I’m daring to enter a rather religious argument here around figuring out the best model for you as an internet marketer…affiliate marketing (marketing someone else’s products) or product creation (typically info products such as ebooks, courses, seminars, video series, membership sites and other how-to type products)
For sure, you will find internet marketers who have made very good money with both models – so this is not a black and white answer that one method of making money online works while the other doesn’t.
At the same time, having led online marketing for my own businesses and consulting engagements with other customers, I can share with you my opinion based on real-world experience.
What Does Affiliate Marketing Teach You?
First, I must say that I started out online as an affiliate marketer…in fact I spent the first year of my online marketing efforts on affiliate marketing.   Back then (and still)  this is a great way to learn the ropes of lead generation, customer acquisition, upselling, list management (basically all aspects of marketing).
With affiliate marketing you must learn to…
- Target your market
- Generate leads with an eye to not blowing your budget and making sure you stay with a positive ROI (ie. profitable)
- Generate traffic (content, SEO, social, video, paid ads, etc…)
- Learn to improve conversions (sales letter, sales funnel)
- Get an idea of which products are in demand (** Perhaps one of the biggest reasons to start with affiliate marketing in new markets)
- Close your customer and improve your sales per lead through back-end offers
- Grow and engage with your lists and subscribers
In a nutshell, you learn the vast majority of key internet marketing skills necessary to sell anything on the internet…obviously very important skills.
So Why Move Into Product Creation?
Seems like enough to learn with affiliate marketing doesn’t it?
Why would someone then move into product creation and expand from the “comfort” of marketing someone else’s stuff?
There are several reasons, but let’s just focus on the BIG 3.
1) Leverage & Scale
Instead of you being the one spending time and money marketing someone else’s product, you can leverage the effort of thousands of others to market your product for you.
This can be quite powerful and scales very well if you have a hot product. You may be able to earn a few hundred dollars a month marketing someone else’s stuff for 40% of the profit, but imagine you have just 10 partners doing that with your product where you keep 60% of the profit?
Suddenly you move from hundreds per month to thousands (and into a full time income). But don’t stop there, you can go out and attract partners who can then exponentially grow your profits while you focus on feeding them content/affiliate support as well as producing new products that bring in new lines of profit.
2) Control and multiple streams of income
I am in business of course to make profit, but I also became an entrepreneur so that I control as much of my business as I can myself.
If you are like me, this aspect of controlling your own energy, creativity, effort and destiny is a big part of what drives us to get into business in the first place – right?
Having you own line of products way that you ensure you maintain control (nobody can change the affiliate rules, change their terms, pull their product, etc… and effectively cut off your line of income overnight. Anyone in affiliate marketing who sais this can’t happen is not being truthful).
I still recall promoting a red-hot membership site that brought me in a TON of affiliate revenue…then one-day that owner sold his business to someone who didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Within 2-months that membership site was dramatically less popular and within 6-months it was shut down.
If I had depended significantly on that affiliate stream of income for my family, things would have gotten tough quickly.
I have also licensed my products in the past for very specific use (Ex to private membership site owners) that can bring in a very nice revenue boost. You can re-purpose your content anytime you want (it’s yours) meaning you can take an ebook and turn it into a seminar moving you from a $27 product to a $197, $597 or $997 product in a short period of time…again this is YOUR content.
3) Bond with your market
I have found that having my own products gives me an edge in my markets – you get your hands dirty working with your customers which gives you immediate “inside” feedback on future products, improvements, etc…which feeds the entire product creation and profit system. Getting your first product to market in a given niche is the toughest, once you have that, other product ideas and follow-on products become much simpler.
Why Not Do Both Product Creation And Affiliate Marketing…?
The reality of moving into product creation is that, in addition to the added leverage, scale, profit, and control over your business, the credibility and trust you gain makes recommending products and services (and earning higher affiliate profits) is nearly automatic. So, you end up making more in affiliate revenue simply because you have led with your own product.
What product do you produce?Â
Can you produce your own information products and sell them online…you can tap into Information Marketer’sZone to find out how easy and powerful this can be for you.
