Affiliate Marketing: The 7 Deadly Sins of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a solid business model that has stood the test of time.  I am sure that most people who market online have heard all about the “Super Affiliates”. These guys claim to make anything from $20,000 – $30,000 a month from their efforts, and whats more these are low on the estimate pole for some of the true elite out there.

Unfortunately we are not all Super affiliates and in fact there are more people who fail every day than make it in the affiliate sales arena. What sets failure up against success can be measured by the common mistakes and misconceptions that are made almost every day by those trying to make a return on their investment. Its a fact that most people will quit affiliate marketing without making a single penny for their efforts.

Affiliate marketing is a successful way to make money but you have to know what you are doing, and more importantly how not to do it before you spend any money in your attempt. Here are my top 7 deadly sins of affiliate marketing.

Picking the wrong product to promote.

One of the main problems is people choose a product, often at random that is simply not right for them at that time. Either because they know nothing about that product, the market for it simply does not exist or equally the market is saturated with other high profile marketers who have cornered the market with agressive advertising.  Trying to go after a saturated product is asking for trouble and is more likely to lead to failure than a product with a limited market. So choose your product wisely and base the choice on solid research, not a blind stab in the dark.

Promoting too many products at the same time.

We all want to be successful sales people but you cannot run before you can crawl, and walking is the step in the middle for a reason. So in order to be able to run you have to walk. Now what am I on about here, well in order to multiply your return you have to have one to begin with. Make a few sales on a solid product ONE solid product, before you expand your production line to include another product.  There are millions of products available and thousands of affiliate programs you can join. However STOP jumping from one hot product to another in search of “the ONE big fish”. Just because your sales suck today does not mean a product is useless.  Try tweaking the sales copy, do a squidoo page or a blog post about your super widget and exhaust as many free resources for traffic generating before you quit and find another product.   All too often you can spend what seems like an age promoting something, tweaking your keywords, testing and tracking and nothing works. Then suddenly almost overnight your sales volume explodes and you have a winner. If you have done your research and the product is getting sales for other affiliates, then be patient, your turn will come.

Paying for traffic while Ignoring free traffic methods.

Google is the search engine king for a reason, millions in fact probably billions of Dollars are spent every day with Google in advertising space. Pay per click marketing is huge business and most big marketers use this to boost their sales volumes. However they also understand that PPC is not the only way to drive sales. Every successful marketer uses free traffic in their advertising strategy. It makes complete sense because with free traffic methods, there is no direct cost involved with the exception of their time. Yes sure it takes some time to get your message out there and the returns can be slow initially, but if you overhead is negligible, whats your hurry. Besides, unless you have bags of money stashed under the bed, PPC can bankrupt you quicker than a single bad day on the stock market. Use every social media site, on line traffic exchange, blog in the niche out there and do it consistantly. Don’t stop advertising because if you do your campaign will quickly evaporate any hope you ever had of making money. The thing about free traffic that I like is the viral nature of a solid offer found by accident. People who find a good product from a particular website, almost always forward the link to friends or co-workers. make one sale today and I guarantee you will make a lot more in the days to come.

failing to use squeeze pages to build a downline
Affiliate marketing is not just about making sales. If you sell a widget to Joe today and you fail to grab his contact details along the way then you have lost any hope of making more sales to Joe in the future. Sure you can make sales from a super looking cool website, but what about harvesting leads to cross promote other products and build your own downline for a sustainable business in the long term. Ignoring this will be the biggest mistake you can make in the online world. The best way to harvest leads is with a blog site, set up as an affiliate review site. Write reviews of products and gain support from loyal readers in your niche. Offer free low cost PLR products to entice people on to your list and once they are on that list, target your affiliate message right to your list. You then have future prospects who you can market to directly and a free prospect is priceless.

Expecting to fail and failing to expect
Marketing is not for the feint hearted, it takes effort and a willingness to explore every possibility. However your mind set is crucial to your success. If you come to Dinner expecting to go home hungry then you most certainly will. However if you come determined to get your fill, your enthusiasm for success will open your mind to all manner of possibilities and provide the creative juice to making the most of any opportunity. So come to Dinner with a winning mindset determined to explore the boundaries and you may just surprise yourself.

letting frustration cloud your judgement
When people fail to advance it is all too easy to blame anyone else instead of yourself for the failure. When you run a company, you hold the ultimate accountability for its success or failure. Frustration can be the catalyst to doom. So when you make some adjustment to your marketing and this fails to have the desired affect, learn from it and move on. Lessons are learnt every day and some are good some not so good. But a lesson is still a lesson and the value of that is immeasurable. Don’t let small setbacks cloud your judgemnent or obscure the main goal.

Giving up!

A quitter never wins and a winner never quits. So basically put, you only ever lose when you give up trying. People are making millions marketing online. But those who make it have had the same journey that you are having now. Frustration, setbacks and triumphs along the way. No one makes a living online without a few major screw-ups. Success is a fleating thing and what works today may not work tomorrow but persevere and NEVER give up. I make sales on websites I put up 4 years ago. Some of them have taken this long to actually make me a dime. However now they do they will continue to for a long time to come.

Although this article is about affiliate marketing, these sins are the bane of any online buiness model that is currently used successfully online. You could apply these to any and all marketing projects and they have relevence in them all.

Are you a super affiliate in the making or are you ready to quit in abject frustration. Share your success or failure and enlighten the world to the benefits or the perils of your experiences. Leave your comments below.

Until the next time, don’t get Mad get Even!!

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