By applying this strategy, you can start building your list of potential people to sell your product too immediately. You don’t have to wait months while you’re building your product before you find a group of eager buyers in your market. You simply need to find someone else’s product for your niche (preferably one that will complement your product) that you can sell while you build your own product.

This strategy also lets you get your business up and running quickly, in a matter of days instead of months. And, while you are building your list of potential buyers, you will be making sales that can help cover any of your costs.

Finally, it’s a fantastic way to confirm that you have a product that will sell once it is released to the general population. You can easily get feedback from your initial list on their interest for the product that you plan to bring to market.

Here’s how you can implement this strategy…

• Find an affiliate program for a product that you can sell to your niche market

You’ve done your keyword research and you know what people are searching for in your niche market.

Now it’s time to put those keywords to the test!

How do you do this? You find a product for your niche, which solves one of their three largest problems.

For example, let’s say one of your top keyword phrases is, “how to sell a horse on the internet.”

Based on this and other similar keyword phrases, you’re thinking about creating an eBook that shows people how to sell their horse on the internet. In your research of affiliate products, you find someone who is selling a program on horse training.

• You then sign up as an affiliate and create a squeeze page to capture their name and email address.

You tell them you have found a great solution to training horses.

Here’s the really great thing about this strategy…

You will also be building a list of potential buyers who have already proven they’re active in your niche market.

• Use Google AdWords to drive potential buyers to your squeeze page

Once you’ve created your squeeze page, you’ll want to start sending traffic to it right away.

That’s where Google AdWords comes in… PPC ads are simply the best way to send instant traffic to a website.

We suggest that you sign up with Google AdWords and create a minimum of 5 ad groups representing your top keywords. This will give you a great opportunity to test the effectiveness of your keywords and your squeeze page.

Set a minimum budget. The more traffic you send to your site, the bigger your list will be when it comes time to launch your product.

… And that means more potential customers for you!

Not only will this strategy help you build a list, it will also give you critical information to help to build your website. You will have discovered the keywords that send the greatest number of converting visitors. Plus, you can test different versions of your squeeze page to determine which benefits are most appealing to your target audience.

The bottom line is this: you don’t need to wait until you have your own product to start building your list. You can find an affiliate program, build your squeeze page, create your Adwords Campaign, and start making money within 48 hours.

How you implement this strategy

1. We suggest you go to Clickbank.com to find affiliate products for your niche market. We recommend that you look for products that pay at least $30 in affiliate commissions.
2. You should click on the link and visit the sales page for each product. You want to find a product with a sales page that will convert visitors to sales. The best way to judge that is to see how you feel when you are on the sales page. Are you compelled to buy their product if you had the problem that they say they can solve? If you are, that’s a good indication that it’s an affiliate program that will work.

Here are 5 questions you should ask yourself about the landing page’s quality.

1. Does it look believable?
2. Does it look trusting?
3. Are there any testimonials?
4. Does it clearly state what the customer will receive?
5. Are there any “extras” like videos, actors that walk onto the screen and talk directly to the visitor, or a “timer”?

3.  Narrow your list to three products and then select the one that you feel is the best one to promote. Keep the other two in the back of your mind, in case your first product doesn’t sell. The benefit of selling someone else’s product to build your list, is that if it doesn’t convert you can replace it with a different product.

One final note: don’t try to find the “hot new product” to sell. Your primary goal is to build your list, so you want a product that applies to your niche market. It doesn’t do you much good if you are trying to break into the “horse” market, and you build a list from the “weight loss” market. You want to stay within your niche market.

Authors Bio

For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.

Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.

Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .

An internet business is no different in this respect than a brick-and-mortar business. If you don’t own the product, somebody else controls your business, plain and simple.  If something happens to that company, it can have a dramatic effect on your income.

I know from experience. I live in North Carolina, and Amazon announced earlier this year that they were severing their relationship with all affiliates in North Carolina to Avoid Taxation by North Carolina. I had absolutely no control over Amazon’s pull out of North Carolina.

