Hi folks,
It’s been a very busy year for me in 2013 so far so I’ve been a little quite on the blogging front, but I thought it would be a good idea for me to update you all on what I’ve been up to and share some ideas that will hopefully help you make more money too.
As most of you will be well aware I’ve done a lot of affiliate marketing over the years, selling digital products, physical goods and also selling leads too. This has and continues to be very lucrative for me, however what I’ve been focusing on more over the past 6 months is selling physical products and in particular creating my own products. What I will share with you now is the benefits of creating your own products and the various ways you can go about doing this.
Isn’t Product Creation Really Hard Work?
Creating your own product is more work than affiliate marketing, there’s no doubt about it. You can set up an affiliate sites in a few days, however product creation does take more work, BUT the payoff is much larger so it’s worth it.
Some of the major benefits of creating your own product are:
- You can make more money
- You can get affiliates selling your product
- You don’t have to rely on SEO only
- You can build your customer base over time
- There are more marketing avenues available
How to Start
There are a few different ways you can create your product, the two that I do are:
Digital products – ebooks, video courses, software, apps
Physical products – private labeling from a supplier
Let’s look at digital products first as this is the easier way to go. You can package up knowledge and experience in a niche and create your own product out of this. This can come in the form of an ebook which you can sell on Clickbank or through Kindle.
If you’re not an expert on any particular topic you can outsource this to someone who is, or you could interview people who are experts and turn your interviews into a product, in the form of an ebook, audio or video product. I recently saw someone do this in the natural dental care industry, where they interviewed a bunch of well respected natural medicine experts on the topic of natural tooth care, and they turned this series of interviews into a product. You can have a look at this here – Tooth Summit. I’m not an affiliate for that product nor do I necessarily endorse it as I don’t know much about it so can’t say whether its good or not, but either way its a good example.
Physical Product – Private Labels
Most people think that creating your own physical product is only for giant companies with lots of money. However this is not the case, as you can buy products from suppliers who’ll allow you to put your own label on the product and call it your own, this is known as ‘private labeling’, and something I started doing about 12 months ago.
A lot of huge supplement companies in the USA do this. They buy the supplement from a wholesaler and provide them with their label artwork and the supplier attaches the label and ships them the products as their own brand.
Private labeling is BIG business, and it means that small players can get their product inexpensively and focus on the marketing. To find companies that will allow you to do this, you can Google for things like “Product Name Private Label”
Getting your own brand developed is not hard, all you really need is a logo designed which you can get done over at Elance pretty cheaply.
Once you have your own brand like this, you are free to market it anyway you want, which is great, as often when selling another companies brand you are restricted in the way you can market it. For example some companies don’t want their brand sold on Ebay or Craiglist etc… Whereas where you own the brand you call the shots!
Helpful Tools
When creating a digital product you might want to use video. Two tools that I have used for years in doing this are Camtasia Studio for screen recording and GotoWebinar for webinars.
Gotowebinar is expensive but I have heard that there are more affordable options these days for webinar software, so it pays to shop around. Webinars are great as they allow you to interview an expert, and it provides them the option to do a live presentation as well which makes the content more interesting than just plane audio.
Camtasia on the other hand allows you to record your screen, which is helpful if your product revolves around teaching people things that rely on visual aids to show people what you’re doing.
Once you have a digital product ready, the easiest way to make it available is to use Optimize Press in conjunction with Wishlist Member WordPress plugin. These two tools will allow you to set up a member’s area using WordPress, and they are not hard to use either. At the end of the day it’s not that hard to create your own quality digital product.
Why Sell Your Own Product?
There are a number of advantages of having your own product, of which I listed a few at the beginning of this post. One of the best things is that unlike a lot of affiliate marketing websites, you don’t have to rely on Google SEO to make money.
If you own your own product you can get affiliates to send traffic, you can use Adwords (as long as the site does not look like a long sales page), and if you’re doing physical goods via private labeling you can even get other retailers, such as ecommerce stores or even offline stores to stock your product and sell it for you, I do this myself and it works well.
When you’re selling your own product you can also rely on a lot less traffic, whereas affiliate sites, because they’re sending traffic away from their sites in order to make money, require a lot more traffic to make the sale.
Also when you own your own product there is much less risk involved. For example a subscriber of mine recently contacted me and explained that he had started to make $6000 a month from affiliate marketing and was very happy, and in fact left his day job. The unfortunate thing that happened to him was that the merchant he was affiliated with decided to stop their affiliate program one day, and overnight he lost all his income! This is obviously devastating and I really felt for this guy, however that is one of the risks you run when selling another companies product. Whereas if you own the product you call the shots.
