Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes
Article by Suzen
I’ll be honest with you – it wasn’t until this past year that my affiliate marketing reallyshowed some great results. I could always sell my own products just fine, but it wasalways difficult to sell products from other people.Now, I find myself finishing near the top of several high profile affiliate contests. I’m not telling you this to brag, I just want you to understand that I can actually do this,and I’m not just trying to teach you something that I can’t personally do.This guide is NOT going to teach you how I finished in the Top 3 of those contests -there honestly are better people to learn that from than me. But this guide will exploresome of the most common mistakes affiliates make, and how you can go about avoidingthese in the future.This is a HUGE problem that many new affiliates make, and I hope that by bringing theseto your attention that you can get ahead of the curve and start seeing some positive resultsquickly.As I was compiling this list of mistakes, I found myself thinking back to my early daysonline, and all of the mistakes I made. I even found myself going back to one of my firstsites and seeing how terrible it was and all of the mistakes I made : )
In affiliate marketing you can often be drawn in by the promise of operating as anaffiliate for several different sites while making money from each one of them. This is adifficult thing for anyone to do successfully when they are first beginning. Not only is ithard to learn the basics of affiliate marketing but you also need to have time to grow yourbusiness. So if you don’t dedicate yourself to one program before starting another, youwill not be able to fully experience the potential that affiliate marketing can offer you.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #1
Learning is Essential
Once you have decided on an affiliate program that you would like to work with, it isessential that you take the time to learn about that specific program as well as affiliatemarketing in general.Dedicate yourself to understanding the in’s and out’s of your program. Learn how othershave been successful with this affiliate program in the past and find out their tips for yoursuccess. Most affiliate program owners will offer a forum or other way for people toexchange marketing ideas and information to help make that affiliate program the best itcan be. Don’t be shy. Jump in and start reading all the posts in the forum or blogregarding the affiliate program you are interested in. Post your questions and don’t feellike you can’t ask something. Most likely many other people have the same question asyou and will appreciate you asking it.Learning more about the company and product you will be promoting is essential. In thereal world you would not take a job to sell a product if you did not fully understand it, soyou should not do so in the marketing world either. Do your research and yourknowledge of the product will help you become a successful affiliate marketer.
Moving on to Number Two
Many people are in such a hurry to make money with affiliate marketing that they don’ttake the necessary time to really understand their first program before becoming anaffiliate with another program. But if you feel you have fully researched your programand have the time to dedicate to a second line of promotions then go for it.Managing two affiliate programs is not impossible. But you have to do the same amountof research for each program. You also want to make sure you are dedicating yourselffully to each affiliate. If you cannot offer your full attention to two programs, you mayactually find that fully dedicating yourself to one program will offer you more financialreturn in the end.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #2
NOT Concentrating on the Pre-Sell
Affiliates that try to sell the product to the client and tote all the product’s positive andnegative qualities does not truly understand the concept of an affiliate marketer. Whenyou spend your time trying to describe every last detail of the product or answering allthe questions of the client, then you are wasting your time. As an affiliate for a marketingprogram your job is to pre-sell the client.You should not be offering ambiguous information that is confusing to the prospectiveclient nor should you be offering all the little details that you think are necessary. Yourjob is simply to get the client interested in the product. You want them intrigued by whatthis product or service might be able to offer them. You want them to want to know moreso they will go to your clients site and read more about it.Your client will have all the details of the product covered so it is not your job to repeatthose details. Instead concentrate on pre-selling the product to your clients. Making themwant to buy it so when they get to the final purchase site they are ready to continue.Too LittleNot offering enough information will prevent clients from continuing on to the salespage. If you cannot provide enough basic information about the product, then why woulda prospective client want to click on another link that you give them?Too little information makes you look like an amateur who does not really know aboutthe product they are selling. You are not an amateur since you have done research aboutyour product and understand fully what you are offering, so show your prospectiveclients that they can trust your research and buy the products you recommend.
Too MuchThis is not often a problem with affiliates. But too much information can be just asdeadly to a prospective client as too little information. You are pre-selling your prospectson a product by introducing it to them and offering up the positive aspects of thatproduct.Your job is not to identify all the products flaws or offer technical advice to downloading,installing, or generally using a product or service. Leave that job to the owner whoseproducts or services you are promoting. They are much better versed in their product orservice and will be better equipped to offer that information to the client.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #3
NOT Using the Product
How many times have you talked to an electronics sales person and asked questionsabout a product and felt like they really had no idea what they were talking about? Whenyou are purchasing something from a salesperson you have more confidence in theperson if they have tried the product or are currently using the product.The same goes for affiliate marketing. You cannot possible be successful in selling aproduct if you have not at least tried the product. Maybe it is something that you knowother people will like but you just don’t need it? Or perhaps your affiliate program isgeared towards computer gamers and you don’t play computer games.It doesn’t matter what the product is. You should spend the time and money to try theproduct and use it the best you can. Find out what you truly think of the product and askquestions of others who use it already. The more questions you get answered the easier itwill be for you to write your promotional material.Knowledge is easiest to acquire if you are doing it from a hands on approach. Yourpotential clients will be able to see you are a genuine person who knows what they aretalking about and is selling them from a point of knowledge and not a point of greed.Anyone can just sign up to be an affiliate marketer and throw up a standard webpage andhope to get sales. But that is not how you will make money. Instead, you will becomemore and more frustrated and wonder why you are not bringing in the big sales like youthought you would.Trying the product or service is an easy step that is often overlooked when people aregetting started in affiliate marketing. Instead of making this mistake, take the time tobecome a customer of the product.
