5 Fatal Affiliate Marketing Mistakes 

I make my living online, and a large part of my monthly income comes from affiliate marketing.

It beats having a regular job in my opinion, since it frees up my time and lets me set my own work hours. It’s also nice not having to deal with a boss, a commute or any of that other stuff.

So why aren’t more people earning their living with affiliate marketing?

Simple…

Most people who haven’t quite mastered this whole affiliate marketing thing, are usually just making one of these five fatal mistakes…

Mistake #1: Not Establishing Yourself as an Authority

People don’t want to get their information from just anyone. Instead, they’re looking for an expert. They’re looking for an authority. That’s why you need to showcase your expertise and position yourself as an authority in your niche.

If you have credentials or a story that makes you an expert, flaunt it. I do that here and it really helps me bring in business.

You should also show off any awards, degrees and special qualifications you have on the subject. For example, since this is a blog post about affiliate marketing, I’ll show you a few of my JV contest prizes so you know that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to affiliate marketing…

But what if you don’t have any awards or credentials to show off?

Well, then you need to start associating yourself with other credible experts in your niche. Get involved at their blog or forum. Create products or do webinars with other authorities in your niche. That’s when your credibility in your niche will grow and soon you’ll be seen as an authority too.

Mistake #2: Promoting Anything and Everything

Your subscribers and blog readers are looking for someone to lead them through the maze of new products that hit your niche every week. If you promote anything and everything as the best thing since sliced bread, you’re just going to hurt your reputation.

So what to do?

First off, stay on top of new launches to see what is hitting your niche. I do that with Launch Pulse which is part of the Affiliate Titan Suite of tools for affiliates. These tools show me what is new to the affiliate market in my niche, as well as the top sellers. It’s insider information serious affiliates should not go without.

Here’s a video that shows how to use all four of the affiliate Titan tools.

As you can see, this affiliate program ‘reconnaissance’ software will help you find the best selling affiliate programs in your niche. I suggest you add this to your arsenal by clicking here and grabbing it at the lowest price possible.

Once you know what you want to sell, you should then get a review copy so you can test it out. If you can’t get a review copy from the vendor, buy it. Then use it and see if it really works as advertised. If it does not, move on and do not recommend it.

If it does work, do an honest review. If you don’t like to write, do a review video. But above all, be honest about the product. Tell your prospects the good, the bad and the ugly about every product.

If you personally recommend it, tell them exactly how it can help them, then give them a good reason to buy through your link right now.

Mistake #3. Not Building and Working Your List

Most every affiliate knows they need to build an email list of prospects, but very few know how to create a responsive list with engaged subscribers. Here’s how:

• Set expectations upfront. Your lead page and initial emails should make it clear what your list is about and why subscribers should be opening every email you send. People are more engaged when you meet their expectations.
• Stay in touch. You can’t build a relationship by dropping people a line once a month. You should be sending emails on a weekly basis at a minimum.
• Give your best stuff. Make people look forward to opening your emails. Give them the same sort of stuff that others are putting in paid products.
• Edutain people. Subscribers don’t want to read boring content, even if it’s useful, nor do they want to read entertaining fluff. So edutain them, which means you entertain while you educate. Use a light, conversational tone. Inject humor where appropriate. Inject your personal experiences — this helps people relate to you.
• Interact. Encourage your subscribers to click through to your blog or social media pages to interact with you, discuss the issues and ask questions.

Use these tips and you’ll have a responsive list of people who click on your links and buy what you’re recommending.

Mistake #4: Not Offering Bonuses

Affiliate marketers are facing lots of competition these days. With each product launch your prospects may seem multiple emails about the same product. The question is, why should they buy from YOU?

Maybe they buy through you because they like you and trust you. And that’s great — it means you’ve done well establishing credibility. But even if you have that trust and authority, you’ll do FAR better if you’re offering an irresistible bonus when they buy through your affiliate link.

Your bonus can be a report, a checklist PDF, access to a membership site or anything else highly relevant to whatever you’re promoting. The best bonuses are package deals with multiple gifts. That’s the type of bonus that can earn you as much as five times more sales and commissions over just tossing a non-incentivized affiliate link in front of prospects.

But maybe you’ve noticed that getting up bonus offer pages is sort of a pain in the neck. That brings us to the last point…

Mistake #5: Not Automating Everything

The super affiliates automate everything they can, and that includes creating bonus pages and automating delivery.

So how do they do all of this?

Simple: they use an app like the one I use called Commission Gorilla.

This web-based app was designed by two friends of mine that I’ve worked with throughout the last 10 years. Jeremy and Simon are super affiliates who designed the app to a create a fast and easy way to build their own bonus pages. With their system you don’t need web design skills and you don’t need to touch any code. Just log into your dashboard and click your way to a beautiful, high-converting bonus page.

If you’re ready to take your affiliate business to the next level, then you’ll want to get your hands on this tool too. You don’t even need your own website or hosting, they do it all.

Once you have Commission Gorilla, you can start showing up on those JV contest leaderboards!

Note: BizWeb eGazette readers can use the following discount coupon codes to get 50% off Commission Gorilla:

Lifetime Coupon Code: jim3
Annual Coupon Code: jim4