Hi Friends,
Everyone has to start somewhere. For brand new Internet marketers, the best
place to start will be with affiliate products. Rather than going through the
detailed and expensive process of creating your own product (of questionable
quality) and then trying to market it to the public, why not start by finding a
product that is already sucessful and comes from someone who already has
credibility?
You could save a lot of time, money, frustration, and you could make money in the process, in fact, really, good money. Many top Internet marketers today still sell affiliate products, even
though they make a killing off of their own. Why do they still do this? Because it’s still fantastic
money with very little effort.
Now, that said, it’s important to mention that affiliate marketing is not a cake
walk either. But, like anything else, there are plenty of challenges just waiting to
consume you and your money. You should heed what I say and avoid
those pitfalls. Next... I will cover the top 7:
Pitfall #1: Choosing the wrong Product to Promote
Not all products are the same. In fact, the reason behind your decision to sell affiliate products: for the most part, you have accepted that there are plenty of really great products already on the market;
and, if you create your own, it may not fare as well.
If you choose your product off Clickbank, choose very carefully.
Rather than randomly choosing the product with the highest commission, look
for products that have the highest popularity and gravity ratings.
They will be better than other products within that niche.
In addition to choosing good products within niches, you will also want to look for
good niches. Here’s a tip that will illustrate my point : don’t sell
garden hoses in the winter. Sales with be zero. Find products that a lot of
people want; and if their popularity has just surged, now is the best time to jump into the
market.
Pitfall #2: Choose a Low Sales Converter
As an affiliate marketer, your goal is to profit from the hard work others have
done and from the money spent on copywriters, product developers,
and software. If you choose a product that does not take utilize these advantages, you are
likely not to benefit.
For instance, sales conversion rates. Not all pubishers hire a top
copywriter. In fact, many of them write their own copy. Many also don’t hire
someone to do the stats and tracking. Instead, they try to do their own. The
end result? The page looks hideous, the copy has errors, and the
product does not convert well.
Before you start marketing any particular product, read the sales page carefully
and compare it with others. Is it compelling? Would you buy it? Did the graphics throw
you off? These can all amount to fatal errors for both the seller and you. You cannot help the seller at this point,but you can avoid his product and find a superior one. :Select
your products with caution.
Pitfall #3: Selling Snake Oil to a Snake Oil Salesman
This pitfall is especially important to avoid if you have an opt list. All it takes is one
bad product promotion and you could end up with a mass exodus from
your list. Not Good... you are going backwards.
Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls To Avoid 7
You may be tempted to market the next “biggest launch,” make
sure you don’t buy into just anything. Several marketers have complained their
choices to promote the Rich Jerk’s latest product after list members complained
that his sales page was full of profanity and sexist comments. Don’t be one of
these guys. Make sure you carefully inspect anything before you promote it to
your list.
Additionally, avoid jumping on the affiliate product bandwagon for large
promotions. Instead, wait until the initial crazyness dies down a little, and then release a
complete review (something most affiliate marketers do not provide) of the
product. You will have a much better chance of getting sales for you; and it will also
help you to maintain credibility.
Last, avoid promoting products that make outrageous and fallacious claims. As
Carl Sagan once said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” In
most cases, these snake oil salesman cannot provide you with any extraordinary
evidence, but they do make the claims. Do not promote them and becoming
associated with them.
Pitfall #4: Choosing Products that Offer small Commissions
If you’re promoting to a list of people, they’re only going to consider so many
product offers in a certain period of time, so select products with larger profits. If
you promote something that only generates a 25% commission, then
you’re leaving a lot of profit behind. You can find a similar
product that produces a 50% or 75% commission.
In terms of the actual dollars of the commission – don’t worry about that as much.
Many top Internet marketers now say that they concentrate on
promoting high-ticket items because fewer sales generates more
dollars.
Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls To Avoid
Pitfall #5: Failing to Collect Leads
Always, capture leads. Rather than generating traffic through various methods
then sending them to your affiliate link, you should make an effort to convert them into list
members first. Why? Two reasons: I allows you continue to sell to them and to build a long
term relationship. The IM pros collective experience tell us that this will make you rich.
Virtually everyone
who would have purchased the product will opt in to your mailing list.
Instead of converting at a rate of around 1-3% (in affiliate sales), you will
convert between 15 and 40% of visitors (to your mailing list). From there, you will
get the chance to contact the willing buyers and the unsold.
