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AFFILIATE MARKETING MISTAKES

Don’t do it

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INTRODUCTIONAs inviting and appealing the world of affiliate marketing may seem, it’s not always easy to remain on the right track towards success and profit. Like in every aspect of life, there are some common mistakes that affiliate marketers tend to make. What are they?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Thinking Affiliate Marketing Will Make You Rich Fast 4

2. Selling Instead of Helping Solve Problems 5

3. Having Too Many Affiliate Programs 7

4. Not Analyzing and Tracking Your Activity 8

5. Thinking That Promoting Free Products Has No Benefit 9

6. Creating Poor Quality Content 10

7. Not Trying The Products Yourself First 12

8. Not Focusing on a Niche That’s Interesting to You 13

9. Not Constantly Improving & Catching Up to The Latest News in Your Niche 14

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It’s faulty to think that affiliate marketing is a part of the “get very rich really fast” scheme. No

matter how hard you try, the very beginning is kind of the same with everyone and money comes

with time and effort. Why is that, you might ask?

First of all, you have no or little traffic at the beginning (unless you already have a blog or a website

established and only some time later you decide to take on affiliate marketing for products in

your niche). So without the traffic - there’s no sales and no money.

Another reason - not having enough good quality content. As you probably know, content is really

important for generating traffic. So again, no useful content - no traffic - no sales - no earnings.

But don’t worry, if you have chosen educational technology as your niche - great content is kind

of a given. Also, have in mind that your knowledge about affiliate marketing at the very beginning

is probably not broad and not enough to earn money instantly.

Lastly, it is often stated that gaining the trust of your audience (or even friends) is vital in affiliate

marketing. So if you’re just starting out in this sphere there’s likely not much trust put into you.

You have to convince people that you’re truly interested in your niche & want to help solve their

problems and that’s where the other common mistake discussed below is made.

THINKING AFFILIATE MARKETING WILL MAKE YOU RICH FAST

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Yes, selling is one way to make money. But it’s not as effective in affiliate marketing. Successful

affiliate marketers are not sellers - they are advisors and problem solvers. That’s the way it

should be if your aim is to be successful in the long run. So if you think it’s all about selling -

change your mindset!

Helping people can help you in several ways. Firstly, showing that you actually care builds

credibility. And if people see your credibility, they will come back to you and eventually become

your audience. This especially applies in the niche of education as it has a lot of different issues

and is often a relevant but sensitive subject. Helping people in the sphere of education can be

rewarding both for you (in terms of high commission and fulfilment) and your audience.

Another reason - people don’t like sellers. They usually don’t trust them fully and always think

about hidden agendas. If you try to persuade or manipulate them your audience will probably

notice it. They will get angry because you tried to sell something they don’t really need. The trust

of your audience will be broken and the traffic will gradually decline.

Instead of trying to sell every chance you get, try to figure out your audience’s problems. By

figuring out the problems they have, you can suggest solutions to them. Don’t sell the solutions

- suggest them with your honest review and opinion. Both your audience and the merchant will

thank you for it, because the merchant will get happy customers who actually value the product

and may become returning customers, and the audience will appreciate you gave them the

solution to their problem.

SELLING INSTEAD OF HELPING SOLVE PROBLEMS

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The image above illustrates a blogger trying to solve affiliate marketing problems of his audience

with advanced tips. He fully discloses that the link to the tool is an affiliate link. The image below

shows a website, which serves the solemn purpose to sell things, has a lot of affiliate products

and listings and by clicking on the “check it out” button, you will be redirected to the merchant

site.

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As was discussed in the “Start Monetizing! 9 Brilliant Techniques Revealed By Successful Affiliate

Marketers” handbook, it’s not terrible to take part in multiple affiliate programs and have several

streams of income. But taking on too many affiliate programs just screams inevitable failure. The

reasons for it are really simple.

As stated before - the audience has to trust you in order to make a purchase. They love to

see you know what you’re talking about - that you know the product really well. So it’s a no

brainer that the more products you have to promote, the less information you know about them

because your attention has to be divided.

