[Yuliya Mironova]

Originally Posted by JBird85

What is the purpose of having a landing page/sales letter?

Having a landing-page serves two main purposes:-

(i) It enables you to "pre-sell" the product by writing about it without sales-talk in a way that makes people interested enough in it to see it as "a potential solution to their problem" or whatever. Common ways to do this include "reviewing the product" (but you must write an honest review, and you need to have the product yourself, or at least to have seen it, to do this honestly) either on its own or comparing it with competitors, and telling a personal story about a problem you had and how the product solved it for you

(ii) It enables you to build a list, which is where the real money is in affiliate marketing. The usual way people do that is by having an "opt-in" on whatever simple site/blog they use as their landing page, offering a free report in exchange for the potential customer's email address. You can then send autoresponder email out to the people on your list, which can dramatically increase the numbers of sales you get, especially if you keep the email content interesting and relevant and make people want to open and read them. You do need an autoresponder to do this, and it's a mistake to use a cheap one, because its "deliverability" may not be very good

Originally Posted by JBird85

Don't you just send people to your affiliate product site (Like a CB product)?

That's a more difficult way to make sales. The conversion-rates are far higher if you have a proper landing-page, and far higher still if you build a list.

Originally Posted by JBird85

(Sales letters usually put me off a product because they are so long and I have some serious ADHD. But I guess that is a personal preference).

I think it depends what sort of products you're looking at and where your traffic comes from.

If you're targetting the traffic that gets to your link as being "people who already want to buy XYZ sort of product" maybe you don't need much. If you're selling something like Clickbank products as an affiliate, the vendor already has a sales page, and the affiliates' job is to produce the customer, not directly to sell the product.

I think people (vendors of digital products) use those long one-page sales-letters because they work. I don't like them, myself.

Originally Posted by JBird85

I am planning on starting hardcore niche research later this week when I download the Market Samurai free trial.

Good luck with that, I've heard good things about it.

Remember that finding a product within a niche is important, too. And there can be great advantages to finding a niche with several different suitable products available, so that in time you can add more products without needing to do all the work all over again.