Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning some money online.. Since  affiliate marketing programs are easy to join and pay a commission on a regular basis, more and more people are now becoming affiliates.

However, like all businesses, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. Committing some of the most common mistakes will cost the marketers a large portion taken from the profit they are making everyday. I’m about to reveal the 3 most common affiliate mistakes to avoid.

Mistake number 1: Choosing the wrong affiliate.

Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of one, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. This is the kind of products that the program thinks is “hot”. They choose the product that is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them. This is not a very wise move obviously.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try top choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For any endeavor to succeed, you should take some time to plan and figure out your actions.

Pick a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.

Mistake number 2: Joining too many affiliate programs.

Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs to try and maximize the earnings you will be getting. Besides you may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs.

True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them.

The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as huge as you were thinking initially it would. The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program that pays a 40% commission at least. Then give it your best effort by promoting your products enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.

The technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into things, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be staying for a long time too.

Mistake number 3: Not buying the product or using the service.

As an affiliate, you main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. For you to achieve this purpose, you must be able to relay to the customers that certain product and service. It is therefore difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly. You will also fail to create a desire in your customers to avail any of what you are offering.

Try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. If you have done so, then you are one of the credible and living testaments aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.

Many affiliate marketers makes these mistakes and are paying dearly for their actions. To not fall into the same situation they have been in, try to do everything to avoid making the same mistakes.

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Popularity: 34% [?]

Teleseminars can be big big affiliate sales for you if you can get the owner of the product on the phone for an interview.

That’s where the real money is when it comes to generating sales through teleseminars. You basically do it like an interview.

But, you can also do teleseminars yourself as long as you can give good content.

The whole point of a teleseminar is to give the people calling in good content. That is the main priority.

Too many teleseminars these days are just crap content and sales pitches wrapped into one.

The ones that make big money are the ones that give good solid content for 90% of the call, and then have the last 10% talk about the product they are offering (which of course goes directly along with the content they just gave)..

It is much easier to make this work when you can interview the creator of the product. Some will agree to this, some will not. There isn’t any one foolproof way to do this. Some people are just good salesmen and can get people on the phone and sell hundreds of products, others can’t.

The main thing about any kind of teleseminar is giving good quality content and not trying to shove a product in their faces.

Some things that will help:

• If you are doing the call alone, then come up with a passionate speech about how you had XYZ problem and how bad it was (relating to the customers) and then the product (the one you are going to promote after you have related to them) solved it for you…
• Don’t be afraid to get a friend on the phone to help you along, or to even ask you questions. Listening to a teleseminar with two people is much better then just one. It kind of balances things out and almost always produces more sales.
• Try to get an interview with the creator of the product so he can talk about some ideas in the product itself. This will be a much better sales generator for you.

Other then that, it’s all about promoting the teleseminar which is as easy as telling your list/previous customers about a free teleseminar that will teach them all about _______.

As I said earlier, give good content in the seminar for free and your sales ratio will be high.

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Popularity: 37% [?]

Videos have come a long way online and are now starting to show up in just about every promotion you see, and for good reason, they produce big sales!

You can certainly use them to promote your affiliate products with great success.

Here is an idea that I have been testing with great results. It is creating a video of the actual members area or the product itself.

By video I mean a screen capture video using a program like www.camtasia.com. Camtasia is only one screen
capture program out there so do some research to see which would be best for you. There are others much cheaper with less features.

Also, when it comes to video editing, make sure you check your own computer to see if you already have some video editing software installed. A lot of computers come with video editing software now for home movies and such. You can use this exact same software to edit your screen capture marketing videos.

Once you get some screen capture software you create a “Here is what you can have in minutes” style of video. You call it a “tour of our product”.

You then add this video to your affiliate product promotion and boom, increase sales!

It is very simple to do and hasn’t failed yet to work for me!

Here is how you can do this:

Step 1) Start up the screen cam software, and welcome the viewer to the product tour video.

This can be a simple greeting where you introduce yourself as a user of the product and give a quick introduction to what will be in the actual video.

Step 2) Login to your members area where the product will be downloaded. Or, if the product is an actual downloadable file like a .PDF report/ebook, you can just open the file.

Step 3) If there is a download page, it is a good idea to show the download page, discuss the bonuses, etc..