We recommend that at least in the very beginning, you would take on only one kind of a product

to promote. Of course, if the product itself has many different types, eg. online courses, it’s much

easier to take on more than one course, because the courses are quite similar - all related to

educational technology for instance, just of different subjects. If you’re interested in educational

technology, promoting online courses is a good way of taking on one product promotion for one

merchant, but also having a variety of courses in different subjects, which is not overwhelming

and profitable.

So in order to grow your success, learn everything you have to know about the one product, try it

yourself and create clear content stating the benefits and ways in which the product might help.

And then if you’re seeing that it’s going really well, you can take on several more affiliate products

in your niche, but not too many to handle!

HAVING TOO MANY AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

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Affiliate marketers tend to rarely check the activity happening on their website, blog or other

platform they work in. They often make decisions based on their personal opinion or just

intuition. Well, sometimes it may work and we’re not saying not to go with your gut, but it has to

be backed up by valid arguments and at least some analysis behind it.

Link tracking is especially useful because you can know which marketing strategies are working

and which are not. You should also keep track of the number of clicks on your affiliate links

and the conversions made. Keeping track of such important metrics and data is vital in making

decisions, new strategies and tactics.

The vital questions that your analysis should answer are: How many visitors does your website

generate? How many of them are unique? How many of them are new? How many are returning?

How much time do they spend on your platform? Where are they coming from? From where are

they exiting?

There are a lot of different tools and platforms that can help you answer these and other

questions. You can find the best of them in our “Powerful Affiliate Marketing Weapons: Conquer

Audiences With 19 Tools & Platforms” handbook.

NOT ANALYZING AND TRACKING YOUR ACTIVITY

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This is a very common mistake among affiliate marketers and that’s understandable. It may seem

strange to promote products that are free and thus don’t have any commision. But for beginners

it’s actually one of the best ways to start. If you have the right mindset you’ll understand why.

As was stated in the very first mistake to avoid (thinking affiliate marketing will make you rich

fast), beginners usually don’t have much traffic or great content, so promoting something that is

free and easily accessible to anyone is a great way to attract people and generate traffic.

You have to think of something that’s in your niche and is of great value to your possible readers.

For example, in the niche of education, online courses are a product of growing momentum and

high value for audiences around the globe for its accessibility and low costs. There are a lot of

free courses of very good quality, so by starting to promote them, affiliate marketer can easily

enter the niche of education and attract high amounts of traffic.

It’s a much bigger chance you’ll succeed in building up your audience if along with great content,

you’ll have something to offer. Something that’s useful, easy to acquire and preferably free (don’t

forget - people love free stuff!).

THINKING THAT PROMOTING FREE PRODUCTS HAS NO BENEFIT

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If you forget everything you know about affiliate or any kind of marketing, remember one thing

- content is the king. It’s the most important component of any platform, campaign or strategy.

The main goal of any marketer is to engage and attract people so they would eventually carry

out the almighty action of buying. Great content can attract, engage and make the possible

customer come back again. So it’s no surprise successful affiliate marketing campaign requires

good quality content. The audience has to be convinced that you not only want to tell them

about your experiences but also help solve their problems. Posting a few thorough, in-depth

and well written articles a month is much better than posting short and meaningless articles

every day.

CREATING POOR QUALITY CONTENT

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Don’t know how to start writing good quality content? We have some tips for you. First of all, start

by brainstorming. This method works pretty much everywhere, because it makes you come up

with all sorts of different ideas which you can filter out until you find the most suitable. Another

important thing before creating some kind of content is to think of the value it will bring to the

audience. Will it solve their problems? Will it strengthen their trust in you and your opinion? Will

it show them that you care or are an expert? Will it give them new piece of useful information? If

no, then think of something else.

In the case of educational technology, creating good content is not a hard task. Since, as stated

before, there are a lot of subjects and issues related to education and the future of it, you just

have to pick out a trendy issue that you too really care about. For example, if you believe that

education in schools or universities doesn’t provide up to date and relevant information or skills

useful in daily life, you can choose to write from the perspective of this issue. By doing so, you

will attract audiences who think the same and consequently, who will buy the alternatives you

recommend.

