Introduction
In my previous blog post, I showed you the list of must-have tools to help you jump-start in affiliate marketing. But why not create your own digital product? You just create it, and let affiliates promote it for you which means you earn money on autopilot – a pretty good deal, right? In this article, I’m going to share with you some tools I currently use to create my latest digital product as well as my previous products.
First, you need to learn how to create your own product. There’s a process for that, and I wouldn’t explain it any better than John Thornhill in his “Partnership to Success” program that is the best course about product creation. I highly recommend you to check it out.
For the very first time, I share a special link with you that gives you FULL access to the program for just $1 – this is a 14-day trial and you can cancel it anytime with 2 clicks:
https://johnwebinartrial.samzadworny.com 👉 ONLY $1
There’s quite a bit to learn when it comes to product creation, and product launch and that includes niche selection, sales page creation preferably together with a sales video, JV page with a contest and launch doc, members area/dashboard, making a buzz before the launch, recruiting affiliates to promote your product on the launch date, and more. You will find all the info you need in John’s course – just click the link above.
In this article, I’m going to focus on nothing but the tools you need to create a high-quality product. Most of these are industry-standard, and used by super-affiliates, and 6 and 7-figure product vendors. Some of these tools are already mentioned in my previous blog post about tools you need to get started as an affiliate. Let’s get started!
The Basics
I’m going to list quickly some tools that are pretty obvious to have unless you’re really just starting out as a product vendor or even in internet marketing in general. First, you need a domain name, and hosting:
digitalocean.com – VPS (Virtual Private Server) 👉 $100 FREE credit for 60 days
VPS is better and more reliable than just regular hosting. Once you sign-up, go to DigitalOcean marketplace in your user dashboard and choose ‘WordPress’ from there, so the system will install it for you automatically – you’ll need it later.
godaddy.com – domain name
You also need a domain name where potential buyers will find you. Try to get a good, short, catchy, and easy to remember product name, and find a domain name for it. Domain should match your product name. Get either .com, .net, .org or one of other slightly less popular TLDs such as .co or .io – avoid country TLD like .de for Germany, .ru for Russia, etc. as well as ‘exotic’ TLDs – focus on the five I listed above: com, net, org, co, io.
Sales Page + OTOs
You need to build nice, professional-looking pages for your product. That includes the main sales page, JV page, and OTO (One Time Offer) pages (upsells and downsells). There’s no room for bad graphics and poor quality. One tool will help you with that.
optimizepress.com – page builder
This is easy to install a WordPress theme with an intuitive interface. OptimizePress is an industry-standard page builder that creates beautiful sales pages, and pretty much any other pages used in online marketing. You will find tons of templates where you just replace some text.
COPYWRITER – sales copy
THIS IS EVERYTHING 🔥 You need a good copywriter to write a sales copy that converts! With poor copy, your product simply won’t sell. Affiliates either will not promote it or will give it a shot but will stop promoting it after they send some test 100 emails to their list and see that your product doesn’t sell well. The copywriter should also write email swipes for you. A good copywriter costs a few thousand dollars but if you’re just starting out or have a low budget, it’s a good idea to invest a few hundred bucks for a copywriter. If you find someone for $100, it’s a waste of money – just learn about copywriting, read sales copies of the top-selling products, and do it yourself.
Sales Video
You should have a video on top of your sales page as it’s proven to drastically increase your sales page conversions. Nowadays sales video is a must-have. To have a good video you need the sales copy from your copywriter (ask your copywriter for VSL = Video Sales Letter), then pass it to your voiceover guy, make a presentation, and put it all together in video editing software. Here’s what to use:
powerpoint – video presentation
Yes, for real, PowerPoint works great for sales video presentations! For Mac users, free Keynote (I use it for my newest product). All you need is just text in your video – you can add some simple animations or images if you like. If you’re looking for a bit more sophisticated way to show your idea in the video, browse fiver.com to find some animations for your video for example.
camtasia.com – video editing
Camtasia is pretty expensive but works on Windows and Mac. For Mac use just the free iMovie app. There is plenty of other software for video editing, and it doesn’t really matter what you use as all you need is just basic features like adding, and cutting video or synchronising audio. If it’s ‘magic’ for you, you can pay someone to do it – I’ll write about that at the end of this post.
fiver.com – video voice over
If you want a high-quality sales page, hire a professional guy from fiver.com – that’s probably the cheapest solution. Hire a guy with an American accent as probably most of your buyers will come from the USA. Prices start from $5 per 100 words. Of course, you can read it yourself but if you browse top products from top vendors, in most cases there’s a professional lector reading the VSL.
Graphics
Sometimes you may need some extra graphics for your funnel pages, like an e-cover for your ebook. In my opinion, the best graphics with the best prices are here:
https://graphicriver.net – graphics
https://placeit.net/c/mockups – mockups
Bonuses
You should offer some bonuses for your product to add some value and make it more attractive. You can offer some lite version of one of your previous products for example or one of your ebooks if you have one. However, if you’re just starting out, it’s easier to grab some PLR (Private Label Rights) products that you can use as your own, change it slightly and add them to your sales page as a bonus. Here are 2 of the best websites with PLR products:
plr.me – PLR products
PLR product library that is quite expensive but with top quality and up to date products. Well over 15.000 items.
idplr.com – PLR products
This one is a cheaper alternative starting from $39 per 3 months unlimited access, or only $79 for lifetime access.
If you want some more unique PLR products that you can convert to bonuses for your product, go to warriorplus.com/marketplace/home and warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers product marketplaces and search for “PLR”.
