopping 5% commission, my $50-$100 products were paying me a mere $2.50-$5 per sale. I spent more on promotion than that! I recommend to start with "higher" commission programs (Clickbank is a good place to start). Some eBooks and software products pay up to 75% commissions. This way, you can prosper with fewer sales (rather than relying on a lot of sales).

In conclusion, for my second real venture in affiliate marketing, I chose what I was beginning to know best: Online Money Making products and the eBooks that compliment this genre. I have become quite familiar with many of the eBooks over the past few months and I am quite passionnate about the two that are working for me (Life Empowered and Become Hated). So let's see if I can make these work!

Welcome to my Blogging Marketing Diary

Welcome to my first blog of many that hopes to share my experiences of internet marketing blogs to all. First, let me introduce myself: My name is Matthew Bredel and I am currently a 31 year old engineer living in San Diego, California. Over the last six months, I have found myself becoming very frustrated with the lack of income I have needed to solely support my family of 4. For this reason, I, like many of you reading this, resorted to the internet to find a "quick and easy" way of making money online. I was not, nor am I going to, quit my day job and I was never looking to make six-figures doing this (at least at this time in my life). Just $1000/month would go a long way! Paid surveys and Affiliate Marketing really stood out to me and I was fairly convinced they were not "scams" after reading a lot of forums and logically, they both made sense.

I first tried Paid Surveys and signed up for every survey under the sun. To be honest, it was not a bad deal! I would get about 1-2 surveys per day and was making on average about $100/week. This was not bad (and it really was not difficult), but it really was not enough. The paid survey program I had joined also had some literature concerning affiliate marketing (not much, but enough to convince me to sign up for a "real" program). After lots of research, I felt most comfortable with John Westbrook's Life Empowered System.

That was about 5 months ago. With the program and a bit of coaching from John himself, I was able to get some business going, primarily through GoogleAd promotion. I still was spending a lot of money on promotion, websites and time. Lately, I have been reading more affiliate marketing program eBooks (and this includes the updated version of the Life Empowered) and all of them (the legitimate ones, at least) seem to focus on one thing: BLOGS!

So this is my goal and my mission right now: To get Blogs to sell! As you may guess, I have chosen to promote two products that I am now fairly familiar with and that I am truly do believe in: Affiliate Marketing eBooks and Paid Survey Sites. During the course of this blog, I want to focus on three things:

1) The Past: How and Why I chose these parts
2) The Present: What is currently going on with this campaign
3) The Future: What is my next step to make money

During the course of my blog, I welcome all comments and suggestions! I really do want this to work and I am willing to bring all of you along for the ride as well! See you in my next blog!

Cheers...matt