To increase your sales even more you should find a product that you truly find useful andcan rave to others about. Affiliate marketing is not just about randomly selling otherpeople’s products. Instead, it is about you finding a product that you can put your timeand energy behind to help market and sell. And this is much easier to do if you have aproduct that you understand and feel a passion to sell.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #4
NOT Understanding Pay Per Click
Understanding the advertising model known as Pay Per Click is essential to becoming asuccessful affiliate marketer. With pay per click, advertisers use search engines and otherweb pages to place their ads. But the advertiser only pays when a user actually finds theirad compelling and clicks on the ad to visit the advertiser’s webpage.By bidding on the keywords they would like to use for their market, each advertiser cancustomize their pay per click advertising to a specific market of potential clients. As usersthen type keywords in the search engine, they will be given a list of relevant content andthe advertiser’s ad will show up in the sponsored link section.
Search Engines
No matter which search engine you use it is nearly impossible to conduct a searchwithout seeing some sort of results in the sponsored link section. Take a moment andsearch for anything you would like and you will see the idea behind pay per clickadvertising. Each one of those advertisers decided that they wanted ads for the keywordor keyword combination that you searched for.
The two top companies that provide pay per click advertising are Google Adwords andYahoo! Search Marketing. Minimum prices start as low as .01 and go up to severaldollars per click depending on the keyword chosen and its popularity.Web PagesGoogle and Yahoo offer another service besides just pay per click advertising in thesponsored link section of a search inquiry, they also offer a content based pay per clickservice.
In the content-based ad program, an advertisers’ ad show on websites and blogs that havesimilar content to what the keyword indicates. The idea behind this pay per clickadvertising concept is that potential clients that are already interested in a similar contentpage will be more likely to click a related advertising link.Understanding the differences between the two major types of pay per click advertisingwill help you optimize your marketing techniques as an affiliate marketer. It is essentialto your success that you comprehend the importance of pay per click advertising.Pay Per Click is a much more in-depth topic than can be covered here, so you shouldcheck a few different resources to better arm yourself to take advantage of this part ofaffiliate marketing.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #5
NOT Having Clutter-Free Web Pages
Filling one website with a variety of affiliate program ads may seem like a great way tosave money when you first look at it. But it could actually cost you thousands of dollarsin sales. Potential customers automatically get turned off when they see a webpagecluttered full of different sales products. It is too confusing for them and they move on toanother website fairly quickly. If you are working with more than one affiliate program itis important to dedicate one page at least to your program. Even better would be todedicate a domain name and site to each affiliate program.Dedicated Web Page
By dedicating a whole page to one affiliate product you are showing your commitment tothat program. Your page should be uncluttered and not full of Google Adsense ads, or adsfor other programs or services. A small area on either the top or side of the page could beused for these type of ads, but don’t clutter your page with them. I would recommend notusing them at all on these pages. You don’t want to give your visitor too many optionson your page.
A good affiliate marketing sales page will be informative and positive. It will offerpotential customers the chance to become intrigued about a program or product enoughthat they decide to click on the link and go to the main affiliate sales page of yourprogram.
Dedicated Domain
Having a whole website dedicated to a specific product will provide instant credibility foryou. Domain names are not very expensive and relatively inexpensive programs areavailable for maintaining the page. You do not need to be a computer whiz to get a basicwebsite developed to act as your informative site for an affiliate program you are workingwith.
Common Affiliate Marketing Mistake #6
NOT Writing Your Own Copy
Does your affiliate program offer you pre-made web pages or email ads that you cansimply copy and paste to make your own promotional campaign? Many programs offerthis convenience to their affiliates as a way to make it easy to get started with theirprogram. Unfortunately, these ready to post web pages will be of little help to you whenyou are trying to get your website seen and clicked on, or your emails opened bypotential customers. Instead you should take the time to write your own copy or hire aprofessional writer to do it for you.Original Copy
NOT Believing in Yourself!
If you don’t think you are going to be successful as an affiliate marketer, then youprobably will not be. It is normal to feel a bit of apprehension as you begin a newprogram and try to navigate all the new information involved in affiliate marketing, but itis essential that you believe in yourself and your ability to make a success at thisbusiness.Your excitement needs to translate into confidence in yourself. Once you are confidantand belief you can be a success, it will be a burden off your shoulders. You no longer willhave to waste time wondering if you are going to be able to make this work and insteadcan use that time to concentrate on the other steps necessary to becoming a successfulaffiliate marketer.Although success is not fully based on your believe that you can be successful, it is anecessary quality that all people who are making money in affiliate marketing posses. Sotake the time to understand the programs and understand the mistakes you should avoid;then believe in yourself and your ability to have fun while making a living with youraffiliate marketing business.
Thank you for Reading i will update this in quick time with more information.Suzen Mariahttp://makemoneyonawebsite.com
About the Author
My self Suzen from India Mumabi,Currently working in firm MGM GROUP as Co partner.
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