The Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
What makes people fail when it comes to affiliate marketing? In this article I’m listing some of the most common affiliate marketing mistakes that people make when it comes promoting other people’s products. Here we go:
1) The false start, or not starting at all
Many people are seduced by the lure of quick riches and do not realize exactly what needs to be done to get yourself off the ground. For the beginner there are a number of tricky hurdles to jump. Choosing the product is relatively easy, but then you may need to set up a squeeze page, sales page, market some articles, join some forums, set up an autoresponder series, and possibly set up a blog as well. Initially what seemed so simple has suddenly got complicated. Some people can also find themselves starting to doubt, deciding to promote something else. “Damn the penis enlargement niche is much better then vegetable gardens, why didn’t I choose this in the first place?” This leads nicely to the second mistake.
2) Running too many projects / campaigns at the same time
This can be quite dangerous, especially at the beginning. If you are new to affiliate marketing, it’s far better to get success with one product before moving onto the next. You need to concentrate, and get the best out of your marketing efforts. I’m reminded of an old Chinese proverb about an eager young man wanting to become a kung-fu master. The training takes 5 years. The young man asks his master if he really concentrates, could he become great in half the time. The master tells him it take 10 years not 5. “Why is it that if I work harder, it will take twice as long?” says the young man. “Because when you have one eye on your goal, and one eye on your training, then you will only have half your focus on your training”. The moral is not to try and do too much…get on top of your existing products first.
3) Selecting the wrong niche products to promote
Before you start marketing your product you need to know if there is a market for the product. Are there enough people interested? If there is, do the people in the market part with their cash? For example, there is an enormous amount of searches for astrology, but people want free information and rarely open their wallets.
4) Doing everything yourself
I know, I know you’re on a budget. You’ve got to do everything yourself. But is it really worth it? What’s a decent hourly wage in a job? How much per hour would you like to be paid from your marketing? Let’s say you want to put up a mini site for a product you wish to promote. Any good with graphics? You need to design the graphics for your minisite. Then get it all into a webpage. Then upload it to your server (after you’ve got a domain name, hosting etc). Sounds simple, and it is, although sometimes there are hiccups that can set you back. Now how long will all this take you to do? The reason I’m asking is that you can get a minisite designed for around $30. If it’s going to take you longer then 3 hours to get all this done, then it’s probably cost effective to outsource it! And as your income grows, this will become more and more worth it! Not to mention some of the technical headaches you will save!
5) Thinking that affiliate marketing will get you rich quick
Ok, time for a horrible truth. Affiliate marketing is not an easy way to riches. You will have to work hard. The fact is – if you could see the figures of most affiliate marketers you would see that some make hundreds a month, a few make thousands, and a very few make millions.
6) Not investing in your education
I know, I know, you’re still on a budget. The problem is you’re in a catch 22 situation. How do you expect to be hugely successful if you don’t know the most effective way of marketing? Internet marketing methods and techniques are evolving all the time – the trick is to get all the good courses. What if I was to tell you there is a good way to get your mitts on the latest and best information at zero cost? You know what it is? Go to internet marketing forums or forums in your niche and post that you will review products if they supply the product for free. Many webmasters of review sites (and there are a number out there) do not have the time to do the reviews themselves, and yet as their site is well ranked, they are in a position to make money from your review and the affiliate commissions it generates. Also, there is nothing to stop you publishing your own review as well. You may even find webmasters asking for reviewers. Or you could even go to somewhere like e-lance and advertise your services as a reviewer.
7) Getting discouraged to easily
You’ve got to keep your spirits up in this game. The truth is it takes time, and some campaigns will probably fail. Or at least appear like they are failing. How many opt ups did you expect per day? How much traffic did you expect? How much of that traffic did you expect to convert? If something doesn’t go to plan, or performs worse then you expected, don’t worry. Get back on that horse and keep riding. It is possible and you’re the best. Keep this mantra going in your head. Give yourself a treat. Stoke your self belief and self esteem!
8) Information Overload!!
This is the opposite of mistake 6. Sometimes people will get everything under the sun. I was like this when I first started out. Also, will some products there are enormous bonus packages with huge amounts of information in. They take several hours just to download. Often it’s also good information, but it can lead to paralysis. There are too many ways of achieving the same objective, and you don’t know which one to take! What’s the solution? First, find a source of information you trust and follow it through to the end. Secondly, ignore all other sales letters and reign in your spending. A good way of doing this is keeping a spreadsheet with how much you have spent on it and the date. Did you make use of the information? This is a well known problem, and I have done a previous blog post on it here.
9) Seeking Perfection
There’s always something else you can do. As you research you’ll find that this person’s squeeze page seemed more effective, or you should have put something else in your eBook, or that person’s blog looks better. The important point here is that you set launch dates or targets, and if things aren’t perfect, go ahead anyway if they are passable. Otherwise you can end up delaying for ages, and never doing anything to effectively build your business.
10) No accountable friend
Getting someone to justify all your business actions too is a great method of finding out what people really think. They will often come up with insightful points that make you re-examine how you’re doing things. Also they can sometimes give you much needed support. So go and talk to people about your business ventures – you could even get some customers! Better still, team up with someone and arrange a weekly meeting. Look at your objectives and strategies. What exactly did you achieve?
So there you have it, some top 10 tips for affiliate marketers. For something more in depth, check out the free eBook offered at the foot of the page!!
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