Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject of affiliate sales and affiliate marketing. In this short amount of time I’ve come to realize that 99% of the information that most people see on this topic when they first decide to venture into the world of affiliate sales is absolute chaff not worth taking the time to read through.
In my first three hours of research I was completely inundated with products offering me the one sure fire method that would jump start my online affiliate career. These programs promise all sorts of amazing results, from making a profit within the first three hours to making $700.00+ per day with just minutes of work on my part. Each one promises to give you all the secrets the top affiliate marketers don’t want anyone else to know. All you have to do is sign up for their program (for a fee) and they’ll show you how to get rich in minutes.
I call BullS**t!
The truth of the matter is this. There is no magic bullet. The promise of “if you build it, they will come” only works for baseball fields in small Midwest towns, not marketing niche sites. It may have been true in the early days of the Internet but it is most definitely not true today. Successful affiliates are doing well for the same reason any other entrepreneur does well. They work very hard at it.
I’m not saying that all of these programs are completely useless, but I do feel that he basic premise of most is to prey on the gullibility of people who really do want to learn new ways to supplement their income. Each and every one of the sales pages I visited tells the same story. “It’s simple”, “It’s Easy”, “we’ll walk you through a step-by-step method to make amazing amounts of money”, “it’s fun!”. The promise is for amazing profits with no effort, the same promise that’s heard all over the world on late-night infomercials and it’s the same in the case of the Internet. It’s a false promise.
The more reputable of these systems is selling information that anyone could have found for free on their own if they had just looked for it. In essence you are simply paying them for doing some of the legwork for you. My wife actually purchased one such affiliate program and made her money back within one month without spending another dime. The reason she did not continue was that she found she wasn’t really interested in the situation. Fair enough, the program delivered at least the basic tools for a complete novice to make some extra money. In this case it wasn’t a complete scam.
Other programs are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to sell even more products that their customers will probably never really need, with the promise that these tools will help in making that first “Internet million.” The reality of this type of program is that they have taken the same basic skills detailed in more ethical systems and turned them into an affiliate marketing sales pitch of their own. In the end they’ll promise to refund the entire cost of their program if the customer isn’t satisfied (this probably happens quite often), but if their customer went through and bought several different tools and utilities as suggested, the company has easily made treble that amount of money off of that person.
It’s simple for an inexperienced or gullible individual to fall prey to companies like the latter and eventually find that they have spent thousands of dollars on useless software, bloated website hosting, design services and useless or outdated information. These people leave the experience disillusioned and disparate. They probably won’t try again, which is a shame, as there is money to be made if the situation is approached in the right manner.
That’s why I’ve decided to write an eBook on the topic. I want to take the mystery out of the process and point people to the right resources, tools that actually do work and people that can actually help them move forward without burying themselves in debt. As a byproduct I’ve come up with ideas for several other eBooks, all on topics that are designed to help people move in a positive direction toward their goals.
I have to be a bit vague at this point on topics and the actual titles and information these eBooks will contain, not because I’m not so excited about it that I don’t want to share it with everyone, but because I don’t want someone to take my exact idea and get it out before I have the chance to do so.
And how will I market this little gem, you ask?
With affiliate marketing, of course. I’ve already gotten a massive amount of help from dozens of affiliates, why not give back by hopefully earning them some money in the process. (Making a bit to help with hosting costs and other necessities doesn’t sound bad either.)
I’d love to know what you think about this. Is it worth the time? Does the topic interest you? Please leave your ideas in the comments. And hey, feel free to let other people know so that I can get as much feedback on the subject as possible.
Peace, I’m out.
Jerry Announcements, Business Sense, Monetizing Announcements, Business, Business Sense, ethics, growth, making money, Monetizing
