Today's Electronic Direct Marketing: Even Small Products Make Money

I have long been a supporter of products that can be downloaded over the Internet.

In today's electronic marketplace, here's the ultimate marketing to the end user.

Available 24/7, distribution happens automatically. This story will thrill any one who has direct marketing running through their veins. It may just give you some ideas on how you can do much the same thing.

Often overlooked in all the online chatter about direct marketing is how the “little guy” can make some decent money. Sure, we all like to hear about the person who made millions, but what about the man or woman who had a good idea and earned enough money to make it worthwhile, but not enough to buy an island in the South Pacific.

Take Jamie Lewis, for example.

Jamie was born into a family of musicians; his dad a violinist, mom a cellist. Jamie learned, as one would expect, violin, cello and piano. But in high school, his ear heard another calling ... rock. So, he went into the music business as an artist. By the age of 18 he was composing, producing and developing hip-hop beats and instrumentals.

Fast forward a few years. Jamie was a struggling musician in New York City. He just wanted to make a living and knew that the Web was part of his answer. He didn’t know how.

The advent of powerful yet inexpensive audio software had led to an explosion in music creation and production for an entire generation. Unique beats can be created that individuals rap over or use as part of a song.

Seeing this large and growing market, Jamie set up a Web site to sell hip-hop beats. At first sales weren’t that good. Then he found ClickBank.

ClickBank provides product vendors ... e-book authors, software writers, game creators, and now hip-hop beat producers ... access to over 110,000 online outlets (with millions of readers) that are looking for products to market and sell. These outlets are called affiliate marketers.

An affiliate marketer is an individual or organization who operates a Web site, blog or other online channel that is devoted to a specific topic ... similar to a brick-and-mortar boutique retail store. The affiliate marketer doesn’t produce anything, but promotes other people’s products.

In Jamie’s case, it’s hip-hop beats. “It was like a light bulb went off,” he said. “Affiliate marketing popped out at me because it made sense and I was thinking, ‘Wow, I can really do this.’”

And Jamie really did do it with www.beats365.com.

“I soon found that the affiliates made my business,” he said. “I stopped promoting myself and focused entirely on developing new beats and other offerings.”

Because of ClickBank and affiliate marketing, Jamie “could sell my intellectual property for the first time.”

Now, OK, at this point you’re probably thinking you don’t know a soul that works with hip-hop beats for fun or profit. That’s the point, even very niche products can find an audience and make money. That’s the power of ClickBank and affiliate marketing.

One of the measures of a successful product is the “conversion” rate. Meaning, of all the visitors that visited a product site how many actually converted into paying customers.

Niche sites get a smaller number of visitors, but the conversion rates are much higher than other sites. “There is no doubt that niche sites convert really well,” Jamie said. And, high converting products are very attractive to affiliates that are looking for products to promote. “Almost everyone who promotes my site has had success with it,” he added.