Chapter 2: How to Sell ANY Product

2.1 The Product

 

In other words you must not be an affiliate (you will see why later).

 

However that does not mean to say that you personally have to create a product.

 

If you don't have a product of your own you can acquire the 'resale rights' to a product - which allows you to sell it as if it was your own.

 

The Magic Of Resale Rights

 

If I started in online marketing again I would not bother with creating my own products, I would focus on the very lucrative world of resale rights.

To illustrate this there's a perfect example in Chapter 4 where I have produced a package of products with resale rights and the even more profitable 'private label' rights.

If you want to learn how you can profit from resale rights visit my site Resale Rights Guide.

Products with resale rights are typically ebooks or software - in other words 'digital' goods. When it comes to selling such items the ideal place is ClickBank who handle the whole selling process for you.

You will find all you need to know at my site The ClickBank Guide.

 

As mentioned, throughout this chapter you will see how I use the strategy in this book to sell an actual product. So we'll start with my choice of product.

 

Case Study - product selection

One of the most useful of marketing tools is the ad tracker - you'll see why if you visit my site The Ad Tracking Guide.

The particular tracker which I use and recommend is AdTrackz.

I have now purchased the resale rights for AdTrackz and will show you how I sell it in the case study sections.

To choose your product you could look for a profitable niche then search for associated products with resale rights.

 

How To Find A Niche

One way to look for a profitable niche is to study the questions people are asking at the forums. You will already have seen examples of 3 sites which I have created using this technique

- The ClickBank Guide
- The Ad Tracking Guide
- Resale Rights Guide

I've written a free ebook which explains how to use this idea (and also how to profit from forum postings) - Forum SuperTips

2.2 Search Engines ?

There's no doubt that a high ranking on the first page of a search engine like Google beats nearly every other form of traffic generation.

 

After all, potential customers are actively searching on keywords that are relevant to the site.

 

The problem is in attaining and maintaining a high ranking.

 

Here's what I mean.

 

Why I have said Goodbye to the Search Engines

 

The whole area of search engine optimization is imprecise and ever changing.
As a result there has been a plethora of tools developed to assist with the task and one theory after another about what is needed to reach a high rank.

Do you really want to spend man-months collecting thousands of backward links then find that they are probably worthless because the anchor text does not contain a suitable keyword, or the site does not have sufficient page rank, or whatever the latest algorithm is ?

Do you want to buy expensive cloaking tools and run the risk of penalization ?
Do you want to compete with others who are using such cloaking tools ?
Do you want to discover that a major Google change has caused your site to slip out of the rankings ?

Do you want to be bothered about whether a domain has a static or dynamic IP address or have to use different hosts to make a network of minisites ?

Now some say that you don't need fancy tricks - just provide good relevant content.
My answer ?
Nonsense.
Take my site The ClickBank Guide.
If you wanted to find the most relevant content for a search on the keyword 'ClickBank' don't you think that would be at the top ?
Well Google used to agree with you.
It was ranked number 2, with only ClickBank.com itself at number one.
Today it is ranked ... wait for it ... number 426.
It is beaten out of sight by sites which have nothing to do with ClickBank but happen to mention that keyword once.
(continue over) (continued)

I asked a search engine expert about this and he suggested that it might be due to keyword density, in other words too many mentions of the word ClickBank.

Well that has to be the case - the site is after all a 'complete guide to ClickBank'
His advice - try replacing the word ClickBank occasionally e.g. use 'CB'.
No way.
My site stays, it's the search engines who are leaving.

 

I don't want to build an online business on such shaky foundations.

 

I want to use fundamental pillars of Internet marketing which will always remain steadfast.

 

You will see them in this strategy.

2.3 First - the best way to presell your product

Here's an article I wrote back in 1998 - and it's still true.

 

Win customers by giving away FREE information

 

What is the best way to attract visitors to your site ?
Everyone agrees on this point - it is by providing Free Information.
Let's see how to do this and why it works so well.
Suppose you are a supplier of video recorders. Hopefully you will be the owner of a professional sounding domain name, such as VCRworld.com
You write an informative article entitled "How to Choose a Video Recorder" which explains

* the key features of video recorders * a guide to prices
* handy tips for using video recorders * useful accessories
* potential problems
* future developments

Put this article on your web site or have it available by Email (on an autoresponder if you expect a big response).
While your competitors are all posting similar ads which say
"Buy, buy, buy our cheap video recorders"
or sending unsolicited bulk Email to thousands, you will be posting short ads which say

Our Free Guide
"How to Choose a Video Recorder" explains the key features to look for, prices and handy tips.
Visit www.VCRworld.com

And whenever you contribute to any group where there are potential customers you include your signature:

"How to Choose a Video Recorder" FREE guide
www.VCRworld.com

Your visitors will be impressed by the quality of free information you are providing and your well chosen domain name: they will regard you as an authority on the subject.
They will be easily influenced to buy from your site while your competitors' unoriginal ads are consigned to the Email waste bin.

