An incredible 1 million people watched the launch of Apollo 11 – and that was just those who had gathered near the launch site to see the blast off in person. Tens of millions more tuned in on their TV sets or on the radio to catch the start of this historic mission to the moon.
While the launch of an internet marketing product will never be quite such a spectacle, it can still – for our industry – be a big event.
You see, when a vendor wants to introduce a new product, they will work hard to create an awful lot of “buzz” around that new offering. After all, they want to hit the ground running, generating hundreds if not thousands of sales within just a few days.
However, as a new affiliate marketer, one problem with a product launch is that you will be promoting a product which is yet to prove its public acceptance. By definition, a new product has never been bought by anyone before.
Sure, there would have been test sales, and – for the biggest products – perhaps a pilot program. But no one knows precisely whether the product will prove popular with the general public.
As such, it might be better for you to avoid jumping on the bandwagon of major promotions.
Instead, wait until the commotion has died down a little – say, a week or two, or even a month. Then you can examine the numbers:
- Did the product sell well?
- Does the sales page have a good conversion rate?
- Are the earnings-per-click high?
- Are customers leaving great reviews, or are too many of them requesting refunds?
Once you are sure that you are looking at a decent product, then one option you could try is to publish a product review. Few affiliate marketers bother to create product reviews at all. But even fewer of such reviews will be available immediately after a launch.
By posting your review at this time, you should still be able to capitalize on the residual buzz from the launch. But as you have gone the extra mile by examining the product in full, you will make up for the loss of any benefits (i.e. big discounts) that the customer would have had if they had bought during the launch.
Indeed, there may be some customers who held off buying because they wanted to learn more about the product first. Your review might succeed in attracting these customers.
Another issue with product launches is that one often needs a little experience to be able navigate all of the hype that tends to surround a launch.
In order to generate the huge amounts of interest in their product in a short space of time, vendors need to work hard not only to sell the product to their customers – they also need to appeal to affiliates in order to find those customers for them.
That means that all manner of additional affiliate benefits and goodies accompany a product launch – enhanced commission rates, better promotional tools, plus cash prizes for the top-performing affiliates.
Some of the biggest launches might even be giving away a cruise or some other luxury vacation!
As such, you need to develop some resistance to these kinds of offer when selecting a product to promote. Indeed, when you are reading a vendor’s JV page, try to think of yourself – at that point – as one of your customers investigating whether an offer is worthwhile.
Don’t forget that your biggest consideration is whether the product is likely to appeal to your audience – not whether you personally are enticed by all of the launch offers.
It’s also the case that vendors, during launches, can try all sorts of “gimmicks” on their sales pages in order to try and draw attention. Some of these may involve, for instance, the vendor dressing up as a film character or otherwise taking a brash and profane tone in their sales video.
You need to be sure that your audience will be comfortable with this – and even if the content is inoffensive, not all vendors are natural performers(!). Their attempts at being funny, for instance, may just come across as cringeworthy.
Remember: it is not the case that you have nothing to lose by promoting either an unsuitable product or a product with a bad sales page. If, for instance, you have an email list, you might find that valuable subscribers choose to opt out if you promote to them too much stuff in which they are simply not interested.
So while product launches can, indeed, be a profitable venture for both vendor and affiliate alike, make sure you have a little experience under your belt before jumping onboard.
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