Common Pitfalls in Affiliate Marketing

 As many marketers have discovered, Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn fast and easy money provided you target the right audience. As you very well know, promoting products is key in this business. However, there are some common mistakes affiliates make when it comes to promoting. If you are new in affiliate marketing field, you might want to keep the following 8 points at the back of your mind so that you can avoid them. They are all avoidable mistakes which many marketers inadvertently make from time to time. Keep a very keen eye on them unless you want to fail like other marketers who ignored this advice. Your promotional efforts will not yield the desired results if:

01. You do not capitalize on the right opportunities at the right time. Timing can be key in this business.

02. You go over the top by habitually bombarding your followers with requests to try the product you are promoting. You risk putting them off altogether if that is what you do.

03. You fail to verify that the people trying the product you are promoting have all the information that they need to know about the product. Information is always key in promotions so provide it well.

04. You do not pay enough attention to your customers’ social media presence. Social media is on nowadays and it helps products promotion very well. Pay enough attention there.

05. You do not realize that building a strong affiliate marketing structure takes time and effort, and you give up during the initial stages of becoming an affiliate. It takes time and efforts on the web to establish an authoritative and commanding presence. Be patient!

06. You promote your product or service to irrelevant groups and forums. That is a profound waste of time and resources and it should be avoided.

07. You keep emailing and messaging user groups every day or, worse still, every hour. That is called “pestering” and it can easily put off potential customers.

08. You do not spend enough time to research and find the right target audience for the product or service before promoting products to them. Very wrong approach! The use of Google Analytics comes in very handy here to measure and gauge consumer behavior which information you really need to direct your promotional efforts.

 

What Makes an Affiliate Program Good To Promote?

 In affiliate marketing program, promotion is really key. Just because you’ve found a high paying affiliate program, doesn’t mean you should promote it right away. If you find an affiliate product which meets these here 4 criteria, you are best advised to consider taking the time to promote it.

Therefore, before promoting an affiliate program, always be sure it meets following key criteria.

01. Have I used it myself? Use a product first and be sure it works as promised before you undertake to promote it. This is rather obvious though but surprisingly, many marketers don’t consider it as very important. By using a product yourself, you will discover both the pros and cons of the product you are using. That information helps you to write more credible reviews or case studies on the product. This is important because the more trustworthy you are, the more likely your readers will click on your affiliate links.

02. Does it work for me? You can only answer this question if you have used the product. Consumers are aware that there are so many products and services out there that don’t do what they promise. Even if they do, they just don’t do it as well from the promotional promises. If you don’t want to lose trust and credibility fast enough, promote only products/services which you have used yourself and they work well for you.

03. Is it a trusted Brand? In affiliate marketing trust is earned over time. Trust readily attracts customers to the brand. That is the real reason many marketers prefer promoting affiliate products of a company or persons they already know and trust. When you know their products are solid and they treat their customers well, you get involved. Such brands readily make the best affiliate programs to promote because people are more likely to search for and buy from only the trusted brands they know.

04. Are the products evergreen? Some marketers prefer to make quick money hence they readily latch on to products that may launch for only a week or two and then close. To others, that is not a good strategy because there is too much work involved in such promotional efforts. It is best to focus more on evergreen programs that you can always promote on the long term thereby earning residual commissions for many months or even years down the road.