In today’s market, we see the ripple effect when companies go out of business because of tight credit markets and the recession. It has a negative impact on anyone who is associated with a company that goes out of business. When you sell somebody else’s product or services, your success will always be at the mercy of somebody else’s business.

An example of this was when Chrysler and GM scaled back on the number of dealers in their networks. Although these dealers thought they owned their own business, they were only a sales arm of the manufacturer. They had no control over the total devastation of their business brought about by a decision made by their supplier.

If you’re marketing on the Internet and you don’t have your own product to sell, you’re sabotaging your business.

If for no other reason, you should develop your own product so that you maintain control over your own business. This fact alone should motivate you to create your own product, but if it doesn’t, there are seven other powerful reasons why you should create your own product. We are going to share the first three with you …

First, you can’t expand your marketing efforts through other people…

A very wise man businessman once shared with me that there are only two ways to make money in this world: you either have money which in turn allows you to make more money, or you must duplicate yourself through other people. Affiliate marketing is the way you duplicate yourself on the Internet. If you don’t have your own product, you can’t get affiliates to sell for you.

By having your own product, your old competitors become your new sales force…

Second, if you’re not selling your own product, you face fierce competition from other affiliates.

You’re always forced to ask yourself the following question: how do I differentiate myself from other affiliates who are selling the same product?

In the brick-and-mortar world, competition is a less significant problem. This is because geographic boundaries limit the effect the competition can have on your business. For example, if you have a store in one community, and your next competitor is 60 miles away, he’ll have little effect on your business. But on the Internet, your competitor is only one click away and that can have a huge effect on your business.

Third, it’s harder for you to be recognized as an authority in your niche market…

When you sell someone else’s product, you are just another player in a very large field. From a consumer’s standpoint, it doesn’t matter if they purchase the product from you or from a competitor. Once you create your own product, you take on a new status in your niche market. You will be considered an authority in your niche and that translates into increased sales.

The final four reasons for manufacturing your own product…

You will experience greater profits and put more money into your pocket. Wow, creating your own product could double, triple or even increase your income tenfold. For example:

Assume that you are selling someone else’s product and make a 50% commission, which is equal to $25 per sale. When you sell 1,000 units, your gross profit is $25,000. Now, let us assume that you sell your own product for $50 and keep 100% of the money. If you sell the same 1,000 units, your gross profit is $50,000. You doubled your profit and put an additional $25,000 into your pocket.

But, it gets even better…

You can also expand your sales by setting up an affiliate program. Let’s assume in addition to your own personal sales, you have 10 affiliates selling your program. What happens when each one makes 1,000 sales just like you.

First, you have expenses that weren’t there when you just sold the program yourself. Let’s say that 60% of sales goes to expenses such as commissions and other affiliate costs. You have 10,000 additional sales at $50 = $500,000 in sales. But, 60% or $300,000 goes out in affiliate costs and you net $200,000. The income you derive from affiliate sales is $200,000 and the income you get from your own sales is $50,000 for a total of $250,000. That is a tenfold increase in your net income.

But, it gets even better…

Now you control the price, so let’s say that you decide to raise the price by 10% or $5.00.  However, because you raised your price, you actually experience a 5% decrease in business. Your sales are now 950 units at $55.00 which generates a profit of $52,250. Your affiliate sales are also reduced to 9,500 units, which at $55.00 grosses $522,500. After you subtract 60% for affiliate expenses ($313,500) you are left with a profit of $209,000. When you add the $209,000 profit from affiliates to your $52,250, you have a total profit of $261, 250, which is an increase of $11,250 just because you control the price.

But, it gets even better…

When you sell someone else’s product, you are just another player in that niche market. It doesn’t  matter if someone purchased the product from you or purchases it from a competitor. But, once you create your own product, you take on an new status in your niche. You become an authority in your niche.

