Mistakes To Avoid In Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are all over the web. You can literally promote everything that works, walks, crawls or breaths :), beginning with website themes, through cloud apps, to books and sets of kitchen knifes. But often, people who are dealing with affiliate marketing, are making huge mistakes that cause them loose their interest in affiliate marketing. And let’s face it - if you’re a beginner to affiliate programs, most probably you are making these mistakes as well.

I want to explain these mistakes to you, and explain how to avoid them, so that affiliate marketing will work for you and you will make a nice and steady source of additional income this way.

Let’s face the truth - a lot of people who are using affiliate programs to sell products, thinks that if they will promote something they haven’t tried, people won’t notice. This is not true, people will notice that you’re lying to them - and this will only prove your dishonesty, and no one will be willing to use your affiliate links, heck - in most cases, people will not even consider using the product at all, no matter if it’s good or bad.

So remember, do not promote things that you haven’t tried - people will noticed you’re not honest with them, one way or another. And they will make sure that no one can be mislead by your website.

Sometimes, affiliate marketers are just too offensive, to aggressive. They’re constantly flooding their social profiles and blogs with affiliate articles, trying to persuade people for shopping on every single occasion. This will never work, people don’t like aggressive marketers, there’s not reason to like you if you behave in such manner. On the contrary, it’s a reason to dislike you and ignore all your communication, not just your promotional offers.

Don’t be aggressive - show some respect to people around you, and don’t promote anything if you don’t have to. If they ask you to give a suggestion regarding some product, promote it honestly, inform them that you’re an affiliate and you make money out of it, and let it be. Your contact will make his mind and he will decide if he wish to purchase that product or not. Don’t be a sales person, be a normal guy who recommend a great product as gentle as possible.

Affiliates are often missing the target - by this I mean that they’re trying to sell a set of kitchen knifes to a geek. This won’t work and you have to keep this in mind. Remember what your target is, remember the niche, within which you work. Trust me - this subject can be misleading to you more times that you can think of. I have promoted an online course of copywriting once, yet I missed the target, I tried to sell the thing to normal bloggers instead of people who were planning their freelance writing career. As you can see, the target is misleading - in my case, as it turned out, bloggers weren’t really the target, even if they have a lot in common with writing.

Pay attention to this delicate matter, analyze your niche and your target carefully, because if you will miss your target, you won’t make money. And yes, in some niches, things are much easier. If you promote an online app for project management, your target might be made of bloggers, as well as book authors, journalists and webdevelopers. It’s ain’t easy, you see for yourself.

Often, affiliates are making great mistake regarding articles writing. I’ve seen a lot of blogs and other websites that were trying to promote a product through simple promotional articles, like:

"Purchase this product today and all your problems will come to an end, you will feel happy and you will gain more time to spend with your family."

And even if such article provides explanation why this particular product is so awesome, it’s not going to sell anything, sorry. You can use such moves in case of promotion across Social Networks, and short status updates, but if you’re promoting something through articles, don’t write promotional materials - write a review.

Publish a review of a product - show off all the pros and cons of the product, and be personal. Tell people what do you like about the product, and what are the reasons that you’re willing to recommend it to everyone you care about. Reviews works, because they give people an insight into the product. They read your review and they know "OK, I like that, and no, I don't like that". And people who really like the product are gold mind, because they're going to like it, instead of returning it the very next day.

These are the most popular mistakes people make in affiliate marketing, mistakes which you should avoid if you wish to make money out of affiliate programs. And I wish to ask, if you have any more advices for affiliate beginners? Please post them in the comments below, thanks!