Lesson #2: Picking A Profitable Niche & Affiliate Program

You've probably heard the saying, "Do what you love and the money will follow." Well I say, "Follow the money and then you'll have the time and freedom to do what you love!"

You don't want to waste your time promoting products that won't make you any money. So you need to select a market that you know will be profitable.

Many new marketers think you need to find untapped niche markets to be successful. But markets with high demand and no competition are very rare.

You might be able to make a little money in a niche market where there is no competition. But you can't build a business in a market with low demand.

You want a competitive market where a lot of money is already being spent. There will always be room in a market of cash-in-hand buyers. All you need is a small slice of the pie...

What Makes a Market Profitable?

Any market that helps people make money, save money or improve their life in some way will be profitable.

Some examples of profitable markets are weight loss, Forex trading and self improvement.

Now that you have chosen a profitable market, you need to learn how to find primary affiliate program to promote as well as additional affiliate products that you can weave into your back-end follow up autoresponder sequence.

Remember, you're building a list so you can promote multiple products and services.

Here's what to look for in a good affiliate program:

• High commission (50% - 100%)
• High converting sales letter
• Quality product that you would want to buy
• Proven marketing tools (email ads, graphics, etc.)

Personally, I highly recommend that you only promote digital products such as information and software. Digital products are available for instant download so there is very little overhead and profit margins are much higher than they are with hard goods.

That's why merchant's who sell digital products pay higher commissions. In fact, there are thousands of programs online that will pay you 50% - 75%, and sometimes up to 100% commission and it costs you nothing to join as an affiliate.

A great place to start your search is in the ClickBank Marketplace.

There are over 11,000 information products to promote in dozens of markets and most pay 50-75% commission per sale.

"Find Clickbank Products That Sell!" Click Here Now To Research The Highest Converting Clickbank Offers

My personal recommendation for your primary affiliate program though, is to go with one that offers instant commissions through Paypal.

Cash flow is the number 1 thing in all businesses, particularly when just beginning. Having access to cash helps you to grow more quickly.

What's in it for the web site/product owners? They get more sales, as the affiliates are more inclined to sign on. Getting paid immediately really grabs the affiliate's attention!

Looking into instant commission programs is extremely recommended if you're an active affiliate. And if you're fresh to the affiliate game, it's the best place to begin.

Let's do a quick over view of a few.

Warrior Plus

The Warrior Plus features the WSO Pro and the WSO tracker. For Warrior Forum members, there are instant notifications by e-mail, RSS, or a combination. Warrior Plus likewise features the WSO of the Day section where the greatest offers are detailed.

When you're an affiliate for a product, your commission is paid automatically, immediately upon a successful purchase from the buyer.

Before you get your commission, though, the fee is paid by the seller. This means if you were getting a 100% commission, you'd get 100% of the cash left over after the fees.

For a refund, the customer requests it from the vendor and the vendor does the refund. When this gets sent to PayPal, the commission you got gets refunded to the seller.

All of this happens automatically. It's a great idea to keep the commission in your account for 60 days to ensure that the buyer doesn't request a refund.

The only e-mail address the buyer ever sees is the vendor's.
JV Zoo

It's free to become an affiliate at JVZoo. You'll get instant access to all the affiliate tools and training.

The JVZoo Affiliate Marketplace contains products from a wide assortment of categories.

- You get up to the minute conversion and EPC details for products so you know what to expect from a promotion.

- Get paid instantly by the vendor! This eliminates charge-backs or PayPal disputes.

- If you start promoting a product, you'll be cookied to the whole sales funnel.

- See precisely how your campaigns are doing in real time.

- There as well is a bonus delivery system and the ability to use a Two Tier Affiliate layout.

- Vendors deal directly with buyers, so there's no need to ever supply customer support for individuals that buy from your affiliate links.

DigiResults

Would you like to get paid immediately into your PayPal account on every sale… Without the headaches of “instant commission” scripts?
DigiResults is the answer.

- Immediate payments for promoting high converting products.

- You simply promote, no customer support responsibility as an affiliate.

- It’s free to get started.

- Up to 100% commissions on premium products.

The great thing about instant payment programs is that they have offers from a lot of individual affiliate programs.

Depending upon the network, you'll likewise find an assortment of tools which help you choose what products to promote.

You'll also be supplied with:

- Your own affiliate ID for every product you market.

- A central location for your statistics

- Affiliate tools for every product

These affiliate tools might include product pictures, banners, keyword lists, swipes for emails and more. A few networks will let you directly access the vendors affiliate tools for every product.

As well as those tools supplied by the vendors, a few networks likewise supply their own set of tools that may be utilized with any of the products in their marketplace.

Prior to you throwing yourself rashly into the marketing activities that will take over much of your time as an affiliate, it’s vital that you select a great product to market.

Not all products with affiliate programs make you any money and even the greatest marketing efforts may be wasted if the program isn’t attractive to customers, or doesn’t pay out a great commission.

While you may discover a profitable market first and then locate affiliate programs inside that market, it’s actually a lot faster to do just the opposite.

Don’t forget to select products or services that you feel comfortable with and know something about as this will give you an air of being an expert as you write about them and individuals will be able to relate with you and you may establish a more secure relationship with your buyers or list.

Don’t fall under the trap of attempting to fool the public with products that you don’t know about or doesn’t deliver what it promises or you'll find your believability failing and you'll lose your following quickly.

Ask yourself “What do you know about the business marketing the products” Why, recognizing what sort and brands that are utilized may better help to sell if the brand name is well known.

You don’t have to have all your affiliate products in well known brands however a few well targeted products may be handy to help attract attention to your site. And if you sell more than one product on your site, this might catch individual’s attention for additional items.

Do your research about the affiliate company and figure out how they pay, do they pay instantly or rotating payments, determine that they have good sales results and conversions.

At JVZoo you can check the marketplace for Top Sellers and Featured products.
At Warrior Plus you can check WSO Of The Day.
At Digiresults check MarketPlace and you can see how many copies of a product have been sold.

As well, look for testimonials from others who are affiliates at these companies.

Don't look simply at the testimonials on the affiliate sites, which were selected because they're positive; also look online for individuals who have had negative experiences.

“Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
Mark Victor Hansen