The final thought I want to leave you with is this; it is more work to create your own product, but that’s a good things as the more barriers to entry the less people will do it, so you’ll have a lot less competition.
I hope this post has inspired you to consider creating your own product. It doesn’t have to be the only way you make money online, as I still do affiliate marketing, but it is a nice way to add an additional revenue stream to your business.
Related articles
I totally agree on creating your own product. I am now working on one physical product, its hard but you know you are in command of everything from small details to big. Nice post Matt.. thanks
I find that starting with PLR content, then developing it is a good way to create your own products.
Very good and interesting post and I like the idea of private labeling, but I am curious about the legalities as to responsibility if something goes wrong, and in that case how do you protect yourself. Are there special addendums that you can add on to the sale of the product that protects you??? I am sure that in you doing this that you must be protected in some way..
Paul
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:46 am
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You need insurance and you need to know the laws in the niche so you abide by them.
Interesting thoughts, however physical products with private labels need initial funds and then storage, sending, etc and trusted suppliers.
Your email just reminded me to purchase your latest product (E-Wealth Blueprint) but you closed the doors 🙁
Is there a way to get it?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:45 am
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Hi John
Yes it is a step up but there is more money in it. No sorry I have closed the doors to that course now permanently.
Nice article Matt- always good to diversify income streams!
All well and good Matt but you have to admit that creating your own product when you have no list is a bit of a bother. You have a name and a list to sell to. Your name makes it much easier to attract affiliates and your list…well, we all know about having a list.
I do okay strategizing web presence and services for stick and brick businesses but could use some ideas about how to create my own product without a list of eager buyers of IM products or competing with the hucksters on the Warrior Forum.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:45 am
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Well thats one way to look at it, but its quite a negative outlook, because I don’t only make products in the IM niche, infact most of my focus in not in the IM niche but it niches where I start from scratch
Hi Matt,
Interesting, changing your focus to creating Quality
products,
then
use Optimize press and Wish list to create membership
sites for your products.
Does that mean a separate Membership site for each product or are you able to include related products you have created in one membership and define access by the level of the membership?
I have been on the receiving end of attending “Webinars” that are actually a combination of Google + and YouTube streaming which I think (unless misinformed) are completely free.
Have you checked out or used the above? I know that the videos created are available afterwards to replay.
Don’t know if the videos can be edited to private to make them accessible only to people with the video link that you could provide inside a membership site.
Just a few thoughts I had…..anything feasible.
Will be waiting for your answer!
Cararta
you can connect with me at Facebook ArtaGene
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:49 am
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yes I believe you can have levels of access using these tools, so you could have more than one product in the membership site.
Hie Matter, its Sambani here,
thanks for the nice post. i will actually think about creating my own product. i have been on your list for a long time, been doing affiliate marketing, but now i am thinkin of bringin the business home, by crating my own physical product. i am thinkin of reselling Internet services… thanks!
Great Article – Thanks Matt
Dewan
Matt, any sites you recommend for finding manufacturers of products that could be self branded?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:43 am
Alibaba.com
Thanks so much for the information on private labeling. I have n’t tried this so for, but now I am going to try this in 2013
Great post Matt.
Care to give a list of whats HOT and whats NOT
for private-labeling?? 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:43 am
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Can’t really give you a list, as I don’t have one, just look for niches where you can get very generic products and that have demand by looking up search volumes for the keyword related to the niche
Matt,
Great post about product creation. Very clear and to the point!
I am getting in to lead generation (and I understand that email capture is one aspect of the process) but I would like to know how you track leads who call your client direct from your lead generation site? What telephone tracking software/service can you recommend. Obviously a free service would be preferable.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:41 am
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Hi Brad
Yeah lead gen can make great money, so great stuff there, I don’t use telephone tracking much, I only use it on one site but the company buying the leads manages it all and gives us a phone number, so can’t be of much help sorry
I have my own brand of products, and it’s doing quite well recently, but still am very reliant on SEO. the Adwords spend wouldn’t make me any profit for my keywords, so at the moment SEO is my only means of selling. I’m trying to get into physical store however it’s proving quite difficult. It’s quite scary having my business in the hands of google.
Matt, Thanks for the post and thanks for your sound advise since I came on board IM in August 2012. I just published an eBook Healthy Diet Plan, Healthy Weight Loss on Amazon Kindle. This was good for me, because I enjoy health and fitness.