That article was written before the days of ebooks as we know them now and we can adapt the key idea to use with a free ebook.

 

What you do is produce an ebook about your product niche which provides quality information and includes links to your own products.

The secret is to have highly relevant links and weave them naturally into the content in a low key style without appearing to push for a sale. So when you discuss a particular topic and want to show where more detail can be found, or how a particular problem can be solved, that's where you can mention your product as a source of further information. If you want to see really good examples of how to do this read my free ebook 101 SuperTips.

See - that last sentence was an ACTUAL working example of how to weave in a link.

 

There's no doubt that a free information type ebook is one of the most powerful methods of product promotion.

 

Case Study - producing an ebook

In order to promote the ad tracking tool AdTrackz I wrote an ebook AdTracking SuperTips which is a guide to choosing, using and profiting from ad trackers.

It concludes with a recommendation for AdTrackz.

 

And there's another great advantage in offering your visitor an ebook.

 

You can capture his contact details and then run a series of follow-up messages designed to clinch the sale, using an autoresponder tool.

 

Compare this to a web page where a visitor leaves and you have no further contact.

 

So now the issue turns to getting traffic to your ebook first instead of directly to your site.

2.4 Getting traffic to your ebook (Part 1)

There are hundreds of directories where you can submit a free ebook - you can find them by running a search on 'free ebook directories' or similar. These directories exist to supply webmasters and ezine publishers who are looking for good free content which they can use to give to their visitors or subscribers as a bonus or an incentive.

But there's an even better form of free content they want which we will see in section 2.6.

2.5 Getting traffic to your ebook (Part 2)

Remember when I said that it must be your own product not an affiliate product ?

 

That's because you can now bring the might of an AFFILIATE FORCE to your promotions.

 

You allow affiliates to use their affiliate link to your product inside the ebook. This is done by 'rebranding' the ebook.

 

You will find some rebranding tools in the Tools section of the Resale Rights Guide

 

Tips For Managing Affiliates

 

How to pay affiliates ?
- If you use ClickBank to handle the sale as recommended earlier they will automatically handle the affiliate side of the operation.
How to attract affiliates ?
- As a ClickBank vendor your product will appear in the ClickBank Marketplace where there is a potential audience of 100,000 affiliates.
What rate of commission to pay ?

- Affiliates won't be interested in 20% or 30% commissions. I pay 51% so I can tell my affiliates that they will earn more than me. You can sign up here as a SuperTips Affiliate.

But there's one case where I pay 100% !
How can that be ?
You will see soon.

 

But there's yet another way to get affiliates - and they will be beating a path to your door - in the next section.

2.6 A massive step beyond

There's something that website owners love more than ebooks - ARTICLES.

 

The more the merrier.

 

They use articles on their site and reap the earnings from AdSense ads because search engines thrive on good content

 

Articles get MASSIVE distribution.

 

You can submit them to article directories, article announcement lists and to ezine publishers. Once again just run a search and you will find endless lists.

 

So your next step is to produce an article which 'presells' your free ebook.

 

It's not difficult - the information is already there !

There should be lots of valuable content in your ebook so you can summarize the key concepts and turn that into an article. You then put a link to your ebook in the article resource box.

Case Study - writing an article

 

I used material from my ebook to write an article 23 Ways To Use An Ad Tracker
The resource box for the article says:

Learn all about ad trackers with Harvey's free ebook Ad Tracking SuperTips
http://www.ad-tracking.com/adbook.html

Note how the article presells the ebook and the ebook presells the product. To see why this is effective consider the above case. After a potential customer has read about the 23 ways to use an ad tracker he will realise how valuable an ad tracker can be but if he gets directed to my recommended product AdTrackz he will still be left wondering

- how do I get an ad tracker to work ?
- what are the different types of tracker and how do they compare ?
- why is the author recommending this particular one ?

All this information is explained in the ebook so we move the customer along one stage at a time gradually building up his interest and curiosity.

 

And now if you have been wondering how to attract affiliates here's the simple step which will have them begging to join your affiliate program.

 

You allow the article publisher to change the link in the resource box to point to his rebranded version of the ebook.

 

Case Study - article rebranding

 

My article concludes with the line:
Publishers can reproduce this article and change the URL to point to their own rebranded version

 

Now, if that will have affiliates beating a path to your door then Chapter 3 will produce a stampede. For every 10 affiliates who initially show an interest in distributing your free book maybe just one will actually do it.