Affiliate Program vrs.Your Product

Hey just get you a website, throw up some content, find a good affiliate program, and sit on the beaches of the world with your favorite drink.

That's the ticket. Right?

Bull Patties!

Look, it's hard enough to earn an income on the web without buying into crap from "get rich quick jez brains".

The truth is: Owning your own product is the way to go... but before you go off trying to write your own eBook or design your own software program, you need to be well informed first.

Let's weigh some factors in our decision making process.

First, do you know how much work it is to design your own product, produce your own sales page, market your product on the web, design your own site, and then hopefully get paid?

And by the way, have you done the research to see how much demand there is for your product before you go broke trying to promote it?

Have you found out how much competition there is in your market?

Which Way Do I Go?

Until you are ready to pay the price in time or money, you need to stay away from your own product for right now and think about promoting other people's stuff.

That's what affiliate programs are for.

How on earth do you find out which affiliate programs to promote? Who can you trust? Will you get paid on time? Will you get paid at all? How much of your own money do you have to invest? What if you don't have a lot of traffic right now?

Look, I know this is a bunch of questions, but you need to think about this stuff if you want to be successful on the web.

I'll tell you later in another diary entry how to find the best affiliate programs, but for right now let's look at the pros and cons of an affiliate program vs. your own product.

Pros and Cons.

Pros of owning your own product:

• You get to keep all the commission or profits.
• You control the distribution of your product.
• You control the price of your product.
• You can get an army of affiliates to sell your product or service and use the power of multiplication by letting them use their time and money to sell for you.

Cons of owning your own product:

• You have to find your niche market.
• You have to check out the competition.
• You have to design the distribution.
• You have to design or pay for the design of a sales page.
• You have to be creative or pay someone to create the product or service for you.

Now let's look at some of the pros and cons of an affiliate program. (we're talking about a good affiliate program)

Pros of an affiliate program:

• You can get paid by simply sending traffic to the affiliate sales page.
• You don't have to sell. Let the product owner do it.
• You don't have to come up with a product or service.
• You don't have to design the payment or distribution system for the product or service.

Cons of an affiliate program:

• You compete with about a zillion other affiliates (like a junk yard dog) for a scrap of meat.
• You usually get your butt kicked using PPC (pay per click strategies).
• You spend your money or time or traffic to get the sales.
• You are sending your traffic away from your site to someone else and counting on them to do the right thing for your site visitors.
• You pray that the product or service does not saturate the market before you get a somewhat decent income.

Now I know based on the above what you're thinking. Jeez Paul, you must not like affiliate programs. Sounds like you're leaning towards your own product.

Duh?

But there are exceptions to the rule. Let me give you an example.

You have a "kick butt site" gettin a zillion visitors per day and your niche is about movies. In my opinion, an affiliate program that pays a minimum of 50% commission is the way to go. I prefer a 60-75% commission, but hey... you already have the traffic, so you're not going to spend a lot of money on promotion.

You can make some good bucks promoting other peoples stuff. But what happens when the ride is over? Even the best eBooks, or software programs, eventually run their course... times may be good for 6 months or a year, but remember; if the product or service is good, everyday more and more affiliates are signing up. Just ask eBay and PayPal affiliates.

So there is nothing wrong with affiliate programs that are good. But keep in mind that you need to take the money and aim for producing your own product or service. That strategy will make you wealthy if you find the right one.

Soon, I'll be making a diary entry on how to find the best affiliate programs. So come back again. Ya hear!

Until next time...

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