If you’ve been looking at starting an online business for a while,  you’ve probably seen several different business models floating  around. Probably the most popular one is affiliate marketing.

You’re told you should use lead magnets and free gifts to build  an email list. Stick those lead magnets on a squeeze page and  send traffic to it, right? Well, if you’ve tried it, you’ve already  discovered that it doesn’t work very well.

After spending time and/or money on sending traffic to that page,  you’ll usually notice most people aren’t exactly giving you their  best email address. In fact, about one-third of them are giving  you a fake email. And of the ones that are giving you a real one,  it’s usually one they reserve for “junk” which is how they think of  your promotional material. That means it’s an address they don’t  check regularly and so it’s about as useful as a fake one. And  keep in mind, they’re called freebie seekers for a reason! They  don’t really buy things. Usually what happens at this point is that  a struggling internet marketer starts to realize his or her marketing emails are getting open rates of around 4 or 5% and  generating zero sales and that all their effort in creating a lead  magnet and landing page and driving traffic was a giant waste.

So, they give up on IM and assume it’s all a big hoax. Sad story,  but it happens every day and it’s the ultimate end of about 95%  of would-be internet marketers.

So, what are the other five percent doing differently? Easy.

They’re creating and selling products of their own.

You see, when you create and sell a product of your own, you’re  creating a different type of list. A buyers’ list. Unlike freebie  seekers who make it a point to never buy anything and also  rarely give you their real contact info, buyers actually buy things  (crazy right?). These are people who are serious about internet  marketing and actually regularly pull out their credit cards and  buy things. And because the email you collect comes from their  transaction info, you’re finally getting real email addresses that  people actually check!

And beyond list building, selling your own products carries  another benefit. You control your profit. You don’t have to split  sales revenue with anyone (although you certainly can if you’re  having affiliates help with a product launch). So, you’re either  keeping all the profit for yourself or you’re choosing how much to  share with affiliates. Either way, you’re in control.

Furthermore, if you do choose to pay commissions to affiliates  and have them drive sales, it’s essentially free traffic. You’re paying a pre-determined commission to people ONLY when they  make a sale, so there’s none of the risk or gambling that usually  accompanies something like paid display ads or solo ads. You  finally switched places with the successful marketers you’ve  been looking up at and now you’re letting THEM handle the  problem of how to get traffic to YOUR offer. What a difference  that makes!

Finally, creating and selling a product establishes credibility like  nothing else. In a market packed full of so-called gurus and  celebrity marketers, you’ll absolutely need credibility. Your  credibility affects several things. Firstly, it affects the likelihood of  people buying your future products. Secondly, it affects how  many people will recognize your name and bother to open your  emails. Finally, it boosts your ability to network and recruit  affiliates and JV partners. And having a product of your own to  point to is one of the quickest and easiest routes to increasing  credibility.

You might be asking yourself if product creation is for you. Well,  take a moment and look through your inbox right now. Look at  all the emails coming in from top internet marketers. Sure,  they’re all promoting other people’s products with affiliate links.

But what’s the one other thing you see each of them doing at  least once every month or two? They’re creating and selling their  own products. It’s very rare that you encounter a successful  marketer without their own products. So, if that’s the one thing  that all successful marketers are doing in your inbox, then guess  what: yup, you need to be doing it too. But don’t worry. It’s easier  than you think and there are a ton of different types of products  you can make.