4 Simple Affiliate Marketing Mistakes And How To Fix Them
In my experience, if I had to choose the most common of all affiliate marketing mistakes, it would be that many new marketers become frustrated with their efforts and become extremely cynical before they have given themselves half a chance. Because they have been struggling they find it difficult to believe that anyone could be making a $1,000 a day or even $100,000 a month in commissions.
Then, of course, everyone and everything involved with affiliate marketing is a fraudster taking advantage of we poor newbies. No doubt, you’re going to come across your share of scams. If you want to succeed in the online space you’ll need to see these booby traps as ‘fake news’ and move on.
I don’t consider falling for a scam now and again as one of the affiliate marketing mistakes. I consider it to be a learning experience that can help you grow.
Here’s A Look At The Most Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes:
No Sign-Up Popup Or Optin Bar
Statistics show that most of the visitors to your website won’t buy anything from you on your first visit. It’s a good idea to have a way for them to sign-up for your newsletter or emails. Make these messages ingratiating, informal with an occasional product discount thrown in.
If writing is not your thing, checkout some done-for-you messages that you can find on the PLR sites. You will have the rights to these ’email swipes’ as they are often referred to, and they will be perfectly acceptable to use in your own campaigns.
Better yet, if you can afford to outsource, hire a copywriter to handle all your email communications.
Also, once you have developed a list, however small to begin, you can begin to promote other products offered your niche and receive commissions from multiple sources.
Lastly, if you find popups annoying, use an optin bar. They usually just slide in at the top or bottom of the page and, while they get attention, they are much less intrusive than a popup.
Your Traffic Is Not Targeted
Are you getting a lot of potential customers, but no sales?
The first thing to look at is where exactly most of your visitors are coming from. Handy free tools for this are Google Analytics and Statcounter.
Can you determine which keywords are bringing in most of the traffic. Do they remotely embody what your site and and your product selection are all about?
Having good search engine optimization is an important factor in how you are perceived by the search engine bots Be sure to have your most important keyword in your title and description, with at least one relevant keyword in your meta tags
Also, take a close look at your purchase page. Imagine you know nothing about the products you are making available. Are you being clear and precise in your description? Can you list a number of benefits and articulate them to a potential buyer?
Details like this can be essential in making sales and flimsy, ho-hum sales page is one of those affiliate marketing mistakes that could end your best intentions in a very short period of time.
Keep in mind that you are in business to make money and a decision to take out a credit card or not usually occurs on your website’s sales page. Remember that’s the way you make money…
You Don’t Provide Value For Your Visitors
Your blog and/or you email messages should provide value to your potential customers. The belief that your only task is to sell products is also at the top of the list of affiliate marketing mistakes.
While ultimately you are trying to make a sale, the lack of any foundational rapport with your visitors can be a deal breaker.
You’ll want to genuinely be of service to your potential clientele. Having them like and trust you is important, but providing helpful hints, free reports and other potentially problem-solving information is an essential ingredient in opening the door to future purchases.
Some might buy immediately out of gratitude but, in the long run, you are certainly likely to get more sign-ups for you list and more repeat purchases down the line.
Again, your newsletter or email messages can help you accomplish this foundational relationship building. You want to transcend the label of salesperson and come across as a potential friend who has shared some of their experiences and understands their needs and frustrations.
Don’t Rely On One Product
While you might get by with a popular niche and a landing page, think about spreading your wings to include an actual website or two and the possibility of selling in a couple of different categories. Niches can become saturated and over-promoted, or Google could get out of the wrong side of the bed one day and give you, your product creator and your landing page to the bottom of the search engine sea.
You might, after some time in selling other people’s products, decide to develop your own ebook or video tutorial series and launch them on JVZoo or Clickbank. When you create your own product with you own design, you’re in control. You decide the price, the commission you pay to your affiliates, which networks you will use, etc. More responsibility, sure, but more money as well.
Bottom line: Develop more than one income stream, invest, create and keep learning and exploring.
To do it right, affiliate marketing takes persistence, time and effort. With all the automation available to newbies now it’s not that difficult to get started. But be sure that there is likely to be some frustration along the way.
Here’s hoping that by highlighting some of the most frequent affiliate marketing mistakes, you can change course when you encounter the inevitable stumbling blocks and stay on the path until your success is realized.
You might also appreciate How To Get Started With This Affiliate Marketing Checklist or more comprehensive training manual like The Affiliate Marketer’s Playbook.