Picking a good affiliate offer is one thing – but being able to pick a product or service that will work for YOU is something else altogether. There are a few crucial things to consider:
1. Is it a good fit for your audience?
If you want to market this to people visiting your blog, or to people on social media, you have to consider your existing audience, as well as the audience you are trying to build. Who are they? Why are they reading your stuff? What is the mindset and/or expectations from the visitor upon reading your content?
For instance – if you have a blog about dog training, you can offer products about dog training, puppy training, and obedience training. However, if you had to offer dog toys, your audience may not take much notice of it.
Note: You can add the “less relevant, but connected” products to the deep back end of your autoresponder sequence – but on the front end, and on your blog, social pages etc, you should cater to the immediate needs of the visitor.
If you choose to sell dog toys to your audience who came to read about puppy training, you will still make sales, but not nearly as many as you would have made selling a product that would solve their immediate problem.
2. What is the current public perception of the product and its creator/vendor?
You may want to go dig around a little to see how many people who bought the product, are happy or unhappy. Fair enough, you will always get people who are unhappy (some people are unhappy about everything), but take care to see what they are unhappy about. If people are unhappy about the product, they can ask for a refund – but if they are unhappy with the support or being unable to get a refund, that can become a problem for you.
Remember, even though you didn’t create the product, or didn’t (fail to) provide the support, you are still the person who “recommended” the product, and the visitor bought it on your recommendation. So if it all goes sour, they will (a) not trust your recommendations again, and (b) possibly tell others about your bad recommendation.
Either way, it can be damaging to your credibility and your income.
On the other hand, if you can find some people who are really happy about the product (not “reviews” by other internet marketers, but people just talking about it on social media or in forums), that makes it a good choice.
If the product is still new, you may not be able to find much good news about it – but you will also not have to contend with bad publicity. You may, however, want to check it out from time to time – and pull the product if it seems that a growing poor public perception can cost you sales and credibility.
3. What is available in terms of marketing materials?
Let’s face it: Not all of us are born copywriters – some of us just suck at it. And selling stuff, especially online, totally depends on the copywriting, or whatever convincing argument you may want to put forward.
As such, you need to see what is available – what do you have to work with?
Note: The promo tools offered by the vendor aren’t the only things you can use. You can also use “review” videos from Youtube – either as part of the pre-sell content on your blog or on social media, or you can point people to a page/post on your blog in the emails you send them. If you point them to a page with a video in an email, there is no “sales pitch” – you are just sending them to a video containing what we call “social proof”.
However, do take a look at things like email swipes, pre-written social media messages, and free ebooks you can give away. Having any of these at your disposal can save you a lot of time and effort. If the product is still relatively new, you can even offer the free ebook as a bribe for signing up to your mailing list.
Banners aren’t that much of an issue, unless you want to add it to your blog’s sidebar. It has been proven over and over again that people are much more likely to click on text links than on a banner. However, if your preferred affiliate program offers landing pages, it can make your life a lot easier as well.
In conclusion:
It all comes down to this…
1. Is it “the logical thing” to offer your visitors?
2. Are you comfortable offering it to your visitors?
3. Are there any promo tools that will make your life easier?
You can still work around number 3 (you can create it yourself, or pay someone if it’s worth it), but if 1 and 2 aren’t right, walk away and go find something else. If you don’t, it will cost you in the long run.