Kind Regards,Fran C
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:40 am
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Good stuff Francis
hi Matt from PR!
Not only that there are so many issues with being an affiliate like the time it takes to build websites, seo, link building, then you have issues with Google updates, servers, other affiliates …..it is tuff for affiliates (some).
Im finishing out my product and honestly i havent felt happier. By the way I Googled street viewed your country…loved it, looks very tranquil.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:40 am
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Cool Juan, good luck with it
I would love to make extra cash but I cannot figure this out at all
You are correct. Build your own brand. That creates wealth and long term revenues…
Hi Matt,
thank for the post. I see you mention OptimizePress and Wishlist Member.
How would you rate Profits theme?
Looks like you can do just about everything with it including sales pages,squeeze pages and membership sites.
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 6:32 am
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Hi, I don’t know about the Profits theme sorry.
Regards
Matt
Good points about selling private label products. Do you also use Amazon to market physical products?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 6:32 am
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I am starting to do Amazon right now, but I also have my own store too.
Hi Matt,
I am just getting into selling physical products and I like the idea of getting a logo made and having it put onto the product.
My first product has been a bit of a disaster due to shipping costs, but I am now looking for alternative products, rather than scrapping the site, as it is ranking well and getting quite a lot of visitors.
Good topic Matt,
I think creating your own product is a requirement for success.
A really good option I’ve been noticing is where people write a book and give a way the first chapter as a free gift for opting in.
If you don’t have your own products you can’t do that now can you?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 9:21 am
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Great idea Darnell…you can also link from your ebook to a squeeze page and sell more things as an affiliate via your autoresponder
Thank you
I have been following the training
Just want to say thank you
Trying out Amazon
Hey Matt
Like your ideas on creating your own products.
Have a physical product in a tee shirt business I partially own.Any other suggestions or ideas on how to market this type of business online.
Great artilce Matt. I’m in the process of private labeling my own health supplement. Also creating a few nice landers to start sending adwords traffic to it to pre sell the salespage.
This is something that is pretty new to me since ive been going more affiliate marketing but as you said there is more control and more money to be made as the owner.
I’m looking forward to it
Matt Carter Reply:
April 3rd, 2013 at 2:38 pm
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Good to hear Joshua
As a very entrepreneurial orientated guy who would like to successfully secure and enjoy a life prosperity and freedom through creating different ways, methods or mechanisms of earning residual income through doing the things that I really admire and enjoy to, I am looking to learn from both offline and online Millionaire Entrepreneurs. Personally, I would prefer dealing with the female beauty, modeling and fashion related fields, however I would consider any hot niche markets and products to happily engage with on the basis of implementing the modern internet marketing strategies and techniques that you are currently benefiting from.
Many thanks in advance.
Bruno
Thanks Matt for all the info.
I came across Any Meeting in one of my recent webinars. They seem to be a cheaper option than the GTW. You can check the features here: http://www.anymeeting.com/Free-Web-Conferencing-Features.aspx
Cheers!
Matt, I’m creating my own product and will turn it into an affiliate product. This post is helpful.
Hey Matt,
Thanks for the very informative article. This is something I’ve been recently wanting to do, so the timing is perfect.
I was looking at creating a digital product. It would be an eBook with several over the shoulder how-to video’s embedded into it.
I’m assuming a basic Membership site would suffice. What elements should a membership site include? What company (i.e. ClickBank, etc.) would be best for beginners to use for distribution? How do figure out your pricing?
Sorry so many questions, thanks in advance for your help.
Cheers!
Art
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your always thought provoking articles!
I bought your lead gen course and several other AM courses. Lots to learn but always afraid of being owned by Google. One good slap and you lose your income, so driving traffic in other ways in key IMHO.
We’ve had a nature photography site up for about 6 years and have tens of thousands of Florida & US images, plus a few thousand pro video clips. Also provide large canvas prints.
I’d love ideas on what kind of product/course to create & very willing to work with others, thanks.
Regards & success to all,
Doug.
Hi Matt great article as always. Private label is where we’re heading as well. Not only is there more control over where you going with your product line but it seam to work better on Amazon as well.
Regards
Scott
I like the idea of product development. Your marketing of the “new product” is great as explained in your online video. However, the bus has left the station for people who just wanted an online store. Further, the same tightening of margins is going to happen with amazon. That would happen anyway and is a good thing, but the more saturated and agressive people get with it the faster it is going to happen.
Then what? Your marketing is brillaint so I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.
