ClickBank Helps ���Rocket��� Business At University, Mark Ling Was ...
ClickBank Helps “Rocket” Business
At university, Mark Ling was looking for ways to help himself, and his friends, with
foreign language classes. Problem was, there wasn’t anything very good available.
And yes, as “necessity is the mother of invention,” this lead to Ling creating
a fun and effective way to learn languages – Rocket Languages.
Rocket Languages was started in 2004 by Ling, a native New Zealander and ecommerce
entrepreneur, and his partner Jason Oxenham, a trained mechanical engineer. Today,
Rocket Languages is the one of the world’s leaders in downloadable language learning
products and one of ClickBank’s most successful product lines.
ClickBank’s online commerce system manages all the purchases and financial
transactions Oxenham and Ling need to run their online business. ClickBank offers
Rocket Languages affiliate management, guaranteed tracking of sales and a secure
platform – all vital capabilities required to successfully compete in the digital retail
market.
A 10-person company, Rocket Languages sets itself apart from the competition by
focusing on what Oxenham calls, “conversational learning,” an approach, he says, that
lends itself quite well to the digital marketplace.
Put simply, Rocket Language packages are comprehensive language courses that include
interactive audio lessons, software-based learning games for vocabulary, verbs and
pronunciation, and a range of fully illustrated grammar newsletters and downloadable
books with embedded audio. Currently, the curriculum offers Rocket French, Rocket
Spanish, Rocket German, Rocket Japanese and Rocket Sign Language. In mid-2008,
Rocket Italian and Rocket Chinese will be introduced.
“Rocket Languages started because Mark was studying Spanish at the University and was
frustrated at the poor quality of other online and off-line home study courses and the
corresponding low level of customer service,” Oxenham explained. “That created the
germination of our idea: produce a superior language course than what was offered and
go beyond.”
Rocket Spanish was the first Rocket Languages course and was developed over a period
of 15 months. The development of Rocket Spanish culminated in the creation of one of
the unique components of the platform’s multimedia language courses: the Interactive
Audio Course. The Interactive Audio Course lets the user experience and voice a
conversation that can then be used in a real-life situation without having to know the
2009 ClickBank | 917 S Lusk Street | Boise, ID 83706 | www.clickbank.com
complete grammatical background to the language. Rocket French was developed soon
after.
Oxenham and Ling quickly saw that e-commerce, and specifically affiliate marketing,
was the way to introduce, establish and grow their business.
“Affiliate marketing is such a great, and relatively cheap, distribution network,”
Oxenham said. Rocket Languages became a ClickBank member almost immediately and,
as Oxenham puts it, “once we saw the potential, there was no holding back.” Since
starting with ClickBank, Rocket Languages has sold over 70,000 products and currently
sells over 750 units per week. Further, the company has consistently doubled its sales
each year.
ClickBank Adds Fuel to Rocket Languages
According to Oxenham, ClickBank’s retailing platform and the unparalleled exposure to
ClickBank’s affiliate network via the ClickBank Marketplace, makes it the perfect
business partner. “ClickBank has provided a stable platform to help our customers
purchase safely, securely and with confidence. Recent changes that ClickBank has made
have also had a favorable impact on our customer satisfaction levels, such as the
ClickBank order page redesign.
For Oxenham, the best thing about ClickBank is “the automation of the payment
processing, including separating out affiliate commissions and paying affiliates without
us having to manage that.”
“A very close second would be the exposure to the ClickBank affiliate network and
Marketplace. ClickBank has been instrumental in getting the Rocket Languages brand in
front of thousands of potential affiliates. The Marketplace has given us exposure to a
virtual sales force numbering several thousand people. It is difficult to get that sort of
exposure in one place. But with ClickBank we know that as long as our products perform
we will be showcased to a large network of people with language-oriented Web sites who
can become ours as well as ClickBank’s partners.”
Helpful Advice for Others
So, for an engineer turned entrepreneur, Oxenham has a few words of advice for anyone
looking to venture into the world of digital and downloadable commerce:
“To anyone starting out in e-commerce and looking for an easy way to set up and use
affiliate programs, I would highly recommend ClickBank. It will get you top line
exposure with minimal programming and Web design knowledge,” he said. “And, for
those with more experience they will find that ClickBank offers a range of functionality
that will increase their chances of success in an ever more crowded market place.”
2009 ClickBank | 917 S Lusk Street | Boise, ID 83706 | www.clickbank.com
