The Paradox of Product Launches and Bonuses

Part 1. Good Products and Bad Bonuses

Today I want to discuss the paradox between value of new products and accompanying them no-value bonuses from affiliate marketers and product owners. It is a real today’s paradox because value of a product is in contradiction with no-value bonuses that suppose to help this product to be sold in first place.

The internet marketing and, in particular, ”make money online” niche is most lucrative and saturated niche online. Literally thousands of experienced and not so experienced online marketers are competing for their part of that huge pie. I am not an exception - I do offer products that are in my opinion a good quality, such as Traffic Ultimatum by George Brown, as an affiliate marketer as well.

As you probably know, nowadays almost 100% of product’s launches in internet marketing/make money online niche are accompanying with bonus offers.

Why? In my opinion, bonuses are offered to overcome 2 main problems in today’s online marketing niche:

- First problem is psychological: People prefer to buy directly from the product creator/owner to avoid a middleman, because from their previous offline experience they may think that middleman cloud increase the cost of the product and also they just don’t like a middleman and obviously they consider an affiliate marketer as a middleman.

- Second problem is technological: Today even newbies knows that they can very easily find that particular product’s offer and buy it directly from the creator/owner just by typing product name into their search engine.

To overcome this problem, which is affecting affiliate marketers, the Bonus Method was introduced to an online marketing world. Actually it isn’t something completely new; this technic was used offline all the time before the Internet era and is still in use now because it is working. Those bonuses are offered by savvy, experienced internet marketers to newbies and less experienced marketers to serve the only purpose to attract prospective customers and convert them into buyers.

And it is nothing wrong with this method because seller gets a sale and buyer get more value for his money, but with one very important detail – the bonus has to be valuable to a buyer. And here is the point of my analysis - almost 100% of bonuses offered online today’s doesn’t have any real value.

Mostly they are:

1. Original unique products but very outdated, at least 1 or 2 years old and not working anymore because of the pace how fast Internet is changing – what was working even 1 year ago usually doesn’t work today, and/or

2. It is rehashed Private Label Rights (PLR) products and you would be a lucky one if get high quality PLR. Mostly it is low quality and/or outdated PLR-s.

Now you maybe asking yourself – why they do it?

Just continue to read Part 2 of this article and you will find what I think about why they do it and how it affects the whole industry of internet marketing and affiliate marketing in particular.

Part 2. Who Is To Blame and What To Do

Again, you might be wondering – why they do offer unvaluable bonuses? From my point of view, the only real reason is GREED!

Unfortunately Internet Marketing niche and, in particular, “make money online” niche is saturated with dishonest, running for quick dollar so-called ”marketers” because it is relatively easy could be done here.

To offer a bonus that has real value you have to sacrifice something  - or give away your own product that cost you money and time to create in order to sell somebody’s product, or spend your own money upfront to buy somebody’s unique product and offer it as a bonus.

But it is lot easier and cheaper to offer outdated and/or previously received bonus, which you got a few years ago, in order to make real money right now without spending anything, isn’t it? And people who don’t care if they can look in the mirror to themselves at the end of the day, they do it all the time and it is why the bonus method was compromised and discredited.

Today a lot of people are looking for online opportunities to make money, especially in this tough economy. It is pretty easy to convince somebody, especially inexperienced in Internet marketing, to spend $47 – $97 for the “opportunity” to make many times bigger return on investment and to “sweet” sale by offering bonuses “worth” of $497 up to $1497 and sometimes even more that was “estimated” by that very affiliate marketer.

And usually these dishonest marketers promise that their bonus will help to make those thousands and thousands dollars much easier and  quicker – sometimes just for a push of the magic button or at most for 2-3 hours of work a day without leaving a comfort of your home.

First of all it is not the truth. It is possible to make money online and big money if you know how, but I want honestly say that you have to work as hard as you do it offline to be successful online marketer. It requires a lot of time and some money to invest to make money and also you have to be willing to learn a lot of how to do it properly on a constant basis.

Now let’s come back to the paradox itself, when some greedy marketers, in order to be able sell valuable product and make instant affiliate commission,  offer no-value bonuses that actually hurt the reputation of a product and its owner who is actually paying these commissions to them.

I am sick and tied to see all these “bonuses” all over the Internet that have no-value and just discredit the value of usually good quality or even excellent products. I think it is just not honestly to do so. But I still think that offering bonuses can be very powerful method to make sales if bonuses have a real value for a buyer that compliment and add value to the actual product. Also to be honest marketer will pay you out many times in the future by creating trust among your customers. Customer’s trust is the most valuable assert an internet marketer can ever have.

My own decision regarding using bonuses as a method to attract customers and convert them into buyers is very simple – or offer real value products or services that compliment the product or do not do it at all!

Now, for SEO purposes I recommend still to use a word “bonus” in your keywords and on-page optimization even no actual bonus is presented because people still is using this term when searching online to buy products. So, you can compete with other marketers on a fair basis.

Stay in touch.

Sincerely,

Alexander Umanets