Are You Making These Costly Affiliate Mistakes?
There are many ways to generate sales, but there are also ways to ensure your affiliate marketing will fail. However, many marketers make these mistakes without realizing they are actually running away sales! To help you with your affiliate marketing programs, we have collected some of the most common mistakes made by web based internet affiliate program marketers so that you can avoid making these. Many people have learned these same tips the hard way - through struggling to generate sales that simply never closed. The whole idea is to close the sale! 1. Failure to realize people scan information. The absolute Number One mistake made by affiliate marketers is failing to realize that the prospect that lands on your website will only read about 30% of the material on the page. Most people, especially those busy, highly intelligent, professionals who have the money to buy your products, are too busy to read every word. They will look for highlights, bullet points, pictures, and blurbs and focus in on those points to determine whether the information is worthy of additional time to read more. Don't fall into this trap. Create your affiliate marketing landing page so that the main points stand out and can't be missed by the reader who scans the page. 2. Failure to offer bundled packages. Everyone wants something for free; it's just human nature. Free reports added to the product you are selling, free software that enhances the specific product, or even a free subscription to a newsletter will give the prospect the idea that they are getting more for their money than the single core product you are marketing. Don't let them get away by simply offering your product. Bundle a package no one can refuse! 3. Failure to follow-up. Of the people who will land on any specific affiliate marketing sales page, 1 in 100 will buy immediately. The other 99 will move on to another page and never return. In order to attract a larger percentage of those 99 who move on, have a sign-up for free reports using an autoresponder. Let's say 25% of the 99 sign up for the free reports, that means that 24 people are going to see your product in their inbox by way of your free report. If only 10% convert to sales, you have changed from having 1 sale in 100 hits to 3.4 sales per 100 visitors. And that is a very conservative estimate. 4. Failure to remember the rule of sevens. It has long been known from scientific research that the average person will have to be contacted about a specific product seven times before they will buy. This goes for buying houses or buying affiliate marketing products online. Be sure that your autoresponder messages do not stop short of the seven. In fact, go farther, send as many as 12 messages, making the time periods between the messages slightly longer as time passes. 5. Don't flood the prospect's inbox. No one wants to open their inbox to find that there are 5 or 6 messages from the same marketer. That's a sure-fire way to get on their email blocking list! Instead make contact every few days, dropping down to once a week, and even to once every two weeks between contacts. Persistence generates sales; don't give up when you are one contact shy of the sale closure. 6. Failure to promote your website outside the Internet. Why would you want to stop with only those people who find you through the Internet if you are selling a good product? Make contacts through your business card, letterhead, signature on email, friends and neighbors. Sure, some of these people will visit your site and not make a purchase. But remember, 1 in 100 will buy immediately! 7. Failure to build your second tier sales If you are an affiliate marketer, you won't be making profits just from your own sales. Anyone joining the program as a result of your referral will become a member of your downline and a small portion of the money made by their sales will trickle upwards to you. Everyone needs as large a downline as possible. Remember, those who join underneath your downline will also cause trickle-up profits for you. This article was authored by Jason Gazaway. This 22 year old, 'regular' college kid was able to quit his 7-4 "job" because of his affiliate program business. He now wants to help others and show you how he did it!
Related News
TxtNation launches new affiliate scheme - Telecom Paper (subscription)
TxtNation launches new affiliate schemeTelecom Paper (subscription), Netherlands -Aug 22, 2008Mobile services provider TxtNation has launched its new affiliate programme. TxtNation has invited clients to encourage friends, business colleagues and ... |
Diversify your affiliate income - a handy tool for FREE ... - BigNews.biz (press release)
Forgetful people -- remember the Kwiry program - Los Angeles Times
Forgetful people -- remember the Kwiry programLos Angeles Times, CA -Aug 12, 2008The program is supported by advertising as well as affiliate revenue. If you buy something on Amazon through Kwiry, for instance, the company gets a small ... |
Overlay.TV Announces GA of Interactive Online Video Platform with ... - Business Wire (press release)
Fortune Affiliates first to be awarded new eCOGRA 'Affiliate Trust ... - Casino City Times
ECOGRA TO MONITOR AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - Online-Casinos.com
ECOGRA TO MONITOR AFFILIATE PROGRAMSOnline-Casinos.com, Denmark -Sep 3, 2008... enforces and monitors specific best practice standards, demonstrating that affiliate revenue is calculated accurately and payments to affiliates made ... |
Affiliate marketing driving higher share of sales at Petco - InternetRetailer.com
Diary.com re-invents diaries for Generation Twitter - TechCrunch
|
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How To Earn Residual Income The Lazy Way
I've got a confession to make... what I am about to reveal is the way I started out my Internet Marketing career.