Talk about everything they receive when they order and show them in the download page. You can even show them
the order process and how it works. A lot of people online are still a bit scared to give their credit card numbers over the Internet. They do not want their credit card to get stolen by some hacker, and are also concerned with the people they are ordering from scamming them.

So if you show how easy and safe the order process is, this can surely helps sales by reassuring customers that they will not get scammed out of their money and that the product is safe to buy.

Step 4) Show them the chapters in the book while reading some of it. This is a big part, it shows the viewer that the product is real, shows how it is presented, and they get a quick taste of exactly what is inside.

You can go by each chapter to show them the headlines/titles of the product. This can produce big sales as it really taps into people’s instant gratification trigger button.

You basically are saying “You can be reading this right now!”…

You should get permission from the owner of the product before you show the inside of their product to the public, but this shouldn’t be a problem.

Just explain what you are doing and let them know that the viewers of the video would only be able to read a few pages in the video and that you aren’t showing the whole entire book in the video.

Also, this works the same way if you are promoting a software program. Show how the programs works, the features, etc..

Step 5) Thank the viewer for watching the video and remind them that they can have this within minutes from now.

Also, if you have an affiliate program, you could give them a quick glance at that and tell them they could recoup their investment by just referring 2 friends. This is also very powerful as it makes the product seem even less risk.

Something else that I have used in a few videos is showing the guarantee of the product to make sure the visitor knows that if he is not happy with the product, he can get a full no questions asked refund.

I have also used these videos to build lists. You can say something like:

“Subscribe today and receive a video tour of XYZ product free!”

People subscribe and get the video of the product you are promoting sent to their email.

Something else I have been testing with great results is what I call an “Insiders view”.

If you go to Google.com and search for a heavily promoted affiliate product you will see lots of people have set up web pages and use Google.com’s Adwords program to advertise it.

They use ads that say things like:

“XYZ Product Reviews”

or

“Don’t Buy XYZ Product Until You Read This”

etc..

They are using these ads to generate traffic to their page which then links to the actual product through their affiliate link so that they get credit for the sale.

This is a simple tactic that people have used for years.

What I have been testing is ads that start like:

“Get An Insider’s View Of XYZ Product”

This ad links to my page which then has my video automatically start. The video is of course all about the product, shows it chapter by chapter, shows the download area and order process, etc..

This works well, and of course you can even get them to subscribe to your list first before they can get the “Insider’s View” video.

Something else you can do with this video is to submit it to the video directories like YouTube.com and Google video. You could even use a service like TubeMogul to mass submit to many more for free.

Make sure to link back to your site in the description area to generate traffic back to your site.
This can be a quick and easy traffic generator. Search engines love video and if you do this idea you will have one to submit to the video web sites. It’s quick and easy, give it a shot!

Limited Bonuses

One more thing you will definitely want to mention in your video is if you have included any of your own bonuses if they order the affiliate product.

Something like “If you order XYZ report, I will throw in my own ABC report as a bonus, but only if your one of the next 50 orders” etc..

This of course will also add value to the product you are promoting and easily boost sales.

Generally the better the bonus, the more sales, but do not overshadow or devalue the main product you are promoting with your bonus.

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Popularity: 32% [?]

Discover how YOU can create an unfair advantage over all other 
affiliates, even if you don’t have a large mailing list, high-traffic 
website or industry-wide influence, by using exclusive free 
incentives to pull in profits like never before!

The average affiliate is desperate for some serious training in affiliate marketing. This series is for all affiliates who want more than a couple of banners, a handful of classified ads and an occasional rah-rah speech.

This series of blog posts is for you…

Let’s get started with a question that is going to define what you’re about to learn
Why do some affiliates sell more than others?

It’s not a trick question.  Go ahead and think about it just for a second.  In fact, grab a pen and some paper and jot down a few ideas.  I’ll wait.

<5 Minute Break — Seriously, make your list>

OK, so you’ve got your list, right?

If nothing else, you made a mental list.  And what are some reasons that you came up with for that question “why do some affiliates sell more than others?”

Did you respond with any of these answers…

Some affiliates sell more because they have a
…large mailing list.

Some affiliates sell more because they have a
…high traffic website.

Some affiliates sell more because they have a 

…well known reputation.

Some affiliates sell more because they have a
…large advertising budget.

Some affiliates sell more because they have an
…influential network.

Some affiliates sell more because they have an
…unfair advantage.

