Launching my first product, how to make it big time?

[Rob Toth]

If this is your first product, your focus should be on sales not profits.

What you want is (1) exposure/branding (2) leads (3) ***BUYERS (4) affiliates .

I'd increase the price, do a split pay on it $39.95 but then they exit it's $19.95 x 2 and pay 100% commissions to affiliates.

I'd include an upsell and give affiliates 80% on that too.

And then I'd award bonus commissions for affiliates who meet X sales (ie: milestone based bonuses).

In the process.... (this being my first product), I'd establish a very valuable name for myself and my (upcoming) product lines, I'd gain a lot of subscribers. More importantly, I'd gain a buyers database and Affiliate partners for future easy and very profitable launches.

Keep in mind that with affiliate leaks, word of mouth etc you'd still turn a bit of a profit. Though I'd use that money to then start running some cold paid-ads to my offer so I can start improving my cold traffic conversions which is the ONLY truely dependable and scalable way to build a business. JVs and affiliates are terrific but offer no consistency/predictability.

On a sidenote, 50% comm is very low for a digital product and $15 is hard to entice any B-rank affiliates, let alone the A-rank guys.

All you'd get is C and D rank affiliates (in terms of experience and distribution ability).

[Steven Wade]

Milestone-based bonuses are really neat -- thanks for the idea. Also never thought of the cold paid-ads angle.

I do disagree on there being no predictability -- that's like anything else. After the big one I'd assume most vendors that are successful on their first launch get lazy fat off the success and tone down their affiliate attraction/marketing efforts and therefore the number of new affiliates every month drops, creating that seeming inconsistency.

[Drew Stegman]

Hey Harneet,

First post here, but I've been internet marketing for a couple of years and I have a basic level of experience...

If you want your product to be successful, you must be actively building an army of affiliates. Affiliates aren't going to come crawling after your product unless you give them a reason to promote. This is especially true with the big fish, since they typically only promote what will make them a lot of money.

It will be very, very, difficult to create a successful product on Clickbank unless you have an active army of affiliates promoting or your own untapped traffic sources that you're using to make sales yourself.

But if you're looking to build a huge army of affiliates...

You have to give them a REASON to promote.

There are already thousands of products in the Clickbank marketplace, so what's gonna separate yours from the rest? It all boils down to a few basic principles...

(a) Provide tools for your affiliates - This makes their life much easier and it makes your product seem much more attractive to them. When all affiliates have to do is visit your affiliate page and use some of the tools there, they'll be much more likely to promote. Coffee Shop Millionaire is a very successful product on Clickbank and they have a full blown affiliate center you can check out at affiliates.coffeeshopmillionaire.com as an example. If you have a WordPress blog, you can install a free plugin called 'WordPress Affiliate Resources Page' to create your own affiliate center (search for it on Google).

Provide banner ads, email swipes, solo ads, PPC ads, blog articles, and anything else you think would make your affiliates lives easier.

(b) High Average Sale - You mentioned above that you're offering 50% commission. This would not necessarily be a bad thing if you were selling your product for more, but considering that Clickbank takes 7.5% of the sale + $1 it really boils down to less than that, which will turn a lot of affiliates off in the beginning.

Because you're only charging $30 for your eBook, offer 75% commission. Then, add some upsells in the backend and maybe even some recurring commissions to increase your average sale and attract more affiliates. You tell me... if a super affiliate has a choice to promote a product with or without upsells and recurring billing, which are they most likely to promote? Not to mention, most super affiliates (the affiliates that will make about 98% of your sales) will only promote a product if they can make a decent amount of money off it and by adding recurring billing/upsells and increasing your commission rate to 75% you're making your product look much more attractive to a lot of affiliates right off the bat.

(c) Product description geared towards affiliates, not customers - This is a HUGE mistake most Clickbank product vendors make. How many customers actually go into the Clickbank marketplace and buy a product directly? Not that many. Now how many affiliates are actively searching for products to promote in the Clickbank marketplace? A LOT more.

You need to gear your product description towards affiliates, explaining why they should promote and how it would benefit them. Provide a link in your product description back to your affiliate tools. Explain to them how you offer high commission rates, your product converts like crazy and how it will make them rich and successful. If you look at the top products on Clickbank, almost all of them have descriptions geared towards affiliates, not customers.

[devesh dave]

Hey there,

you just adviced to use wordpress Affiliate Resources Page but when I tried to find it on wordpress, it is nowhere to be found man,

Can provide some more info about it??

[Martin Sheridan]

If this is your first product, your focus should be on sales not profits.

What you want is (1) exposure/branding (2) leads (3) ***BUYERS (4) affiliates .

I'd increase the price, do a split pay on it $39.95 but then they exit it's $19.95 x 2 and pay 100% commissions to affiliates.

I'd include an upsell and give affiliates 80% on that too.

And then I'd award bonus commissions for affiliates who meet X sales (ie: milestone based bonuses).

In the process.... (this being my first product), I'd establish a very valuable name for myself and my (upcoming) product lines, I'd gain a lot of subscribers. More importantly, I'd gain a buyers database and Affiliate partners for future easy and very profitable launches.

Keep in mind that with affiliate leaks, word of mouth etc you'd still turn a bit of a profit. Though I'd use that money to then start running some cold paid-ads to my offer so I can start improving my cold traffic conversions which is the ONLY truely dependable and scalable way to build a business. JVs and affiliates are terrific but offer no consistency/predictability.

On a sidenote, 50% comm is very low for a digital product and $15 is hard to entice any B-rank affiliates, let alone the A-rank guys.

All you'd get is C and D rank affiliates (in terms of experience and distribution ability).

Hi Rob,

great post on how to attract the different ranking affiliates - common sense, but sometimes these things aren't that obvious to us newbies - thanks again!

I've just finished creating my new product and am wondering if you can give me any advice on how to create an effective funnel. The goal is to roll out for weight-loss season in January.

For example, for an upsell or downsell do I just select an affiliate product such as a weight loss site membership? If I'm selling my front end product for $49, do I choose a product with a lower or higher price for the upsell/downsell?

Appreciate any advice - thanks mate!