23 Ways To Use An Ad Tracker
The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record
of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This
article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad
tracker.
Affiliate Programs ? The Fast Track to Wealth
Remember the day when you made the ultimate decision to change your life? Yes, it was the day when you decided to start your own home business. Gosh, I remember the anxiety when I uploaded my very first web site, waiting for something to happen. It's like going onto a stage and performing in front of a large crowd.
Are You Being Ripped Off By Clickbank Merchants?
I see affiliates from two perspectives.
How To Boost Your Affiliate Sales With Free Articles
Free Articles continue to be one of the most effectiveways of quickly generating traffic and sales, withoutpaying for advertising.
Sell Affiliate Product? Lets Change The Odds
An affiliate is simply an individual or business who signs up to promote someone else's product or service for a share of the profits. It's one of the most popular ways of starting an online business. It doesn't require you to have your own product, write sales letters, process orders, fulfill orders...or anything. You simply sign up for fr'e. Promote the link they give you and you're paid a commission based on how many sales on made.
Five Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Sales
Most home business owners are involved with affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, a combination of techniques can be used to promote your affiliate website and/or link. Here are five things you can do to help with your promotional efforts resulting in increased affiliate sales.
10 Things WalMart Teaches About Affiliate Marketing
We already know about wal mart because of their ads in local papers, on billboards, on the radio and TV. So finding a local Wal Mart is easy, and
so should it also be easy to find your web site. Although you may not need to use radio and TV
advertisements, you should still use offline promotion such as business cards or direct mail. Naturally, you
want other web sites to put your billboard ad onto theirs. So that's our first lesson on how Wal Mart
can teach us effective affiliate marketing. Now let's visit a Wal Mart store.
Once we arrive at Wal Mart, we enter a huge parking lot. Your web site must also enable a lot
of visitors. If your site is on a slow server, you may be losing customers. That's lesson #2.
As soon as we enter Wal Mart, we are welcomed by a Wal Mart greeter. This greeter not only welcomes us to the store, but
also offers help in pointing out where to find what you're looking for. That's lesson 3a and 3b. Your site
should welcome visitors and provide navigation to all the products and services you offer. You can do
this by simply including a graphic on your page that says "Welcome, Click Here to find what you're looking
for" and have that link go to your site map.
Beyond the greeter is a wide path that branches out to different areas of the store with banners overhead that tell you what
you can find in those areas. Your site map should consist of main links, as well as sub-links to
corresponding pages. Now we get to lesson 4, that each page of your site needs to have a
topic, a main header, that defines what each page is about, as well as provide links, pathways
to corresponding pages, because you'll notice that Wal-Mart arranges their store to group
products that are similar. The hardware section is near the automotive center, housewares are
near food items, lawn and garden items are near the hardware and pet supply areas, etc. But
you can still get from one area to another.
As you browse the shelves, you see more than one type of item. If you're in the grocery section;
for example, you'll see many different types of beans. Canned beans, dry beans, even beans
from different companies. That's lesson #5. You should offer your site visitors more than one
choice. If your site offers auto loans, for example, offer your visitors new auto loans, used auto
loans, even auto refinancing loans. And, you may want to offer them more than one choice for
each type of auto loan. Afterall, visitors came to your site because they are shopping around...
so let them shop and choose from multiple options. Just remember not to stick
cheese products in your automotive section!
Another thing you'll notice as you browse the shelves, which leads us to lesson #6... although
the shelves are stocked full, it's still easy to pick out your favorite can of beans. This is because
the shelves are stocked neatly and orderly. The ads you put onto your site should also be neat
and orderly. Mixing in tall banners with short banners and having banners for totally different
products and services can make shopping your site more difficult. For example, if you have a
page about auto loans, you wouldn't want to put a tall auto loan banner right next to a
short casino banner. Instead, put a tall auto insurance banner next to the tall auto loan banner.
As you roam the store, you frequently encounter employess who can help you find items. This goes
back to lessons 3a and 3b. Each page of your site should have a help link to your site map, or you
should have a site search.
Since Wal Mart makes it easy to find an employee to ask for assistance, that leads us to another lesson:
Does you site offer customer service? Can visitors click on a button to ask you questions before they
make a decision? Or do they simply exit your site?
Lesson #7: How many times have you heard announcements in Wal Mart? They frequently
announce specials over their public address system. We are not suggesting that you force visitors
to endure slow loading sound files. But you can make sound an option. To see how you can use
this marketing option, go to www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing
We have an example there on how you can offer your visitors the option to hear your audible promotion without forcing them to listen and making your pages load slow.