As a marketer, one of the best tools you have is your list.
Pitfall #6: Ignoring the Importance of Timeliness
In business in general, the quick often out-compete those with greater
resource. Today, Google is no longer a small company with meager revenues,
it emerged from nowhere to outcompete massively well-endowed
rivals; and it did so with cunning.
How does this apply to you? Successful affiliate marketing and sales requires you
to do more than simply slap an affiliate link in an email and blast it out to a couple
thousand people. If you really expect them to buy your product, your email should be
newsworthy – not promotional.
Affiliate Marketing Pitfalls To Avoid
Write your email as if it were a news announcement, you are
far more likely to get interest that just promotion a link to emails.
You need to find product launches that qualify as an “event.” Find something so
big that people follow the event and are willing to comment on it. If you can find such a product
(say, the iPhone of Internet marketing products), it is critical that you engineer
your own build-up, pre-sell and release. You will want to make sure that your list members purchase from you, rather than from another Marketer.
Pay attention to the calendar. If there’s
a big launch coming up, you need to capitalize on it quickly. There may not be a
second window for opportunity. So jump on it when you have it.
Pitfall #7: Ignore Important Numbers
Many affiliate marketers fail to make many of the small—yet important—
calculations needed in order to run a business and ensure you are in profit. For
instance, many affiliate marketers will completely ignore the portion Clickbank
extracts from each sale. Instead, they’ll simply look at the price and the
commission.
Many will disregard and rates on conversion, bid amounts for Pay Per click, and the
number hours they invested in there marketing. They’ll also fail to look at
of how much promotional method will cost; and how much of a risk they are taking.
They’ll glaze over all of these details and devote the majority of their time
dreaming about the wealth they will make for you
.
Affiliate Marketing doesn’t work like that. If you pay too much
for traffic; if your conversion rates low; if you put too many hours into
projects that don’t have good profit – the outcome will be bad. The numbers won’t
add up. You may end up in debt, rather than making a profit.
Since you are the owner and you make all the business decisions
means you don’t get paid. Consider loosing some of your money
you have worked hard to earn.
Conclusion
So in summary as you read, there are seven
pitfalls in affiliate marketing. If you fall into them, your affiliate marketing will
create debt, rather than making you good money.
How can you avoid these traps? Make better decisions, and after a while you will become
rich using affiliate marketing. 1. Start by choosing products that are really
good. A low demand product will not make many sales if at all no
matter how hard you try to promote it. If the demand doesn't exsist, you can’t create
it. Don’t even try. You will waist your valuable time and money.
Choose niches that are in high demand, look for a product that is
a winner. Find products that convert really well. You can do this by looking for
high-popularity, high-gravity products from Clickbank. You can also find winners by
scanning salespages with extraordinarily compelling ad copy, superior
bonuses, and competitive pricing.
In addition to choosing a product that is converting well, you will also want
to make sure that the copy's promises are reasonable and the seller is believable. One
bad product could effect your credibility with you Marketing list members.
Making a single sale and loosing a potential repeat-buyer is not worth it.
After you start sending traffic for your affiliate marketing campaigns, it is important to
remember to drive it to an opt-in page, NOT to your affiliate link. If you send the
person directly to an affiliate link, you probably will never hear from that person
again, sale or no sale. Collecting leads ( name and email) is critically important. If
you fail to do this, as many affiliate marketers do—you will be leaving a Huge money
on the table compaired to the amount you are spending. Also, connect an auto responder
to the opt in page to automate the process of collecting the leads and staying in contact
with your opt ins.
Last, make sure to track of conversion rates, bid prices,
commission rates, product broker fees, and all the other numbers that
affiliate marketers choose to ignore. Knowing, studying, and tweaking these
numbers could be the difference between profit and debt. Ignore them if
you choose, but doing so will not improve your business.
With all of that said, you’re now prepared to try affiliate marketing. There
are a number of risks involved, but now that you know the big seven; avoid them, and
you’ll sail through into profit, following the steps of the super affiliates.
Here is a superior affiliate program I use and highly recommend that allows
me to generate a powerful income and is guaranteed.
Check it out here=> http://www.vinitticashflowsystem.info/idevaffiliate.php?id=501
To Your Great Success!
Ken Eschman
408-529-8148
klemarketing@gmail.com
http://www.vinitticashflowsystem.info/idevaffiliate.php?id=501
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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