When you become an authority in any niche market, people tend to listen to what you have to say. That translates into increased sales. Isn’t this what you want? You got into business on the Internet to make money. More sales equates to more money!

But, it gets even better…

By having your own product, you add unique content to your website. Google loves websites with unique content. And, because you’re an authority, other websites will naturally link to you. Google also loves websites that have lots of one way links to them. They recognize these sites as authority sites and rank them higher in the organic search results.

If your ranking lands you on the first page of Google, you get more organic leads and this in turn leads to more sales and additional profits. All of this happens just because you have developed your own product.

Authors Bio

For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.

Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.

Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .

Typically, only ½% to 2% of visitors to your website will purchase your product if your website is text only. If you ad sales-orientated videos to your site, of the people viewing them over half will take some sort of action, and 12% will actually purchase the product offered.

Simply put, if you’re not using video in your online marketing efforts, you’re leaving money on the table.

When you use video, you need to determine how you are going to use the video you produce….

• Will the video be used to pre-sell your product
• Will it be used to actually sell your product
• Will your video be used to demonstrate a feature of your product
• Will it be the information product itself.

Once you define how you want to use the video, the next step is to crystallize the message that you want to convey to your audience. We like to teach “The Seven Slide Solution” by Paul Kelly. A study from Princeton University on cognitive science reported that the average person can hold and process only seven pieces of information in short memory at one time.

Paul Kelly writes that: “people think in ideas, not in facts and that the structure by which people communicate ideas with one another is with stories.” When you build your video around a story, your audience will understand your ideas and can be persuaded to consider changing their status quo.

Stories are the most powerful communication device anyone can use to sell a product or idea.

To tell a great story, you need to storyboard the sequence of how you want to lay out your video. A storyboard conveys a visual line of reasoning and shows how each idea relates to the other ideas. It allows you to determine what should be included or excluded from the presentation.

What makes this process easy is that every good story has the same structure. As long as you follow that structure, you are guaranteed to make a great video.

1. You start with a premise – the premise is the message. It is the theme or central idea that the story is built around. A good story can only have one premise otherwise the story becomes unwieldy and meaningless.
2. Next you have the core conflict – this is the “hook” that holds your audience’s attention. People love conflict, especially when it can be observed from afar. Conflict holds our attention because people are naturally curious and want to see what happens when two forces or ideas are in opposition to one another.
3. Next, you examine the conflict from multiple viewpoints and build tension – when you look at the consequences of the conflict you build tension. Tension takes your audience on a journey and builds a desire to see what happens next.
4. When the tension is at its peak, you offer a choice – a fork in the road. This is the moment of truth when a decision must be made and the audience waits to see it it’s the right one.
5. This leads to the resolution of the core conflict and does a number of things… it shows the result of the choices that were made and leaves the audience feeling satisfied that they know the outcome.

Building the scenes of your presentation…

One of the advantages to creating videos using the storyboard method is that you can create chunks of material that can be inserted into the video using editing software. When you build your video you will focus on 7 scenes (mini-videos within the storyline). There is a specific role for each scene.

• Scene 1 – engagement
• Scene 2 – backstory
• Scene 3 – build tension
• Scene 4 – bring it to a boil
• Scene 5 – offer choices
• Scene 6 – provide resolution
• Scene 7 – set up the “sequel”

The role of scene 1 is to capture the audience’s attention. It is similar to reading the jacket cover summary of a book in the bookstore. It’s when you decide to buy it or put it back on the shelf. With your video, it’s when you decide to continue watching the video.

The role of scene 2 is to provide the backstory. It describes how you came to this point or how the main character came to this point. It is the part of the video where you want your audience to say: I can relate to that.

Scene 3 is where you create tension by exploring the consequences and repercussions of taking or not taking action to address the conflict.

Scene 4 is used to bring the tension to a boiling point. It is the point in the video where you want to bring your audience to where they want relief.  They want the main character of the story to make a decision so that they can see how the story turns out.