You have actually moved into being a true entrepreneur with respect to full retail distribution. It is in my opinion much more ethical than scamming out otherwise good producers who lack SEO skills by manipulating search engine results.
Hi Matt
Thanks again for the great information. I dont really have the confidence to create my own product at the moment so I will continue to work on other things. I am actually doing the program from Andrew Hanson that you recommended and I’m getting a lot out of it, so just concentrating on those sites at the moment 🙂
Hi Matt, I loved this post. I have a product that I could easily sell but I am thwarted by the electronics and making of video. I wonder what the easiest way around this is?
Matt Carter Reply:
April 5th, 2013 at 1:41 pm
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Video isn’t that hard, what you can’t do just outsource it or learn it. Screen recording video is very easy.
Greg Reply:
April 9th, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Hey Yvonne. I use camtasia aswell. That is around $300 once off cost from memory. I was also using Jing which is free and allows recording of up to 5 minutes. It’s limited compared to Camtasia in terms of editing etc but I’ve done hundreds of recordings and the 5 minute time limit stops you from rambling on! I believe that the company that created Jing has just discontinued the Pro version and is pushing Snagit, which does the same thing, but better. It’s about $50 to buy. Well worth it. Hope this helps.
Another great post Matt, however I have seen a lot people get in hot water for not copyrighting their own products – which is illegal in some countries for PLR. Many big marketers have been sued by us government bodies, it sounds logical but is not as easy as people make it out to be – a lawyer is definately required when going down this road
Have you tried ebay for your physical goods Matt? I need to expand over to Amazon I think, but haven’t got any idea where to start. Research, research and more research! Great article as usual 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
April 5th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
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Haven’t done Ebay no
Hi Matt,
In your reply to Daren, who asked how to find manufacturers of products that could be self branded you suggested ba.com, however, this is British Airways. Is there a letter masked by your image in that reply?
Regards
Matt Carter Reply:
April 5th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
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Alibaba.com not ba.com
lol
Matt
Matt,
I heard a great tip recently regarding your exact post on producing your own content. My own experience backs it up.
Affiliate marketing doesn’t work well for MOST people until they have their OWN product … THEN you can backend the affiliate programs to your own product, because you have developed the necessary trust at that point, and serve as a CURATOR for the good stuff.
If someone sniffs “affiliate” on the front end they may often run away, or run to a better bonus. But when the front end is YOURS, there is nowhere to run.
I like that.
Mark
terrific post – thanks Matt!
Dewan
Hi Matt,
Yes I agree, having your own product is definitely the way to go. I have been selling other people’s products via affiliate programs for over 10 years. The product I have sold the most of is a product I licensed and re- branded. With this I then had my own affiliates to help sell the product. I have created a few of my own products as well, some from PLR, but when using PLR you really need to spend some time making the product your own, change the title, sales page and graphics and rewrite everything with your own spin. This makes the product unique and much easier to sell.
Cheers
Roger
Wow, this post came at just the right time. I am currently working on my own digital product and love the fact that I am in control of every detail.
As a full-time web developer I like the idea of taking my skill set to create a product that will make money while I sleep!
“you can trade dollars for hours or ideas for millions”
Hi Matt,
Totally agree with you on this.
Along with a couple of friends we set up an online store… adult products but not tacky, sordid or offensive. We have our (niche) products manufactured for us. This keeps supply costs low giving a very healthy margin.
Interestingly, most of our sales come through affiliates we have signed up. Equally interesting is the shop is ranking on the first page of Google for an extremely competitive keyword, (let you guess what that is) with very minimum SEO effort. In fact we are linked to from only 28 sites!
So. my message to your readers endorses yours… source and supply your own products!
Best wishes,
Jenny xx
Hi, Matt. I am from China and I have been following your blog for 2 years since I started blogging.
I come to your blog every week to check the new posts. Very grateful to see you always sharing new ideas. Now I am a freelance trader, if anything i can help with, please just let me know.
Hello Matt,I’m Olawale from Nigeria.I would like to apply for your Affiliate Marketing Training,but I was unable to pay for the training using my Masters Card because my country is not listed,the same applies to Andrew Hansen’s Forever Affiliate product.I will appreciate it,if you can guide me on how to go about it.I work as a Customer Service Rep in a leading Telecom Company in Nigeria,I just want passive income.Thanks
Matt Carter Reply:
April 15th, 2013 at 11:33 am
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Hi, sorry there is nothing I can do about payment methods, sorry about this.