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You may think it’s a given, but a lot of affiliate marketers don’t even bother to try the product

before recommending it to others and then act all surprised when they don’t succeed. How can

you succeed if you try to convince people to buy something that is possibly useless and/or of

poor quality?

Never take your audience for fools because they can quickly see through you and your actions.

And when they do, they won’t be your audience anymore. If you try all the affiliate products

yourself beforehand, you can actually know if the product is suitable for your niche and your

specific audience, if it solves their problems or makes their lives easier in any way. Everything

comes back to trust - if readers see you’re genuine, they will eventually purchase something

through your link. That’s the goal, right?

NOT TRYING THE PRODUCTS YOURSELF FIRST

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When you’re just starting in the affiliate marketing world, it comes as no surprise that the most

appealing option of picking your niche is picking a profitable one. But it’s very important to

understand from the very beginning, as profitable as the niche may seem, it won’t be profitable

to you if you’re not genuinely interested and if you find it boring.

It’s clear that picking a niche that you enjoy yourself is beneficial both to you and your audience.

The passion that you’ll have will reflect in your content and the way you communicate with your

audience, making viewing your content and interacting with you pleasant and appealing. It’s very

important not to become one with the heard and go with the flow to whatever niche popular

and trendy at the time.

Sometimes it can be hard to pick out a subject that you’re really passionate about and have

eligible knowledge of. But remember - there’s no rush, it’s so much better to take your time

and figure out the most suitable niche for you than taking on a subject that you’re green at. You

have to know the niche better than your audience and if you’re not passionate about it - your

audience won’t see you as a trustworthy expert.

When it comes to education, it’s a favorable niche, because a lot of people have encountered

at least some issues or benefits related to education through their lives. Majority of them have

their own opinions regarding this niche, so even if you’re not an expert, you can always talk from

the position of a student - a person who simply reviews online courses based on his/her own

personal opinion.

NOT FOCUSING ON A NICHE THAT’S INTERESTING TO YOU

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This mistake is highly related to the one discussed above, because if you’re not actually interested

in the niche, you’ll probably won’t be the one to constantly improve and enlighten yourself about

latest news regarding the subject. Always remember that in order to gain people’s trust and

attention, you have to tell them something they didn’t know or offer them something they need

but didn’t know existed. So how could you know that if you’re not following the latest news?

Another important aspect of not improving is focusing only on one marketing strategy. It’s not

enough to just submit one article in the article directories to gain huge amounts of traffic. Never

limit yourself to one or a few ways of marketing because you take away a hefty amount of

possible traffic from yourself. It’s especially relevant in today’s fast moving world.

Knowledge we think we have now may become obsolete really fast in the future ant that’s why

it’s vital for any kind of marketer to be constantly on the lookout for newest trends, techniques

and required skills. Fortunately, you can find the latest affiliate marketing strategies and types

covered in the “Behind The Scenes: 9 Kickass Affiliate Marketing Tactics Uncovered” handbook.

As for the most relevant and up to date topics, guides and tutorials related to the niche of

educational technology, you can always find them here.

NOT CONSTANTLY IMPROVING & CATCHING UP TO THE LATEST NEWS IN YOUR NICHE

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You have to understand that affiliate marketing is not a way of getting huge amounts of money really fast. Marketers should not be sellers but advisors and problem solvers instead. Remember not to be greedy - it’s not smart to take on too many affiliate programs to handle, but make sure that you constantly track your activity. Fear not of promoting free products/services because they have their benefits, but don’t put poor quality content out in the world. Always choose a niche that’s interesting to you and try affiliate products before promoting them to your audience. And don’t forget to constantly renew and improve your knowledge & skills.

It’s natural to make mistakes but if you try to learn from them and avoid the ones discussed above - you may become the greatest educational technology affiliate marketer!

FINAL WORD

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed

in imitation.”

– Herman Melville