Your list probably includes one or more of those answers.
And you’re not alone.

And you’re also not incorrect.

These are all plausible answers that explain why some affiliates sell more than others.

I want you to review that list again.  And I want you to examine it, because there is an important common denominator in there that I want to point out.

Do you see it?

In EACH of the above listed reasons, the affiliate has a competitive edge over the average affiliate.  Whether it is a large list or a high traffic website, the fact remains that many top affiliates aren’t competing on a LEVEL playing field.

They have something that the majority of affiliates do not have…

…an advantage.

Now, here’s the deal, my friend.  I can’t wave a magic wand and get you a large mailing list.  I can’t say “Abracadabra” and create a traffic jam at your website.  And I can’t suddenly catapult your reputation to an exclusive “Who’s Who” status.

But, I can help you create an advantage.

And that’s what I want to share with you in Super Affiliate Strategies Volume 1.  I want to teach YOU (yep, you!) how to create an advantage over other affiliates.  I’m going to show you how to create an exclusive offer that is ONLY AVAILABLE THROUGH YOU.

That’s an advantage.

It’s an advantage because it can’t be found anywhere else.  It’s an advantage because, if someone wants to take you up on your offer, then they MUST BUY THROUGH YOU.

We’ll get to that.

Offline marketers have been doing it for years — and it works great!
 o, why not follow their lead and use the same techniques online?
 A handful of folks are doing it, and sales are coming in like crazy…

Let me give you an example from the real world.  Suppose you are looking to purchase a new car and you visit several different dealerships.

All of them have the EXACT same car that you are interested in purchasing.  All are priced at the EXACT same price.  Every factor is the same…

…except for one.

One of the dealerships offers you an incentive.  If you purchase the vehicle from him, he will throw in a year’s supply of gasoline!

Now I ask you, which of the dealerships are you going to make your purchase from?
If you chose anyone but the dealer offering the free gasoline…

…you probably shouldn’t be on the road driving! :o)

Obviously, with all factors the same, you would want to make your purchase from the dealer who offered you MORE value for your money.

Affiliate programs are kind of like car dealerships - at least in one regard.  Every affiliate in a particular program offers the EXACT same product at the EXACT same price.  All factors concerning the affiliate program are basically the same for every affiliate.

So, who’s going to make the sale?

The one who offers the added incentive, that’s who!

The one who creates the advantage, the exclusive offer.

Why should anyone buy through YOUR affiliate link when there are potentially thousands of other affiliates promoting the same offer? Do you think it’s because you promoted the offer FIRST?  You might be surprised…

Just a couple of days ago I received an email from one of my regular customers.  He thanked me for sending him an email about a new product that I had begun promoting.

He explained that he was just about to buy the same product from someone else when he received my email.

Of course, I offered an INCENTIVE - a product of my own valued at the same amount of the product I was promoting.

He excitedly reported to me that he was going to purchase from ME instead of the other guy, SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE I had the extra bonus included in my offer.

A few minutes later his order came in.

Want to outsell other affiliates?

Want to outsell them even though you are all promoting the EXACT same product at the EXACT same price?

Want to create an advantage that levels the playing field with the “big boys” who have the large lists and large budgets?

Offer MORE!

You need to create an incentive.  Some unique and exclusive reason why folks should order through YOUR affiliate link and not one of your competitors.

Folks tend to think that that whoever gets the word out FIRST about a new product will make the sale.

That isn’t always the case.

In fact, it could be just the opposite.

Research shows that it takes, on average, 7 exposures to an offer before someone actually makes a purchase.

Most folks receive the same, tired old “product announcement” email from a half dozen or more affiliates in the exact same 24 hour period.

They get home from work and find a slew of affiliates all wanting to make the sale on the new product.
Who will they buy from? (If they buy at all from this first batch of offers)

If 5 affiliates send out the standard email that their affiliate program manager gave them to send out as one of the “marketing materials” for the product, and 1 affiliate sent an email with a free high-quality offer attached for the same product…

..I’m guessing they’d go with the 1 affiliate who did things differently.

What do you think?

You’re probably thinking “give me that year’s supply of free gas for my new car!”  Right?

You need to create an incentive, an unfair advantage over your competition.  You need something that convinces folks to buy from you.

SIDEBAR:  Here’s an interesting twist on things that I wanted to let you know. The idea of “incentive marketing” not only applies to NEW offers, but can even work to produce sales for older products.

