I've been doing the online thing for about 10 years now. During that time, I've experimented with probably 100 affiliate offers, dozens of physical products, thousands of ads, and millions of dollars in advertising spend (ppc, cpv, media buys - you name it).
And, I thought if I were to share something semi-valuable on Steemit, it'd be what I've learned during that time.
First thing is - you gotta fail. You really just have to try and try and try again, and then you have to learn from those mistakes and try again.
"Ideas are everywhere, but implementation is scarce."
I've mentored thousands of people over the years, and the biggest problem I've seen is analysis-paralysis. Everybody seems to think that they need to know everything about a topic before they can take action.
In my opinion, the single most valuable skill-set an entrepreneur can have is the ability to take instant action. And moreover, take confident action. You just have to believe that you can do it. When you really believe that, with all of your being, you'll work at your goal until it's a reality.
Now I'm starting to ramble, so... here's what actually worked for me:
1) Reverse Engineering -
I looked at what was working for other affiliates on Clickbank.com. For example, I saw that background reports and people search offers had an insane gravity metric (gravity is a Clickbank metric that basically shows how well-performing an offer is). And, after researching the space a little bit, I realized that people were searching on Google for names, addresses and phone numbers. So, I built some sites to test my theory, and this was a BIG winner. I'd say close to a 7-figure win.
2) Tee Shirts -
It wasn't easy, but a few months after starting, and probably 15 t-shirt designs later - I found a winner. I can't remember exactly what sparked my idea, but I realized that there were a ton of untapped causes, events and holidays that I could help raise support for.
So, I searched Pinterest for ideas, and saw that Autism Awareness had a national awareness day coming up soon. I hired a designer friend of mine to come up with a couple tee shirt ideas, marketed to Autism interests on Facebook and we sold about 10k shirts! 6-figure win with half to charity.
3) Network Marketing -
Without boring you too much, I'll just cut straight to the chase and tell you exactly what I've done over the past ten years to make it work well for me.
I advertised. I didn't cold-call, approach strangers, or spam anyone. I did simple, direct response ads that were targeted to my desired demographic. I said, "who else wants to start working from home and make a great new income" and I let people come to me.
By doing this, I made the best use of my time, and I didn't give network marketing a bad name.
Then, I started to write about the company. I created, in-depth reviews on our websites about the products, the company, the compensation, and I ranked organically when people wanted to learn more. At first, this wasn't very cost-effective, but as the company slowly developed a brand name with a following that garnered organic searches, it became an incredible asset.
People were coming to me from my ads and reviews, and I became the top recruiter in the history of the company. This advertising was seemingly expensive (sometimes up to $10/lead), but the distributors I enrolled, over the course of time were worth several thousand dollars each!
Network marketing is incredible because the lifetime value from your sales reps is so insanely high. Just like any other marketing effort, it's all about the lifetime customer value. This has been a multiple 7-figure win and is still growing.
I purposely didn't put links, or mention my company and/or sites so that it was clear I don't have an ulterior motive for this - but if anyone wants to know more, feel free to message me!
Excited for Steemit! Thanks!