Build A Niche Store

Affiliate Profile: Impulsive Obsessive Compulsive with ADD

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I’m an impulsive obsessive compulsive with ADD type personality. That means I get an idea in my head and jump on it. Immediately. Then I obsess over it for a period of time. Its all i think about. It’s all I do. Then all of a sudden, I get bored or get another idea and jump on it. This is a very bad, bad combination if you want to be an affiliate marketer. Here’s how I cope with my personal tendency to rush into and out of niche hair brain ideas.

• Realize niche research is niche research. You don’t need to buy a domain. You don’t need to setup a store or a blog. You simply need to find out what the market is like for the niche and some basic information on the subject.
• Don’t do what’s been done. Most of the obvious niche ideas that seem like a great opportunity usually were at one point. But, the problem is saturation. An obvious niche is generally obvious for others, chances are you are not going to be the first and only person working a niche. To make money, you need to be different.
• Plan out your business. You need to complete your research and analyze your competition before you ever invest any time in content creation or buying a domain name. You need to get a list of possible link partners, forums, do-follow blogs related to your content.
• Write, write and write some more. Before you ever buy your domain name and setup hosting, write your content. Always, always write your content first. You should have at minimum 10 400 word articles ready to go before you buy the domain name. Also, you should have your store page content written before that page goes live. Never, never launch a store page that doesn’t have at least 250 words of unique content.

That’s basically it. I find my successful niche markets make it through this process and are worth the domain and hosting expense.

The niche ideas that don’t make it through the process are the ones that would have likely failed anyway. If I’m not interested enough to generate good content, people sure will not be interested enough to visit the site.

This process saves me frustration, money and time. It also helps me focus on seeing a niche store through from concept to completion.

Are You Losing Money With Build A Niche Store?

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OK, I’m in my 4th month of seriously using BANS and focusing solely on BANS business promotion.  Last month I earned $295. I just ran some numbers and it turns out that $295 was based on $6,427 in sales. So, my little sites generated $6,427 in purchases? When I do the math that equals a little over a 4.9% commission rate. Now the question is, am I losing money by referring buyers to eBay instead of other more high paying affiliate programs?

To answer that, one thing has to be made known. People buy on eBay for price and availability. I have to ask… Would I have generated that many sales if those items were full price? The obvious answer is no. Clearly people buy on eBay over full price retailers because of the discounts they get off literally the same merchandise.

So, the quick answer is no. You are not losing money going with BANS because chances are those sales would not have happened if they were confronted against full retail prices.

However, the long answer is not that cut and dry. I still think that snooty buyers are somewhat turned off by eBay. They don’t want to buy someone’s hand-me-down or a second hand item. They are willing to pay online retail to get that fresh out of the box item. So, for them it is critical that you give them an out. You have to give them an area of your site that is full dedicated to the snooty. The snooty zone.

In the snooty zone you will have all of your direct CJ, Amazon, Linkshare links to the items you feature on your site. That way they can click and be shot over to a retailer that they may feel more comfortable buying from.

So the point is, cover your basis. Use BANS for the thrifty shopper looking for a deal. Use your regular affiliate links for your snooty shopper.

Use PPC Wisely With BANS

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When I first got started, I thought I understood how PPC worked. You create an ad, choose your keywords and post it to Yahoo, Google, MSN. Someone then searches on your selected keyword, they click your ad and you pay for that click or referral to your site. Boy was I wrong and boy did it cost me.

One of the first mistakes I made was overusing their keyword tools. True, their keyword tools provide you with a ton of information, but is it the right information for you to use in a PPC campaign? The problem you will find is that most of their tools do not include action words in them. Words like, “buy”, “discount”, “for sale” or other words the signify the searcher is wanting to purchase. And, that is what I call a budget killer.

For example early on when I first started. I had a site that sold used campers. So, I created a keyword list that had about 200 keywords in it. But, one of those keywords was “used campers”. I launched the campaign around 6am and then went to go play golf for the afternoon. I got home around 2pm and checked my AdWords account. To my excitement I saw that I had over 200 clicks, but it cost me about $50. This PPC traffic caused my EPN clicks to exceed 900 for that day. Surely out of 900 clicks someone would have to buy something?

Wrong, zero sales the next day, the day after that and the day after that. All that PPC traffic did nothing for my earnings. Why? Simple. It’s not targeted. Chances are all those people were just mining for research, not buying.

So, now I’m a ton smarter when it comes to PPC. With all of my campaigns I include an action word. Since making this change and eliminating generalized keywords, I seen an increase in my PPC clicks go from 1% to 15%, my quality scores have gone way up, minimum bids have gone way down. But, most importantly I’ve seen more conversions on a much lower PPC budget.

Don’t Start A BANS Store, Start A BANS Business

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One of the fundamental truths related to Build A Niche Store is that it takes time to grow and see success. Most people fail because they treat BANS like a store. Meaning, they just install it, write a minimal amount of content and that is it. They wait a few weeks and then quit on the store because it’s not producing the results they expect. Do you do this in a real business? No, there is much more effort exerted in a real business situation and thus greater potential for longterm results.

Perfect example. Earlier this summer, I planted about $300 worth of summer flowers and new shrubs in the flower bed out front of my house. Granted I’m in Texas, so it gets really hot. Flowers can not make it alone here in the Texas heat. I have two options. I can either let the flowers die and give up my investment. Or, I can water those flowers and put a little daily effort in to see them live and be able to enjoy the beauty all summer long.

And there we have it. Someone e-mailed me for help several weeks back. I spent about 4 hours over the phone helping this person get their store up and running. Literally two days later, I get a notification from ClickBank that this person has requested a refund on their BANS store. They quit, after tow days they quit. Why? Because they were looking at BANS like it was a store and not a business. They were looking at BANS like it were some automated system that just deposits money into their bank account.

BANS is not that. It’s a business tool. A tool that you can grow a successful internet business around. But, it’s all based on you and your effort to help make your business grow.

How It’s Done

One of the most critical steps to any business is contacts. A business needs good contacts to grow and sustain repeating business. I’m kind of old school, so I use an old fashion method of getting my sites to stick to people I meet. And that is with business cards. In or digital world, the art of the business card is quickly becoming lost. Business cards are still very powerful and they do work. I drop them everywhere and give them out to everyone.

When I’m on the driving range or playing golf, I will literally strike up a conversation with a guy and then at the end slip him my business card promoting my golf related BANS business.

IT WORKS. Word of mouth and the old school method of building relationships offline still work.

Cheapest Way Possible

I’m pretty cheap and I don’t like to spend money. So, how do you get business cards without breaking the bank? Simple, VistaPrint offers FREE business cards. You just pay the shipping and handling. I’ve use this service and the quality is just awesome, especially for something free. You get 250 for free. I’m not sure how long they will continue to offer these free business cards, but they have been doing it for years. So, it can easily factor into your BANS marketing plans.