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Time and time again I hear affiliates complaining to me about all the "good" niches being taken and dominated in.
My question to you is, why not try your hand in a competitive niche? Sure, I do not recommend trying a very competitive niche for starting out but after you get a bit of experience, why not try it?!
Too often we have the mindset of failure (myself included). This is what is going really kill our campaign. I think one of the main reasons why I have found success is because I'm not afraid to at least try. Sure, I've had campaigns that I could not find a way to make them profitable. Nutrisystem, for example, was one of those campaigns I just could not figure out. It was a consistent top earner in many networks for months and I was trying and trying and trying to figure out how I could get a piece of that pie. Failure is part of the business. (And if you made a good amount from nutrisystem, mind telling me your secrets?!?! kidding...)
Thomas Edison took how many tries to make the lightbulb? A LOT. (Correct my if I'm wrong) I believe he stated that he never failed, but just learned 1000 ways to NOT make a lightbulb. The same attitude applies to affiliate marketing.
How many ways I have discovered how NOT to make an affiliate campaign? A good amount.
I tried to get my girlfriend Maria started up with some affiliate campaigns this summer and man was that a tough experience. For whatever reason we just could not find a good niche for her. We would spend hours and hours working away on diet systems and the like and pretty much all of them failed. DOH.
After the third campaign, she wanted to give up affiliate marketing because it simply was not working for her. Fast forward to now and she's developing a great product related site. She's refusing to give up on making a successful campaign and to be honest I think this campaign is going to rock it.
Another good example of this is a story my dad told me as a younger boy. I cant remember the exact details but the principal is the same.
Essentially in the story there was an Oil company in the United States looking to hire a VERY high level executive. They had some really high requirements for the position, it was reserved only for the best of the best.
The company ended up hiring a guy who had just made a different Oil company completely tank. (Hahaha I just made a pun.)
People were wondering why this company would hire such a person and they simply responded, "He learned how NOT to run an Oil business."
[Forgive me for totally messing that story up but it was the best I could do from memory.]
The attitude I like to have going into a niche is one that is not worrying how many competitors I have or how expensive it's going to be but rather, what do I need to do to make this profitable? How can I do it? What type of conversions do I need?
When I start a campaign, I always like to set a goal and work towards it. I'll write more about this tomorrow. 
Hi jonathan. You are right. There would be no success without failing. The most successful people are those who have tried and failed tried and failed tried and failed tried an succeed!
Everything is all about that.
Thanks Jon,
Looking forward for your goal setting process and its implementation.
Vijay
[...] post by Jonathan Volk and posted by Alfred [...]
Yes. Once again, you are right.
But in the begining, getting in those competitive niches can be a bit like entering the lion’s cage. Some are not scared (or just crazy), and others rather wait and get used to the kitties first. 
You know, I never look at a niche as too big or too small. If I enjoy writing about that niche, I will take it on. You must be genuine with the content you create for your niche.
Diet products on PPC was never really good for me. I developed some really kickass methods, one of which I will throw your way right now.
I was advertising a certain diet product from a squeeze page and putting insertion orders in for offline classifieds, diet clubs and gyms. I also had a 1-800 number on these ads (This is crucial). That 1-800 number was basically my presell on how there was a free bottle of such and such to try out for only the cost of shipping. This is a limited offer so if your the least bit interested in getting the free bottle just fill out the short form and we will reply to you right away.
This is one of the easiest ways to make some big dollars in the diet and weight loss industry. After opting in they were redirected to the offer page and paid just a few dollars for shipping.
Front end profits and my own list. To advertise in 1 million newspapers costs me about $600 a pop. This is nothing considering the amount you can burn in PPC in that industry.
But if you insist on PPC you got to have that 1-800 man. It will increase those conversions like you wouldn’t believe. If anything bro, your getting a semi targeted optin that at least wants to know where to go and read about the free bottle.
The quest in finding that underserved niche is gone. Nowadays, the competition in internet and affiliate marketing is more fierce than it was years ago. Lucky are those who got in and made money with it first, but even then, not all of them (I guess) are making it good at present.
Never quit is a good lesson that you pointed out in this post, Jon. And I’m a firm believer of that.
Almost 3 years of trying but still have not made considerable money to offset my expenses will not stop me from pursuing this objective of having my own internet marketing business.
If NASA stopped its space program decades of years ago which suffered considerable failures and unimaginable amount of money – the U.S. would not have been the world leader in the race to space at present.
And that’s only one reason for us to stay motivated.
Keep up the good post, Bud.
Manuel
@Ruck: Yes, that is most crucial. We have to put ourselves in the customer’s place. What do we do, if we see an advert that promises the solution to your problem, with a “free trial”, with only the shipping expenses? You look for the name of the company, an adress, a phone number… If there’s nothing like that in the ad, what will you think? “Yeah, right. You’re going to get my bucks and not send me anything.
A phisical presence is very important, besides the internet presence. We all know why.
Jonathan …
I’ve been perusing your site, nice effort! Your success is encouraging … I’ve been at affiliate marketing now for about 6months surviving. I realize I have all my eggs in one or two baskets and need to diversify.
You mentioned your Nutrisystem failure, do you ever share landing pages that you’ve made or have stopped using?? Direct linking seems to be working less and less, and I need to start developing my own sites/landing pages, but just dont know how to begin.
Much appreciated!