JV Page
Like for all other pages, you should use the OptimizePress page builder to build the JV page. But you also need to include 2 major things on your JV page:
JV contest – offer some prizes
This is a must-have if you want super affiliate promoting your product. You can set up contests easily in jvzoo and warrior+. For Clickbank, you can use contesthero. Visit some JV pages of products from the top vendors to see how a proper contest looks like – you should have some rules/conditions listed, and offer at least $1000 in prizes if you want to attract serious affiliates. To attract big guys, you have to offer at least $3000 in prizes. The best part is that you don’t have to have $3000 but offer a pro-rata solution, example: you offer $1000 for the top JV but they sold $500 worth of products and earned $250 in commissions (default 50%) – they will get paid $250 in this case.
Google Docs – JV doc
This is an industry-standard today. You have to offer a document with all possible information included like links to your funnel, contest details, contact details, launch pricing schedule, and description of each product in your funnel. You should use Google Docs for this like all big guys.
studio microphone – be professional
You need a good studio mic when talking in front of your computer. Most marketers use mics from the RODE brand, however, if you can get some for a lower budget but not cheaper than $100. You may also need it when recording some voice or videos for your members’ dashboard. Here’s how the studio mic looks like… P.S. I recommend getting a lavalier-type of mic that you pin to your shirt – you can get one for about $20.
Membership Page
wishlistmember.com – membership plugin
This is the most popular and the best membership plugin for WordPress used by over 108,000 users worldwide. I’ve been using it for years. You can easily integrate it in jvzoo or warrior+. It protects your content so only registered users or buyers can access specific pages like a members dashboard.
Customer Support
Zendesk is probably the most popular solution. There are many other similar services so feel free to use whatever you like but it should be reliable, easy to use, and have email integration so when your customer sends you a support ticket, you’re instantly notified by email.
Product Marketplace
You have to add your product to a marketplace so others can find it and promote it or buy it. Here are the 3 top marketplaces used by super affiliates and 7-figure product vendors:
Perfect for software or training courses, works well also for ‘make money online’ courses, and evergreen or products with recurring subscription.
The best platform for ‘make money online’ and PLR products, works ok also for training courses.
Another very popular platform, alternative to warrior+. Works ok for products like software, and PLR.
This table will help you choose the correct network. I made it based on John’s “Partnership to Success” training from day 55:
Email Marketing
This is a mandatory. You have to collect email addresses of your buyers, so you can build your email list which is the most valuable asset in online business.
aweber.com – email autoresponder
Aweber along with getresponse.com were always the 2 best autoresponders for affiliate marketers. A honorable mention is mailvio.com from Neil Napier. Check all 3 and pick what suits you best.
Affiliates
To recruit affiliates you have to advertise your product launch on various websites. There are few main ones where all top product vendors advertise, and hundreds of other minor services. Focus on the big ones first:
This is a number 1 service to post your product launch. All super affiliates post their product launch date and details there.
Another top service from Mike Merz – he’s a jv broker for 7-figure earners and legends like Jeff Walker. If you want to attract super affiliates, this is place to go.
FB groups
There are many FB groups where you can promote your launch and recruit affiliates and super affiliates. Remember to read group’s rules before posting anything.
JV broker
These guys are expensive as they often charge a few thousand $$$ up front, plus 10-15% from your products sales above the affiliates cut (e.g. 50% goes to affiliate, plus an additional 10-15% to the JV broker). However, a good JV broker is able to recruit some big guys and make you a tons of money on launch (by tons I mean a high 6-figure) – obviously your product have to convert well.
Outsourcing
It’s a good idea to outsource some work so you can finish your product sooner, and have your work done even better if you outsource to the right people. Here are 3 services I used in the past and I’m happy with the results:
This is a perfect place to find some VA (Virtual Assistant). There are thousands of professionals from the Philippines. It’s a perfect place to find VA for simple or repetitive tasks. You can hire someone to work for you part or full time, from as low as $200 per month.
I already mentioned fiver.com as a place to go when you’re looking for a good voice over for your VSL. This service is more to get professionals for one-time job, unlike onlinejobs.ph where you hire people for more permanent work. Perfect to get some logo designs, SEO work done, and more.
These guys bought warriorforum.com for $3.2M in 2014. It’s a reliable and high quality service where you can hire programmers and other professionals. Go there to outsource some software development. An alternative is upwork.com.
AI
Artificial Intelligence is trending. I’m not a big fun of it but it’s used by many. I prefer a real voice over and a real copywriter. To be honest, I never tried these services so I can’t say much about it but you’re free to try it out and see how it works for you. If you have a small budget and just starting out, it would probably be good enough for a start.
copyshark.ai – copywriting
This AI piece of online software will write a whole sales letter for you or even email swipes on autopilot with a few clicks of your mouse. An alternative service is jarvis.ai and tons of other similar services ending with .ai in their domain name.
speechelo.com – text-to-voice
Another AI service. This one converts a raw text into human voice. It’s not as robotic as other similar services, so this one can also be ‘good enough’ for a start.
Summary
Wow, this is my longest blog post I’ve ever written. I hope it’ll help lots of people, not only beginners. I believe that even if you already launched a product or you’re going to launch it in the near future, you’ll find some golden nuggets in this article.
This is a pretty much complete list of all the tools you need to create your first (or 2nd, 3rd…) product that helps people, is high-quality, and attractive to super affiliates as well as end buyers.
Remember about a cool deal that I offer you today: a FULL access to the best course about product creation and launch on the market: “Partnership to Success”, created by a marketing legend, John Thornhill. This month you can try it out for 14 days at a cost of $1, here’s your link again:
https://johnwebinartrial.samzadworny.com 👉 ONLY $1
P.S. Let me know what you think in the comment section below. If you have some other good suggestions, also leave your comment below. If this post have helped you or you leart something new here, share this post with your friends. Best of luck with your next product launch! 🙂
This is a guest post from Sam Zadworny if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.
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