7 Common Mistakes Made by Affiliate Marketers
Having an Internet business which earns you money
on auto-pilot can be very exciting.
But, although it's easy to make money with affiliate marketing, only a
very small percentage of affiliates actually make a life-changing sum
of money.
By following the advice in this article, not only will you avoid the common
mistakes most affiliate marketers make, but you will also learn how to
select programs that can make you residual income for many months or years
to come.
In simple terms, affiliate marketing is where a vendor pays individuals
(affiliates) a percentage of the sale price for merchandise sold. It's
a win-win situation - the affiliate simply refers people to a website
and doesn't have to worry about shipping or accounting; the vendor gets
people to advertise for them and only pays when a sale is made.
So, how do YOU win?
Avoiding some of the common mistakes made by affiliate marketers should
quickly and easily improve your chances of making affiliate sales.
Here are seven of the top Affiliate marketing mistakes:
#1. Not Researching The Affiliate Program Before You Start Promoting It
It really is amazing just how many affiliates grab the first affiliate
program that comes along, signup simply because it has a high commission
rate or promote it because every other marketer is promoting it. If the
program doesn't complement the overall theme of your site, you may find
it difficult to convince your subscribers to purchase the product.
#2. Not Using Your Signature File Correctly
Many affiliates will add a signature file to their out-going email messages
and message board posts that is totally inappropriate. Twenty lines of
text, full of affiliate links, is not considered a signature file - it's
usually considered 'spam.' Try keeping your signature file to less than
5 lines, with an attention grabbing or intriguing first line.
#3. Not Writing Your Own Ad Copy
There's nothing worse than seeing the same advert all over the Internet
or in an email message from ten different marketers. How much perceived
value will your message have when it arrives and the reader is seeing
it for the umpteenth time? Take the time to tweak the ad to suit your
target area and readership before sending it out. Personalise it; make
the ad your own.
#4. Not Investing In Your Own Domain Name and Hosting Account
Nobody wants to visit a site that looks like a freebie, with a contact
email address of joebloggs@freebie.com. It's unprofessional and suggests
to your subscribers that you haven't made any money online because you
don't know what you're doing and are too stingy to spend any money on
setting up your business properly.
$8.95 a year for a domain name at GoDaddy.com and around $4 per month
for a small hosting account won't break the bank - it'll more than likely
help to add to the bank in the long run.
#5. Not Capturing Your Leads Before You Send Them to the Product Site
If you can actually get someone to click on one of your affiliate links
and they leave the product site without purchasing, what have you gained?
Nothing!
Nothing that is, except the expense and/or time to get that one click-through
in the first place. Set up a squeeze
page so you can capture your lead's email address before you send
them onto the product site. That way, if they don't buy, you can follow
up with them later and try again (and again and again and again). Priceless!
#6. Creating a Website With Billions of Affiliate Links and Flashy Banners
You don't want to overwhelm people because, when that happens, they're
gone! Instead, offer an honest review of a product, pre-selling readers
on the benefits and on how it will help them.
#7. Falling Victim of Affiliate Commission Theft
Commission theft is a very big problem. As web users become more knowledgeable
of how affiliate programs work, more people will omit your affiliate ID
or use someone else's ID when ordering. Either way, you lose commissions
you're supposed to get.
There are various software programs that enable you to 'cloak' your affiliate
ID. Search on 'affiliate cloaking' or read this article from Timberway.com
on how to cloak
your affiliate links for free.
It takes the same amount of effort to refer a sale for a one-off purchase
commission as it does to refer a residual payment product. It makes good
business sense, therefore, to try and market affiliate programs with recurring
commissions.
In choosing residual payment affiliate programs, you should consider the
stickiness of the services you are promoting.
For example, you might refer a sale for a membership website which only
offers resale rights to products and nothing else to keep the customer
from canceling. People can join, download all the products and then cancel
within the same month.
On the other hand, consider referring a sale for web hosting or for an
autoresponder service. These services will be essential for the customer's
business, and they are likely to continue subscribing for a very long
time.
To summarise...
Try and avoid the common mistakes that many affiliate marketers make by
sending your customers to an opt-in list first. This pre-sells them on
the product's benefits, and also reduces your chances of affiliate commission
theft.
In addition, you should be going after programs that offer residual commissions,
but be sure to always evaluate the stickiness of the product you are recommending
- the best way do to do that is to try the product yourself first.
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