Scene 5 is used to relieve the tension which can only be done when someone makes a decision. It’s the turning point of the story and the point where a choice is made.

Scene 6 is when the core conflict is resolved and you learn what how the main characters life has changed to date.

Finally, scene 7 sets up the sequel. It sets the stage for the audience to go deeper and learn more.

One more structure needs to be discussed before you begin creating your scene layout. It is how to structure each scene for use in your storyline.

You should design the scene according to the following structure:

1. Plant a question
2. Evoke an emotion
3. Answer the question
4. Move the story forward

Authors Bio

For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.

Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.

Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .

Key Point: All of your customers base their buying decisions on a scientific principle called “Relativity.” As Ariely points out in his book; “We don’t have an internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. Rather, we focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate the value accordingly.”

In other words, we base our decisions to purchase by comparing the product to our other choices. He illustrates this point by showing how a restaurant can increase their sales of sizzler steak. He points out that given three choices, most people will choose the middle choice. So let’s say that you want to sell an 8oz sizzler over 8oz of ground sirloin, you wouldn’t give a customer just two choices: an 8oz ground sirloin for $5.99 and 8oz sizzler for $9.99. Given just two choices, a lot of people would select the 8oz ground sirloin because it appears to be a better value relative to the two choices.

He points out that you should put in a “decoy”, a third choice that will make the 8oz sizzler more attractive. Knowledgeable restaurant owners do this all the time. They add a 6oz filet mignon to the menu for $22 as the “decoy”. They know two things:

1. They are’t going to sell much filet mignon but they will sell more 8oz sizzlers because now the sizzler looks more attractive relative to the other steaks on the menu. After all, you are getting a deal, an 8oz steak for $9.99 compared to a 6oz steak for $22.

2. They also know that given three choices, most people will select the middle choice.

Ariely points out: “we not only tend to compare things with one another, but also tend to focus on comparing things that are easily comparable – and avoid comparing things that cannot be compared easily.”

How do you apply this principle to your internet marketing efforts?

First, you should never offer just one choice. You should always offer three choices when you design your offer. For example, you might offer a downloadable ebook for $27, an ebook plus audio for $97, and finally an ebook plus audio and video for $197.

Second, you should always show the value of your free bonuses as part of your offer. In other words, show that your bonuses alone are worth over $3,000 but that you get them included for free as part of your $197 offer.

Let’s illustrate this point by the offer we put together for Raw Food Chef Beth Wilke. Beth makes incredible raw food recipes that are not the usual free recipes that you can find throughout the Internet. She takes painstaking hours to blend just the right ingredients to bring out the subtle flavors of her raw dishes. She was marketing an incredible recipe book and a recipe club membership that just wasn’t selling the way she wanted. She is using three wonderful recipes as her name capture system.

We restructured her offer and once a raw foodist signed up for the three free recipes, they are presented with the following options on the “free recipe download page”.

If you were interested in raw diet recipes, which offer would you choose?

Note: There are times where the offer you want someone to choose shouldn’t be the middle choice. In this case, it was better to show it as the last choice.

If you are interested in getting three delicious raw food recipes, you can do so by going to www.sensationalrawrecipes.com . You can learn more about the raw food diet and sensational raw food chef, Beth Wilke at www.sensationalrawfooddiet.com .

Authors Bio

For the past 11 years, Randy’s principle business enterprise has been in the top 5 listings on Google for his industry. His list of clients includes the Department of Defense, Department of State, Municipalities, Fortune 500 Companies, College and Universities, and several hundred small businesses.

Today, Randy is using his acquired knowledge to help businesses learn how to grow through the savvy use of internet marketing techniques. His central focus is to take complex online marketing strategies and tactics and break them down into easy to follow step-by-step processes.

Randy has written and published articles on internet marketing strategies to show businesses how to make money online. You can access these resources and learn how you can make more money online at www.InternetMonetizationUniversity.com .