How to Choose Products to Promote

If you are in the business of promoting products, there is a wonderful world of them on the internet that you can use to make income for your blog or online business. Don’t dive in head first thinking that just because you promote a product, that the sales and commissions will easily follow. In order to successfully promote products, your audience needs to be nurtured and trust your voice. There are three things that I ask myself when deciding to promote a product on my blog or to my email list.

1. Does it relate to my niche?
   You audience is likely interested in products/services that pair well with your chosen niche and mesh well with the content you create. If you have a fitness blog, you might promote health supplements or workout programs because your readers are likely into fitness products. You wouldn’t try to sell them computer software, right? That probably wouldn’t be very effective. Stick to products that your audience will jive with.
2. Do I believe in the product/service?
   I only promote services or products that I have personally used and love. The reason I choose to do this is simple…I want my loyal following to have a good experience with the products/services I promote. If I tell them to purchase a product that I have never used, or a product that is less than stellar it damages the trust I have with my audience. You always want to put quality in front of your audience. Some internet businesses choose to churn out squeeze pages and promote products they haven’t tried and are focused only on getting a commission and not what is best for their audience. Not all online businesses that do this lack integrity, but I just don’t feel like that is on the up and up. I would rather put my confidence in a product before offering it up to my readers.
3. How profitable is the offer?
   Of course this is important because we want to make money in our businesses or it wouldn’t be business at all! I often choose to promote things I love even if it doesn’t gain a commission, but I have a handful of carefully selected products that I believe in. I tend to like products that I find reasonable in price and provide high value. The commission is usually $50-$100 a sale. Some marketers like to focus on really high ticket sales because you need less customers to make a decent income. However, it is also more difficult to convert those leads into customers. If the commissions are too low, it can be hard to make enough to break even in your business because it requires a lot of conversions to make enough to meet your income goals.

In order to successfully promote a product, you almost always need to sign up as an affiliate. I recommend keeping a spreadsheet of products you promote and the account details for each. If you promote several products it is easy to get account information mixed up! It is easy to get started on sites like Clickbank or ShareASale, but personally I have found that most of the products I want to promote have an affiliate program of their own.

I hope these three questions will help you find clarity on what products are best to promote in your business.