All you have to do is create a wav sound file, and launch it by using a graphic or text link
such as: "Click Here to listen to our promotion".
The personal touch of a person's voice on your site can help increase your conversions. But
don't force the loading of sound files. Instead, use the method we recommend at
the URL below:
www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing
Another thing you can do to tell your site visitors about specials or new products and services your
site offers, is to offer them a free subscription to your newsletter. Now that we've toured Wal Mart and we're ready to make our purchase, we know our way to the
checkout counter because Wal Mart makes it easy for us. That's lesson #8. Your site needs to make
it easy for visitors to purchase. If you do not provide any of your own products or services and strictly
use affiliate programs, you need to make sure your relevant banners and text links are at the top of the page,
clearly and readily visible, to the people visiting that page.
When we arrive at the checkout counter, besides asking us if we want paper or plastic and if we will
be purchasing with cash or credit, the cashier asks if we found everything we needed. That's lesson
#9. Make sure you offer your site visitors more options when they checkout. And, once again, if you do not
directly sell your own products or services and you strictly use affiliate programs, you can offer your
site visitors two links to click on: One link that opens the offer into a new window so the person may continue
browsing your site after they are done applying or buying from your sponsor, and another link that simply
goes directly to the sponsor in the same window.
Think we're done learning from Wal Mart? No. After we make our purchase, and even after we go home,
there's lesson #10... the return policy. If you sell your own products or services, you need to assure
your visitors that you stand behind what you sell, and make your return policy very clear. If you do
not sell your own products and services, does your site have a way for customers to resolve
problems, or to ask pre-sale questions? If not, you may lose customers to sites that do provide online customer service.
Grow Your Business with Affiliate Marketing
To generate additional business income, consider
expanding your business through affiliate marketing.
Here are three ways of boosting your business income
with affiliate programs.
Self-Replication, The All Important Third Step in Affiliate Marketing
'Self-replication' sounds like science fiction but it's not. It has nothing to do with cloning, in a biological sense. What I'm writing about here is a third and very important step of affiliate or multi-level marketing.
Secrets of Super Affiliates
Have you ever wondered why it is very difficult for you to make a headway in the affiliate marketing game? Why have you signed up for so many programs with so much expectations and yet you have never being able to make a dime out of them all while some people are screaming about them making over $5,000 in the same program you signed for?
Expanding Your Business With Affiliate Programs
Many people think that they can only get involved in e-commerce if they have a product or service of their own to sell -- or a lot of products and services to sell. But this simply isn't true. You can jump on the band wagons for many large companies who already have an amazing array of products available to the general public -- but are looking for ways to increase their exposure. And one of the easiest ways for them to do this is by offering an AFFILIATE program.
What To Look For When Choosing Affiliate Programs
So you've decided you want to become an Internet Marketer, huh? Will you sell someone else's products or sell your own?
5 Strategies to Boost Your Affiliate Sales
Are you promoting affiliate products?
Affiliate Alternative; Google Adsense
The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs
A Successful Satellite TV Affiliate Website
Satellite TV has exploded on the scene during the last decade, providing expanded channel offerings and new technologies that were not previously available from regular television. When the "mini-dishes" were developed and the satellites put in place by Dish Network and Direct TV, satellite TV became available to almost everyone. Now, more than 23 million households subscribe to satellite TV with thousands more joining all the time.
Webmaster Plans To Increase Affiliate Earnings
Affiliate programs are a great way to earn an income online in a few easy steps. However, if you don't have a plan you are going to fail. A smart webmaster plan includes some pretty basic steps that you should follow every time.
Affiliate Assets -- Discover the 3 Secrets That Will Turn Your Affiliate Link Into a Business
Your affiliate marketing business is just that ? a business. To be successful, you need to treat your business like a business and focus on growth. Your affiliate links are your business; you are the owner of a marketing company, and it is an asset you can grow into more and more assets. Here are three strategies to build your marketing business.
Three Easy Ways to Become a Super Affiliate and Earn Cash Quickly
If you want extra cash every month, you have to read this. You can start a part-time or full-time business simply by developing an affiliate network on the Internet. You will enjoy the comfort of working at home and be your own boss. However, this will take lots of determination, persistence, communication, and organizational skills to achieve success. Let me share with you the secrets of building your own affiliate empire with little or no start up cost.
How to Write an Effective Product Review
How do you choose the products you buy? Do you simply accept as gospel truth all the good things a merchant says about their own product? Or, do you ask your friends' opinions and look for independent product reviews before opening your wallet?
|
