The 5 Deadly Sins of Affiliate Marketing (You Could Be Making) #4

Deadliest Mistakes When Choosing Affiliate Products

            If you get this first step wrong, needless to say, no matter how great an affiliate marketer you are, you are never going to earn the income you deserve.

1) The "E" factor

Although I meant to write this last, I realized it is the most overlooked factor – enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the cornerstone of success in affiliate marketing because when your lead clicks on that affiliate link, she has in fact bought your promotion of the product, nothing else. Without enthusiasm in the product, your "voice" in the promotion will come off weak subconsciously and as a result you will lose many leads.

2) The Customer is Always Right

            The product should only focus on one thing – fulfilling the customer's needs. Scan through the sales letter, look for the features of the product, and ask yourself if it really solves your potential leads' problems. Also look out for a product that does the best job in intermingling those features with the feelings of the customer.

            Your job then is to look for reviews of the product on Google, compile all the pros and cons with the features and benefits on the sales copy, then build on those feelings before sending your leads to the merchant site.

            Choose an affiliate product that accepts different forms of secure payment methods but never one that has a phone number simply because the merchant would not know that you referred her to it. Also, choose one that has some form of guarantee as well as a record of good customer satisfaction.

3) Stolen Commissions

            The merchant's website must not allow either the merchant or the customer to steal your commissions. The sales letter should only be selling one product and as mentioned in mistake #3, should not confuse the reader with an up-sell or variations of the same product before the purchase.

            There must be no attempt by the merchant to send your leads to a sales page prior to purchase. This might irritate the potential customer, as nobody likes additional emails to read. Moreover, chances are that the merchant will sell its own product to your leads. It most probably has better products than you, so you do not want any additional competition.

            The most important point here is that the must not be an affiliate link anywhere near the sales letter. Your lead might spot this and get a "free discount" by simply being an affiliate herself.

Lesson of the day: Sell products that you are enthusiastic about and fulfill the consumer needs without any risk of commission leakage.