Let’s face it, affiliate marketing is one of the most popular- not to mention the cheapest and easiest – money making options for anyone looking to the Internet to supplement their income. And yet, most affiliates fail spectacularly, the vast majority failing to ever earn a commission check or even refer a sale.
If you’re an affiliate marketer struggling to eke out a living on the Net, no doubt you’re doubly frustrated by the near daily bombardment of affiliate money making “opportunities” – all seemingly sent by some recently penniless college drop out who now earns millions working a couple of hours a day from an idyllic beachfront mansion.
Truth is, if you’re not making money in affiliate marketing, there’s probably a good reason for it.
Back when I started promoting affiliate products, I failed miserably too.
And I continued to do so until I discovered the key to earning referral income on a regular basis, as well as the trick to a high conversion ratio.
Before I continue, let me put one thing into perspective; while earning income – even making a living from referral programs – is well within your powers, only a select few marketers are going to get to enjoy those huge 4 and 5 figure Clickbank checks featured so prominently on the sales pages of the affiliate marketing gurus.
With that out of the way, let’s have a look at the most common reasons why most affiliates fail…
1) No Traffic: Promoting affiliate programs from a web site that does not have a solid base of traffic yet is a lot like putting the cart before the horse.
Suppose you have a page that PREsells some product or another. Let’s assume for every 100 people that arrive to that page, only 10 click through to your partner’s site. And suppose your partner has not-unreasonable 0.5% conversion rate. Theoretically, that means you’ll make one sale every 3 weeks – if the page in question receives 100 targeted visitors per day. Hardly enough to make you rich.
Unfortunately though, sheer numbers and conversion rates are no guarantees; you may never earn a referred sale, a fact likely attributable to the other factors outlined below…
2) You don’t know the products: In order to PREsell any product or service effectively, you need to be intimately familiar with it. That means you have to own it. There’s no other way to speak authoritatively about it, and your visitors will pick up on that instantly.
As an example, check out this diet review I did recently on UltimateFatBurner.com. Here’s the thing; whether this particular program interests you or not, there is one thing you can be sure of – that I have read the program and am familiar with it.
Arguably, it takes a LOT more time to do this than simply post a link.
I had to read the manuals and listen to the accompanying audio tracks. Plus write the review, so we’re talking an investment of several hours. But a review like this does generate referral income, and when you consider that it will continue to generate income as long as there is interest in the program, this really leverages your time. At the time of this writing, I figure this review has paid me back about $75/hour of time invested. And it has only been up a couple of weeks.
To put it another way, suppose we both sent 100 visitors to the sales site in question; you from a text link (“check out this great diet”), and me from my in-depth review. Who do you think will get the higher conversion rate? Uh-huh… moi.
3) You don’t know your audience: One of the most common mistakes made by newbie marketers is to make referrals based on the size commission payouts and the strength of the various program’s abilities to convert visitors into customers. If you go to the ClickBank MarketPlace, for example, you’ll see there is all sorts of data provided to assess each merchant’s abilities to do just that.
But here’s the thing; in order to convert visitors into customers, you need to present them with products that meet their needs in a very specific way. If you don’t know who your audience is, and what it is they are after, you can’t provide them with “just the right” product. And that product isn’t necessarily the one that pays $50 per sale and on average converts 3% of its visitors.
You’re probably thinking… this is obvious. I know who my audience is.
Maybe.
It’s not as obvious as it seems. Back when I get started out with UltimateFatBurner.com I had a lot of people approach me about promoting exercise programs, online personal training, and membership sites where the goal was to track various parameters and get fit, and so on. To me, such programs were a perfect fit for my audience. They also reflected my own bias which was that diet and exercise – not pills – are the key to weight loss.
After all, my audience was definitely overweight. There were investigating options to lose weight after all. So I decided to promote some of the programs. I either purchased them or got memberships so I could review them and speak from a position of authority. I wrote my reviews, published and promoted them, and gave them prominence on the site.
The result?
Epic fail. Zero. Nothing. Nada. Nyet. No sign ups, no conversions, and ZERO commissions.