For example:  Jimmy D. Brown of  http://www.InfoProfitShare.com put together a free eBook entitled “Killer Marketing Secrets Revealed” in order to produce sales for Ken Silver’s eBook Secrets manual that he had purchased reprint rights to sell.  He offered it as a free bonus to anyone who ordered from him.

Ken’s product had been available for several years and was offered for FREE at several big sites like the Warriors.

Despite the fact that THOUSANDS of copies had been in circulation prior to him offering this deal, he sold hundreds of extra copies within just a few months.

MANY of those customers told him this:  “I already had a copy of eBook Secrets, but it was worth buying again just to get the free copy of Killer Marketing Secrets Revealed.”
See how this works?

Don’t worry, you don’t have to come up with the idea on your own.  I’m going to provide you with some *real* examples that you can use yourself.  There are only a handful of folks out there who are using this information — so you’ll be getting in on the ground floor.

I can tell you this — don’t waste any time.  This blog post will soon be on the screens of thousands of folks.  And some of them will be your competition.

Don’t wait for them to beat you to the punch.

Put this plan into action. There are only 4 easy steps.  Let’s get ‘em rolling with the next BigSellingAffiliates blog post…

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Popularity: 65% [?]

This is likely the one area where most new affiliates get confused, and there are several reasons for that confusion:

1. It is possible to do affiliate marketing without your own site or lead capture system.
2. Setting up a website and lead capture system requires technical knowledge that some people don’t have.

Let’s talk about the technical angle, first. Just how computer savvy do you need to be? If you are going the do-it-yourself route, you need to learn the following:

1. How to register a domain name
2. How to sign up for web hosting
3. How to make your domain name point to your web host
4. How to create a basic web page
5. How to set up an ‘autoresponder’

While there’s not quite enough room in the report to explain each of these steps in depth, I can assure you that they are quite easy once you’ve seen how to do them.

Creating a web page, for example, is a lot easier these days because most web hosts offer a “what you see is what you get” type of site design software that looks and functions a lot like a word processing program.
Also, you’ve always got the option of finding someone more technically savvy to help you - maybe a neighbor, relative, friend or even a freelancer that you hire to do the whole set up for you.

Now, let’s talk about this idea of doing affiliate marketing without a website.

The thing to understand is that your affiliate is your key to earning commissions. That link needs to be somewhere on a website, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be your website.

For instance, let’s say you created a promotional video and uploaded it to you YouTube. There’s a ‘description’ area that you can fill in for the video, and this information appears on the page YouTube creates to serve your video.

If you want to do so, you could drop your affiliate link into that description area.

Any traffic going through your affiliate link there would be YouTube traffic. You’re basically ’stealing’ both their traffic and their website capabilities. Make sense?

Some affiliate marketers love doing this sort of thing, but there is a definite purpose to having your own website, and to capturing targeted leads.

Why We Use Websites and Lead Capture

The two primary reasons for having your own website are as follows:

1. You can send whatever traffic to it you want, and control what that traffic sees when it arrives.
2. You need a web site in order to put up your “lead capture form” for collecting the names and email addresses of your visitors.

Again, let’s look at why you’d want to do things this way. First, why do you want total control over your traffic? It is quite simple: if you control what your visitor sees, then you control what he thinks.

That sounds more Orwellian than intended, but it is an important truth.

First impressions are very important, and you’ll be a lot more successful in your affiliate business when you control what information your prospects see about the affiliate product you’re promoting, and when they see it.

Second, there’s the matter of “following up” with your visitors. If someone comes to your website, looks around for a few seconds and then leaves, you’ve lost a potential sale.

A certain percentage of your visitors are going to leave, but many of them would be happy to receive more information (follow ups) from you.

In order to send them that information, you have to have a way of contact them. That’s why you collect their names and email addresses.

By giving you that information, they indicate their interest in your information, and you can follow up on that via email.

Instead of losing the visitor (a potential customer), you can ’slow drip’ information to him in order to ‘pre-sell’ or persuade him towards buying a particular product.

This method works because people like to be sold to, when you do it right. Give them free information. Show them the benefits of the product you’re promoting. Make them focus on the solution or end result of owning the product.

The ability to follow up is the number one reason for an affiliate to own a website and lead capture system. You can prep your customer to be in a buying frame of mind before he reaches the merchant’s web site!

