When trying to figure out how to pick affiliate offers to promote, many people get it totally wrong. Personally, I have seen many marketers – to whose lists I was subscribed – that could have made a lot more money of they just applied some common sense.
Allow me to explain:
Most new marketers, and even many intermediate marketers, firmly believe that “cheap products are easier to sell”.
Well…
Yes and no.
On the one hand, the first affiliate product you offer when someone just signed up to your mailing list, is likely to sell better at a lower price point. The reason for that is that you have a desire to reciprocate (you just gave them something of value), and the low price point means that the risk is low.
Many people buying at this point are people who wouldn’t have bought otherwise.
But this is where the magic stops. After this, it’s cold, hard math. Fair enough, there are limits to how far the people in any audience will go, but you may be surprised to see how far that can be (in your case).
The logic:
If you have built a list of say, 1,000 people, and one out of every 100 buy when you send out an email, you make 10 sales. If the product you are selling is priced at $27, and you get 50% of that, you make a whopping $13.50 per sale.
You just made $135 at the push of a button. Life’s good.
Or is it?
If you chose to sell something priced at $200, instead of $27, you may have had fewer customers. but even if just TWO of them bought the product, you would still have made much more than the $135 you got from the $27 product. If five of them buy the product, compared to ten buying the $27 product, you would have made $500 – almost four times as much money…
From the same list. From the same singular mailing.
To put that into perspective:
If you have a mailing list of 1000 people, and you do one new campaign every week, then selling a $27 product will land you $540 per month.
Selling a $200 product will land you $2000 per month in affiliate commissions.
Now in case you haven’t noticed…
Do you know what the difference is between making $540 and making $2000 per month?
You can’t quit your job on $540. But on $2000…
Do the math according to your own requirements.
Now – the reality:
It’s not all quite as simple as that. It’s a bit more difficult for someone with little authority and credibility to just start offering what we call “high ticket items” straight off the bat. You have to build up to it. Start your email sequence by offering a product or two of $37, then move on to something of say, $77, then on to $200, and then to 500. How high you can go will depend partly on the type of person you attracted onto your list, and partly on which affiliate programs are available for your niche.
In fact, depending on what you are selling, you could even end up selling coaching services, with price tag of up to $5000. Granted, for those your commissions will probably be 20% or so, but even that translates into a $1000 commission (on a $5000 purchase).
At every increase in price point, you are likely to experience fewer sales – but because of the higher commissions, you will still be making more money per mailing or per campaign (series of emails aimed at the same product, usually 5 or 7).
Lastly – regarding the lack of credibility…
There are two ways to work around it, and reduce the perception of how much money is being spent – while still making more money:
1. Promote products with upsells. If you look at the sales pages of products in the Clickbank marketplace (for instance – you can also check out JVZoo), you will often see affiliate products with upsell offers. This enables you to offer a product of say, $37, but with one or two upsell offers going for (for instance) $67 and $127.
(look at the actual sales page, and hit the “buy” button. Note if you are offered an upsell or not)
That enables you to still “catch the low hanging fruit”, yet tap into the wallets of those with bigger wallets. Some people will still only buy the basic product, and some will go for the upsell(s). If it is a decent offer, you can end up making two to three times as much money as you would have made by simply offering a straight $37 product.
2. Promote products with recurring billing. In some cases, it will be a service or a membership with a monthly fee. In other cases, it will be a higher priced product with a payment plan. It often comes in the form of courses, which are delivered bit by bit over the duration of the payment period.
In conclusion:
When it comes to picking affiliate products, you may want to keep the following in mind:
1. Is it a good fit for the people on your list? The quality is not negotiable, but you know why people signed up to your list, and what they would see as a sensible product to connect to the freebie you offered them to opt in.
2. It’s all about effort versus reward. The better you are rewarded for your efforts, the sooner you can leave your day job – or stop having people on your back because you don’t have one.