One of the most lucrative and profitable endeavors you can take on is creating your own product.
Create a product that helps people in some way and then sell it. But don't try to “go it alone.”
Use an army of affiliates to promote your product! Even better–set up joint venture partners (i.e., the “big guys” in the industry) and pay them handsomely.
How?
There are a multitude of ways. ClickBank used to be the 800 pound gorilla on the affiliate scene. If you sell information products specific to internet marketers, the Warrior Forum is the place to do it, and there's a pretty nifty affiliate program there, too, called “Warrior Plus,” and there's PayDotCom.
In my opinion, these aren't optimal options. I've also used membership plugins and scripts that allow you to “roll your own” affiliate program. Not great, either.
Rapid Action Profits is great. Probably the best of the “roll your own” affiliate scripts (and so much more), but it's a pain in the ass to set up, it doesn't pay instant commissions, and it's pricey. Plus, one of its main benefits is a plethora of add-ons, but that's its downfall, too: It's very hard to determine which one(s) to buy and how to integrate it all.
(Maybe I'm stupid. But I think many of you may have a problem setting it up, too. I could be wrong.)
But what I have discovered is the best thing yet. Does it have shortcomings? Of course. But it's the best I've used yet. It's called Digiresults and it rocks. Here's what's good about it (and I'll add the “bad” at the end).
First off, it pays out commissions instantly. That is to say, you and your affiliates get their respective splits right away. It works with PayPal (so it's super easy to use and set up–in fact, there's littel set up at all–another plus).
Refunds are handled the same way: If a customer requests a refund, your commission and your affiliate's commission are immediately reversed and the customer gets all of his money back with no issues about who does the refunding.
It's super simple to set up a product. You literally fill out a few fields on a single form and you're done. You can set any commission percentage you want. You can even set up two “identical” products with the only difference being the commission paid. Use this to pay your trusted JV partners a higher percentage.
You get a “buy” button that you simply paste into your webpage (or WordPress post/page). Again, it's super simple.
The best part, in my opinion: You can set up multiple products. In ClickBank, you either have to set up multiple accounts (technically, each product has to be part of its own account–or one product per account) or use a script that is not super-simple to set up and has its limitations in order to sell multiple products on one ClickBank account.
Plus, set up for Digiresults is free. To set up a product in ClickBank, it costs $50.
Give Digiresults a try. I think you'll like it.