Affiliate Marketing Dumb Mistakes

I do a LOT of research when searching for products to market. I have learned the hard way on a lot of things in working my marketing business. I have made a lot of mistakes in the process. Are you making these same mistakes and wondering why you are not getting results?

The premise of affiliate marketing is simple (don’t throw something at the screen as you have probably heard this many times before) – “Find a hungry market and sell them what they want”.

So, you join a program you have found through many different venues. You get on these programs through emails, surfing traffic exchanges, seeing ads, and various other ways. There are thousands of products, programs, and opportunities out there to market. You go through the ClickBank Marketplace and find a great ebook and then try to sell it and fail miserably.

Why have you failed?

The reason is simple: you pick the product FIRST.

HUH? What do you mean?

The first part of the premise of affiliate marketing is to FIND A HUNGRY CROWD. You have put the cart before the horse by picking the product first BEFORE you have found the hungry crowd to sell it to. Now you have to find people who are hungry for what you are selling.

Let that sink in a moment.

To illustrate the difference let’s use this example. Suppose you were in a crowd of people and they were grumbling because they were thirsty. You know now without a shadow of a doubt that if you brought in a cart full of ice cold drinks that you have a great chance of selling some.

That is opposed to the process of buying the cart full of ice cold drinks and then trying to find thirsty people.

Which way do you think you would have better success with?

Which way is more of a ‘gamble’?

In the first example, you are almost guaranteed to make some sales. If you purchased the drinks at a good discount and priced them well, you will make some money. You know that bringing your cart to this location will result in sales.

In the second example, you are risking your investment, You have no market for the products that you purchased. You will have to work much harder and travel a lot more to find the thirsty people. You have no guarantee that you will find any thirsty people.

Not to bruise you ego; but, just because you think the product is greater than sliced bread is no sign anyone else will.

You must understand the difference here. Look at what you are involved in now. Did you do any research into this BEFORE you tried to market it? Is there a need for it? Is there a WANT for it? People will buy what they WANT over what they NEED. When you NEED a car (which will get you from point A to point B) any rust bucket will do that. You WANT something that you won’t be embarrassed driving.

So you have the product first and have no idea if anyone really WANTS to spend money on it. You have no idea where the people who might WANT the product are.

You can make the best web site known to man with the best SEO, you can put banners and ads in every conceivable spot, you can surf traffic exchanges until the cows come home; if there is no one who WANTS this product – you will make NO money!

If you choose a product that people are looking to buy and searching to buy; wouldn’t it be MUCH easier to sell? Wouldn’t it be MUCH easier to make money?

So how do you fix this mistake?

Easy, do RESEARCH on the product. There are many ways to do this and every successful marketer I have met does this FIRST before they even do anything else. Go to Google Trends, Amazon Marketplace, and research search volumes. Find something that people are ACTUALLY wanting to buy and then SELL it to them.

Go ahead and do some research on what you are trying to sell now. Can you understand why you are having such a hard time?

The second major mistake most people make is to promote a product that they don’t own or use. This may seem silly at first; but, when making ad copy for the pre-sell page it is harder to do anything original if you know nothing more than what you read on the sale page. Trust me on this. Sure you might sell some, but you will sell more if you can actually answer questions about use of the product. New ways to use the product, little tricks you have found, things you will not know unless you have ACTUALLY bought and USED the product.

Once you have bought and used the product, you are also now a customer of the product. People will have questions if you are using email marketing. They will want some assurances. People are not stupid and there is always someone else they will buy from if they feel you are trying to sell them something you can’t answer their questions or concerns. If you own the product and had questions, does the support work? Have they answered your questions promptly and correctly?

Was there parts that confused you? How did you find the answer? Can you offer true insight to the product? These may be small things, but they are what separates the people who succeed from those that don’t.

I thoroughly test EVERYTHING about an opportunity BEFORE I market it to anyone. I enter a support ticket and check the response. I use the product and see how it actually works. If I have issues, are they resolved? Are the directions easy to understand? What are the limitations? These are all important things to know. You will never know them if you don’t own and use the product.

This is what will set you apart from the competition. Look at your favorite store, mechanic, butcher, coffee shop, or anywhere you spend money. Why do you spend it there and not somewhere else? Is it because they know the products and give you better service than somewhere else? Could this be why you are struggling when others are making money?

Even if you are the only person in the world with this product; if you give crappy service and don’t know the product when someone else does give better service and better product knowledge your customers will be gone in a heart beat. You have probably done this yourself. Even if you had to possibly spend a little more for the better service.

Hopefully I have enlightened you to some things to do to make you efforts produce more than frayed nerves and pulled out hair. There is no shame in correcting these mistakes and actually moving on to make some money. If the ‘dog don’t hunt‘ you need to find one that does. I have made these mistakes myself and had to cut my loses and move on. Life is too short to keep pounding away at something that may not make you the money you are looking for.

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Tagged As: Affiliate Marketing, earn money from the web, Internet marketing, Make Money At Home, Make Money on the Internet, Online business