When I first started working online, I was focused solely on affiliate marketing. It’s a fact that when you are first starting out, it makes sense to focus on the mechanics of generating traffic and building a list.
However, after you’ve gotten to grips with affiliate marketing, the next logical step is to get into creating your own products.
Rather than relying on someone else, you control the asset and can start to leverage your work.
Although this is fairly common wisdom, a lot of people can find it very intimidating to even think about creating a product let alone getting down to the business of actually creating one.
You will often read online about how it is just as easy to sell a high-priced product as it is a low-priced one.
I disagree.
Low ticket products are much quicker to write and require a lot less sales copy (as little as 750-1000 words is often enough).
The other benefit to selling little $7 reports is that you are getting buyers into your sales funnel.
Rather than just giving away a free report in exchange for an email address and building a list that way – you are getting people who have proven the ability and desire to spend money online.
So that’s why you should be writing and selling $7 products. Let’s get into how to do it.
Focus on one problem – one solution
For a $7 report to be worth the money to someone, all it has to do is solve one problem. It does not have to be a new idea that’s never been seen before or even anything that innovative.
It just has to solve a problem in an easy to follow, step-by-step format that is easy for someone to reference and take action on.
That’s it.
It should be something that you can set aside a few hours to research. You don’t have to be an expert. You just have to know more than your target customer and prove that you’ve done the research and can save them time.
So the two keys to a successful $7 product are:
- A step-by-step format
- Focus on one problem with one solution.
How to find problems that people are having online
One of the biggest forums online in the internet marketing space is the Warrior Forum.
Thousands of people frequent this forum every single day looking for answers to their problems online.
It is my favorite place to get ideas for $7 products.
One quick visit over to the forum and I see a couple of threads right away that I could bang out a quick report on.
Do you think you could write a report on how to research a topic for article marketing? Or how about a simple 7-10 page product on niche research for Amazon affiliate sites?
Simple stuff – but very valuable for people looking for answers.
They’ll get all sorts of opinions and theories by reading about a topic on a forum but if you offer a concise report with a step-by-step solution to their problem, they’ll gladly spend a measly $7.
This technique doesn’t just have to be internet-marketing focused.
You can do this for almost any niche that has a forum where people are looking for answers to problems that may be having.
Where the real money is
Let’s face it. You’re not likely to become a millionaire by selling $7 products. Even if you have dozens of them.
Where the real magic happens is when you start to build up an affiliate army to sell your $7 reports for you and – here’s the kicker – offer 100% commissions.
Remember, the key here is that you’re building your buyers list. Once you have a list of proven buyers, you can start promoting related affiliate offers to them and that’s when you’ll see your passive income really start to become a reality.
Of course, you could also just create more $7 reports and sell those to your established list of buyers too.
The bottom line is that you’ll have leverage and be in control of your online business.
It really isn’t that hard to write $7 reports in one sitting and slowly build them into an online information empire.
Don’t let the whole idea of product creation intimidate you.
It may seem that affiliate marketing is the “easier” route when you’re first getting started but when you discover the magic of creating your own products and selling them online, you’ll never look back.
What do you think? Is product creation a better route to take than affiliate marketing for creating a profitable online business? Jump in and let me know your thoughts in the comment box below.
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Great post Jon! I was/am in the process of doing the exact thing you outline in this article. AND I got the product from the Warrior Forum…lol. Good stuff
Hey Chris, thanks for your comment.
Yeah there is a lot of gems in the Warrior Forum for researching products. It can take a bit of time but I find it’s the place to go when you need ideas for a product that will serve a market of hungry customers.
Interesting post Jon. I like you started out doing affiliate marketing but hated pushing someone else’s product.
I haven’t thought much about creating my own product since. There is an opportunity to do so on a golf blog that I built up to have a good amount of traffic.
I might just see what I can come up with in the way of some reports or tips.
Thanks for the idea!
Jordan
Hey Jordan – creating your own product is the key to real success online in my opinion. The problem with affiliate marketing is that you aren’t in control.
If the product owner ends up getting slapped down or making bad decisions that affect their product, there’s nothing you can do.
If you take the time to create your own product, you can then focus on recruiting affiliates and then working on your backend to set up a proper long-term business with a sales funnel and repeat customers.
A golf blog with a decent amount of traffic is a great platform to have a product for sale – being a golfer myself I know that they are a passionate crowd always looking for “solutions”
Jon
Great post! Product creation is the easy part IMO, the hard part is continued converting traffic to the product sales page. Paid traffic is great but roi slips, seo works great but you can get slapped anytime. Multiple traffic funnels are great but doing this with xxx products gets to be a huge pain… Even with virtual assistants. Love to hear your thoughts.
Hi Austin,
You’re right that traffic is one of the hardest parts of the equation. You can have the best product in the world but if nobody is ever visiting the sales page, you’re not likely to make much money!
I personally build most of my traffic to my main products through SEO (authority sites) that generally hold up to any Google updates. It’s a lot more work but it means that I can eventually let the business run and become truly “passive”.
A lot of people get into internet marketing thinking they’re going to “get rich quick” but the reality is that it takes a lot of work to develop products AND drive traffic to them. It’s well worth it in my opinion.
Jon
Hi Jon, great tip on 100% commission: I know of a “guru” that uses that strategy to great effect in the dating niche (hey I met my Fiance at a Speed date! sparks an idea for a $7 product
– lightbulb going on moment there)
Leverage is everything, it generates more Time and I’m obsessed with being Time – Rich.
Adam