Why Do 98% Fail In Affiliate Marketing?

The Truth About Internet Marketing...Do Not Read If You Are Squeamish!

Have you ever wanted to make money online but never knew how to go about it?

The very scary truth about Internet Marketing is that 98% of all people who try to make money online fail miserably.

Why is that?

And how can you make sure that you are not one of those in what has come to be known as the "98% club"?

This is not just a scare tactic from the various gurus who market relentlessly online in an effort to discourage competitors - including you - from entering the marketplace.

Statistics show us that there are more than 2,000 businesses started online every day around the world! Some enter the online world without much fanfare and preparation and with little more than blind faith and hope as the characteristics of their preparation.

Others take a more planned and methodical approach and get their hands on everything they can in terms of reading material and guides to research everything they can before deciding to launch their online business venture.

It is possible to make money online - a lot of money!

The question is how to make money online?

And why do some people make a lot of money online (2%) whereas the majority (98%) end up losing their shirt?

That is the burning question that many observers ask, and one we will try to answer here.

In our view, there are seven major reasons why 98% of online marketers fail online. What do we mean by fail? By fail, we mean that they do not make any money online, defined as less than $50 a month from their collective efforts.

When one considers that it costs about that much to register a domain name, set up a website, get hosting for it, set up an autoresponder to follow up with prospects, host the website, get some quality content to keep visitors' attention, and perhaps pay for some traffic it is not surprising that after only a few months most give up and abandon their dreams of making money online.

Here are the seven major reasons that in our view cause the majority to fail:

Reason 1:- People don't treat their online business as a business.

People who do not put their all into their nine-to-five job soon realize they no longer have a nine-to-five job.

It is no different with online marketing.

Those who treat their online business with a casual or laissez-faire attitude soon come to realize that they have no online business to treat as anything.

It takes time and effort to succeed in life, whether one is discussing a nine-to-five job or an online business. There is a direct cause and effect relationship between the personal effort dispensed in the conduct of your online business and the degree of success that you experience in that business.

The measure of value may be different to different people in that some view success as money in the bank whereas others view it as the ability to do what they want in life through the time freedom they achieve through their online business. Knowledge acquired and wisdom developed in the pursuit of your online business and the personal growth achieved therein are factors to many that far outweigh the attractiveness of money earned. Creating value in your online business and leaving a legacy to your heirs is something that appeals to many people more than earning money.

However you define success, you must work at achieving that which you value.

Treat your online business like a business and it will treat you well. Treat it like a hobby and it will soon turn into one.

Make sure you know what you want and how to achieve it.

Reason 2:- People become victims of the "Shiny Object" Syndrome.

It is an established fact that there are numerous ways to make money online and numerous methods that may be employed to achieve the goal of making money online.

When newbies first go online they read and review every new opportunity or fad on how to make money online. They believe that the claims of making money online quick with little effort and completely on autopilot hype to be true and they get involved with every opportunity that comes out online.

They get started. They place some ads. They buy some traffic. They wait for their affiliate commission checks to arrive. They wait for the money to "roll in".

When it doesn't, they stop building that opportunity and start the next one that comes along.

And repeat the cycle for each "failure" only to never learn in the process.

Reason 3:- A lack of patience and discipline.

Most newbies lack the discipline to see through something to the end.

Most quit just as they are getting to the winner's circle and don't even realize how close they were to becoming an online success financially.

Most newbies do not have a marketing plan, a budget, a strategy or an approach to making money consistently and repeatedly.

When failure is encountered they quit.

When the affiliate checks do not "roll in" they get discouraged and blame the system, the plan, the strategy or the creators of the program they promoted. They blame everything but themselves. They fail to see that anything worth anything takes time to implement and time to build and bear fruit. They have no "stick-to-it-iveness" to the plan and they abandon their hopes.

To be successful, however one defines that word, requires one to be patient.

Expect your family and friends to laugh at your business and the latest "internet scam" that you are involved in and expect them to try your patience and resolve. Either you have to learn how to "tune them out" and continue, or you will get discouraged and quit.

In the words of a successful online marketer, "never, never, never give up"

But they do give up.

They have no discipline.

They have no business!

Literally.

Reason 4:- They fail to research and evaluate their chosen program properly.

Most newbies who end up quitting prematurely do so because they fail to research and properly understand the program they chose to promote and end up not understanding what they were getting involved in.

