Affiliate Marketing Guide 
  
  
 
    



      Full Time Affiliate Marketer

    Listed in this online guide are
    practical tips/advice on how to 
    earn an Affiliate Income Online.

    These affiliate marketing strategies
    come from first-hand experiences
    in affiliate marketing.

    Put These Proven Strategies 
    to work for you... 
 
        
8 Simple Strategies For Affiliate 
Marketing Success 

Automatic Online Income - Myth or Fact?
Take The Slow Road To A Passive
Online Affiliate Income
Top 10 List of the Best Affiliate Networks 
Avoid These Fatal Web Site Design 
Flaws (If You Want A Profitable Site)
My Biggest Mistake In Affiliate Marketing
(And HOW You Can Avoid It!)


   My #1 Affiliate Pick

Site Build It Review


   
    



My Biggest Mistake In Affiliate Marketing 
(And HOW You Can Avoid It!)
Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins


We all make mistakes, it's a fact of life. It's no
big deal in the whole scheme of things as long as
we learn from our mistakes and move forward. The 
same goes with affiliate marketing since everyone
will probably make mistakes at first, but as long 
as you fix them, it's no big deal.

However, some mistakes are much more costly than 
others and we are not just talking monetary costs.
These mistakes are the ones we only discover years 
down the road after we have lost hundreds of 
thousands of dollars and more importantly, wasted 
valuable time doing something that was totally the 
wrong way to do things.

Recently, one of my biggest mistakes in affiliate
marketing hit me front and center. Although I make
a very comfortable living as a full-time affiliate
marketer, this mistake has cost me significantly
over the years.

Perhaps a brief rundown of the common mistakes many
affiliate marketers make would prove helpful.


Some of these mistakes are:

- you forget to build a list

- you fail to track your affiliate links/traffic

- you don't develop your own unique selling position

- you link directly to your affiliate link instead 
  of going thru an interior keyworded page

- you ignore MSN and Yahoo

- you forget to diversify your affiliate products/networks

Plus, the one major mistake many beginning affiliate 
marketers make:  they try to sell products directly to 
potential customers. 

This is not the way to proceed on the Internet. You must 
try to solve a problem first and then sell later. Most people 
using the web want to solve a problem, anything from how to 
lose 50 pounds to finding the right student laptop for 
a son or daughter. They want help solving a problem first 
and foremost. Your goal as an effective affiliate marketer 
is to solve their problem for them... selling should always 
come second or as a by-product of this whole interaction.

Help first - sell later.

By giving advice and help, you establish your credibility
and trust-worthiness with your potential prospect. It is
a win-win situation, they get valuable helpful information
to solve their problem and you end up with a sale or a 
friend.

This whole idea of pre-selling is a very effective method
for affiliate marketing but is a common mistake many beginners 
make or rather fail to do. So if you're just starting affiliate
marketing make sure it is not a mistake you're making.

But my biggest mistake had nothing to do with those
discussed above; from the get-go I was building my
lists, linking to keyworded interior pages, optimizing
for all the search engines, diversifying my affiliate
products/networks. Most importantly of all, I was 
"pre-selling" by helping my potential customers with 
online guides, e-courses, advice... and only selling 
as a fall-out from all this online trust building. 
All these steps worked wonders for my online marketing 
and my bank account...

However, I missed one key factor or element in my 
affiliate marketing. I didn't "leverage my returns"
or rather I didn't max out what I could get from my 
affiliate marketing efforts. I settled for what the 
affiliate networks were offering... this ranged from 
2-3% up to 50-70% commission on a sale. All good money, 
considering all you had to do was find the customer for 
the client/company and they would handle all the rest 
such as order taking, delivery, customer service... 
all you had to do was deliver the potential customer 
to their affiliate link.

Let me explain further, for years I was satisfied with
this arrangement because it suited me to a "T". It gave
me an easy lifestyle anyone would envy: own boss, work
at home, automatic income while I slept. All you had to 
do was deliver traffic to your affiliate links to earn 
a comfortable income online - no headaches, no hassles 
- just receive your countless checks each month. But there 
was one problem, these were only one-time sales,  ie. most 
affiliate sales thru the major affiliate networks like 
Commission Junction, Linkshare, Shareasale... only paid 
you commission once and that's it.

Now, why was that a problem? Well, in one of my niches
I was selling/promoting a service where I knew the customers
I were delivering would be long-term paying customers earning 
those companies money for years to come... I was only getting 
a one time sale and perhaps a bonus incentive if I worked
really hard.

My Biggest Affiliate Mistake

This was my biggest mistake: not going after long-term
residual affiliate income from the start. Like most affiliate
marketers, I concentrated all my marketing on getting that 
one-time sale. I eventually realized my mistake and approached 
the companies involved, a few even gave me private deals with 
"residual income" for the life of the client. Now, which companies 
do you think I will be concentrating most of my marketing efforts 
on in the future?

But why stop there?

I could further leverage my affiliate income even more
by offering a "white label" or a co-branded service thru
my own website. It would greatly increase my share of
the sale and give me long-term revenue. I believe, this is 
where many affiliate marketers drop the ball, they don't 
fully explore "white label", "co-branded products", "full 
resell rights", "back-end profits" and "residual income" 
when they think of affiliate marketing.

Now some may argue this is more of a "hands-on" arrangement
and may involve more work on your part but the rewards
will be well worth it; for instead of getting a one time sale 
you could be building long-term residual income for years
to come. 

Likewise, you should try to "leverage your returns" when 
picking affiliate products or programs to promote; if possible, 
always go for those with residual income. Don't make the 
mistake of settling for less, always check out the maximum 
return you can get on your affiliate marketing. Investigate
special private deals or arrangements with your affiliate
partners and bargain for a bigger share of the pie.
Like me, you may be pleasantly surprised at the results.



...

Everyone has a story! Mine is called: "In Search Of The $100 Click 
or How I Found A Full-Time Online Income And Came To Love The Internet" 
It's located here: Online Income
Copyright © 2007 Titus Hoskins. This article may be 
freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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