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Popularity: 70% [?]

Many people first learn of affiliate marketing during the course of absorbing all the information they can about Internet marketing and home-based businesses.

The people selling you the information are, of course, Internet marketers.

Hence, many people decide to start their affiliate marketing journey by promoting Internet marketing related products.

Some ‘gurus’ will tell you not to do this, and to focus on an unrelated niche, instead.

There’s wisdom in this advice, but getting your feet wet as a newbie affiliate by promoting the products you know best is also a great way to start.

Is it competitive? Yes! Can you learn a lot from promoting Internet marketing products?  The answer: most definitely!

So, rather than try to persuade you away from promoting these types of products as an affiliate, I’d like to share with you some tips on how best to succeed at the game.

Success Tip #1: Promote What You Know
While it is tempting to promote the latest ‘big name’ Internet marketing product, I’d recommend avoiding that tactic unless you own a copy of it already and have studied it thoroughly.

The absolute best way to improve your copy writing skills, as well as build a trusting relationship between you and your potential customers, is to know a product inside and out. You should be able to provide a full review of a product’s ‘pros’ as well as ‘cons.’

Success Tip #2: Build Your List Relationship
You need to build a targeted opt-in list, and then focus on building the relationship with your list. This means you’ve got to send relationship-building material - such as free gifts, articles, etc - just as often as you send out promotional emails.

Your list can be a cash cow for you, but not if you treat them like a herd. Reach out and speak to your list’s interests and needs. Let them know you’re only one step ahead of them on the learning curve, and that you’re all in this Internet business together!

Success Tip #3: Brand Yourself
What do most of the top-name Internet marketers have in common?  They have visibility. The fact that you know their names points to how good a job they’ve done branding themselves. Each one has a ‘unique spin’ on the way he does business, too.

You’ve got marketers who brand themselves as ’super affiliates’, ‘expert copy writers’, ‘masters of traffic generation’ and so on. Many of them started out as affiliate marketers before they took the plunge into creating their own products.

So, ask yourself, what will separate you from the next affiliate promoting the exact same product?

If you’ll follow just these three tips starting today, I guarantee you’ll see a huge improvement in your results. You’ll convert more customers, earn more money and be well on your way to real affiliate success!

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Popularity: 80% [?]

Can’t seem to catch a break with your affiliate marketing efforts?

Spending too much money for too little return on investment?

Affiliate marketing can be as ‘easy’ as it looks from the outside, but you’ve got to focus on real, proven marketing tactics to make it work ‘big time’ for you.

Unfortunately, many people come to affiliate marketing with no idea what a truly successful affiliate marketing campaign should look like.

What you don’t know that you don’t know can hurt you!  So, let’s look at the top 3 reasons for affiliate marketing failure. If you’re having a rough time, I’ll bet you’re making at least one of these critical mistakes.

Mistake #1: Incomplete understanding of niche targeting
Have you ever asked yourself what it really means to target a niche? It’s not just about ‘widgets’ versus ‘blue cheap widgets’.  Key words can tell you a lot about the way a broad market breaks down into sub-markets, but they can’t give you the complete picture.

Niche targeting is as much about identifying the right *solutions* or products for the market as it is about identifying the market proper.

Any time you’re researching a niche, it is always a good idea to check out the top-selling books and magazines targeted towards that niche. What this will do is give you a better of idea about your market’s true needs and concerns.

Once you have this information, sit down and think about your ideal customer. What type of solution does he want?  Is your market looking for ‘fast’, ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ solutions, or are they looking for something more comprehensive or of higher quality?

(more…)

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Popularity: 80% [?]

Affiliate videos are all the rage these days. The more personal, interactive ‘touch’ of video presentations adds up to more traffic and more sales when you execute the technique properly.

Getting traffic from videos requires more action than a simple video upload to YouTube. You’ve to couple together several parts into a strategic system before the ‘set it and forget it’ traffic starts to flow to your site.

Tip #1: Distribute widely
The secret to getting your video seen, then shared, is to get it in front of as many eyeballs as possible. This means submitting your video to as many sites as possible, not just the ‘bit three’ of YouTube, Google and Revver.

How about iFilm, Hello World, Vimeo and DailyMotion?

Did you know there are video channels on the social networking sites like Myspace and Friendster?
(more…)

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Popularity: 40% [?]