They cannot differentiate between a good program and a bad one.

They cannot segregate what is a good attribute from what is a liability in a program.

They end up selectively trying one then another, then another all without success.

Promoting a program takes time and effort, something that those who quit never seem to comprehend. Success does not come quickly, if at all and when they do not see success quickly they lose heart and try something else.

What is required is research, talking to those who have achieved success and reading and learning from the exploits of others who are willing to help.

Reason 5:- They don't know the value of time or its opportunity cost.

Time is one of the most precious and valuable resources that we all have.

Use it wisely and you will prosper. Use it foolishly and you will fail.

What is an hour of your time worth to you?

Many do not know the opportunity cost of their time because they do not know the true cost of what their hourly rate of "pay" is in their online business.

The opportunity cost of you doing clerical type functions in your business is the cost to you in real terms of what money you could be making if you spent your time not in clerical functions but in building your business.

Many spend countless hours working in their business as opposed to working on their business.

You can spend money and you can make more money. But you cannot make time. Once you spend it, it is gone forever. How you chose to spend it could mean the difference between success or failure in your business.

When you spend your time on clerical matters that you can cheaply outsource to others you are working in your business and that is not productive as it produces n money for you. When you free up your time from clerical drudgery to build you business by promoting offers, talking to clients or preparing your next sales funnel you are working on your business, and that produces results, sales, and money and ultimately success, however you define it.

When you are generating real dollars per hour and you know how much per hour you are generating, working on anything but building your business is a waste of time and money!

Successful online marketers know how to manage their time and know what to outsource so that they can free up time to build their business. Learning how to allocate your precious time is a skill that must be mastered quickly if you are to become a success online.

Reason 6:- They fail to budget properly and re-invest their profits.

There is a saying that goes something like "if you fail to budget, you budget to fail".

Proper budgeting is paramount in any business, and an online business is no different.

Budgeting for success is a skill that is either acquired or learned, but it is a necessary skill that you must obtain.

Understanding the priorities of the use of the scarce dollars in any budget is one of the most important skills to learn.

Budget properly and spend your dollars wisely.

Re-invest the profits of your business into additional advertising, creating improved sales funnels, more attractive and appealing websites, better content, and more focused SEO strategies to gain search engine favour.

Re-investing profits into your business will expand your business reach and add to ever increasing sales and additional profits in the future and create an income for you.

Reason 7:- They fail to learn, adapt, and renew themselves and their business.

Many online marketers fail to keep up with the times in terms of new developments in website construction, new advertising techniques, better SEO application, more improved traffic generation and the like.

They neglect to read and understand what other successful marketers are doing better that can help them achieve greater success as well. They fail to renew both themselves and their business and eventually they will become a statistic.

They lag behind others in terms of every aspect of promoting their business. They fail to exploit social media in their marketing efforts and promotions and lose opportunities to gain an increased market share.

They fail to incorporate into their business all the requirements of a successful business and they do not make it easy for visitors to their websites to return once they leave.

Reason 8:- They fail to build their list.

The number one reason for the failure of all online businesses is the failure of the business owner to build a mailing list of customers.

Truth be told, you must build two lists. A list of prospects or leads, and a list of buyers. The first job is to build your list of leads and your second job is to convert that list of leads into a list of buyers.

Nothing else matters more in online marketing than to build your mailing list!

All successful online businesses have large and growing mailing lists of clients.

All failed online businesses don't.

It is said that a good mailing list will produce one dollar of income per month for every subscriber on that list. In other words, a list of 1,000 subscribers should produce a monthly income of $ 1,000 for its owner, whereas a list of 50,000 subscribers should produce a monthly income of $ 50,000 for its owner.

For the newbie online marketer, nothing is more important than building a mailing list of subscribers in their targeted niche as quickly as possible. That should be the over-riding focus in the building of your business. That, plus building a good relationship with your list so that they look forward to your offers that you send them either weekly or monthly.

A large mailing list that has a good relationship with its subscribers is worth gold to the owner of that list.

Once you have achieved that, you can then join the echelon of successful online marketers who comprise the 2% of internet marketers who are succeeding online!

Running an online business is difficult.

Don't let anyone tell you differently. However, running an online business can also be very lucrative, if done properly.

I will end by stating that I know of a colleague that became an overnight success in his online business.

And it only took him eleven years to do it.

98% of online marketers fail miserably.

Now you know why.

Now do something about it.