Puzzled, I scratched my head and re-reviewed all my PREselling material. It just didn’t make any sense. I had done everything right. I was familiar with the products and services in question. I was fair and balanced. Yet my audience could care less.
What the heck was going on?
It took me a little while to realize what it was: there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with my PREselling efforts.
But there very definitely was a problem. I’d transferred my bias (that diet and exercise is the best way to lose weight) onto my visitors, and failed to see their real needs. The fact that they were visiting my web site and reading diet pill reviews meant they had weight to lose, sure. But it didn’t mean they were interested in diet and exercise. In fact, almost the opposite; they were looking for the quick fix.
No wonder they weren’t interested in such offering! As you can imagine, this changed everything!
4) Un-targeted traffic: The less targeted your audience, the less likely you are able to divine their needs and wants and present them with products or services of interest. Simple, right?
5) You’re not taking this seriously: I know what you thinking; “this guy is an ass, of course I take this seriously.”
My first question to you then would be… are you making a real effort to PREsell your recommendations? Or does referral consist of a link that says “click here”? Then I’d ask…
“…do you own the products or services you are recommending to others?”
If not, you are not taking this seriously. How you can expect others to purchase on your recommendation if you haven’t purchased the product / service yourself?
I’m not trying to be harsh here, but this is one of the fundamental and inarguable laws of affiliate marketing. Many newbie affiliate marketers don’t want to spend any money because they are afraid their investment will not pay off in referral commissions. The problem is, if you don’t purchase the product, you will never earn commissions – it’s the perfect Catch 22.
Frankly, not spending a few dollars is a poor excuse indeed. You need some “skin in the game” to qualify your commitment to the model. Without a financial investment, it’s WAY too easy to do all the wrong things and not put in the effort. After all, you’ve got nothing to lose… except your time, of course. Honestly… ALL successful affiliate marketers own the products they recommend.
Sidebar: There are always exceptions, of course. Some super-savvy marketers use low-cost pay-per-click ads to drive targeted traffic to relevant offerings; this is the only way you can side-step owning and knowing the products you recommend. Unfortunately, you still need cash to pay for the ads, and you really need to know what you are doing to select the right keywords to target the right audience. Otherwise… no conversions.
So if you’re not taking this seriously, maybe its time to do so. After all, what other business can you start with a few hundred dollars?
6) Your referral does not appear genuine: Nobody expects every product to be perfect, or to address every need. Your recommendations should be genuine. This includes pointing out the flaws in the product, should there be any. Your visitors aren’t idiots, and they may be wary of overly-enthusiastic recommendations that appear to be made in the sole interest of obtaining a commission.
For example, check out this review on UltimateFatBurner.com. Although I love the diet program itself, sometimes it gets a little long and tedious. So I make sure my audience knows what they are getting into. If they decide it’s not for them, I’ve saved them time, money and effort, and as a result they are more likely to respond positively to some other product.
7) You are not 100% focused on the needs of your visitors: If you are pursuing this business model because of the visions of dollar bills dancing in your head, you need to step back and re-evaluate things.
Becoming a successful affililiate marketer means your focus is on your visitor. It is about providing them with the right solution, even if that solution pays an 8% commission instead of a 40% commission.
You haven’t established a bond of trust with your visitors. This ties into #7. Being focused on your visitor means they will begin to trust you, and trust is another critical element of affiliate success. Your visitors need to feel confident that your recommendations are both credible, and made in their best interests. The best way to establish your credibility is with high quality content.
9) Your recommendations are all over the place: I still see it on occasion; recommendations for products that address back pain mixed in with links to deals on iPods, plasma TVs, DVDs on dream interpretation and so on. If you are guilty of this, stop immediately and re-read #3 on this list. Your recommendations must be in tight accordance with the needs of your audience.
Alrighty then… there you go. If you’re failing with your affiliate marketing attempts now you know why. Make a commitment to both yourself and this monetization model. Done properly, nothing leverages your time or pays out like affiliate programs do!
Good luck!
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