5 Mistakes To Avoid When Starting An Affiliate Marketing Business

An affiliate marketing business is a great way to get your own online business started. You don't have to produce any products, organize payment systems, or arrange product shipping and delivery. The product owner takes care of all of those things. Your job as an affiliate is to drive traffic to the product sales pages and if somebody buys the product via your unique affiliate link, the product owner will pay you a commission. It appears to be relatively simple, but watch out for these 5 mistakes that new affiliate marketers often make. 1. Promoting Everything and Anything When you begin an affiliate marketing business, it is very tempting to promote everything and anything. But if you try and sell anything to anybody you probably will end up selling nothing to anyone. Take the time to select the best affiliate marketing programs that fit you and your target audience and only recommend products that are good and that your audience will like. 2. Not Building A List From Day One When you start an affiliate marketing business it won't be long before you hear the words "the money is in the list". This means that long-term success comes from building a database of prospects. If you just send prospects to a sales page and they don't buy anything then that prospect is lost forever. However, if that prospect is on your database, or list, it means that you can email them other offers in the future and that will not cost you anything. If you're starting an online business, get prospects onto your list from day one before you send them to a sales page. 4. Not Providing Value Affiliate marketing is more about 'telling' rather than 'selling'. Delivering high quality content to the people on your list that they find valuable shows that you are a supplier of useful information. When you are seen as a reliable adviser it will build confidence, respect and credibility with your prospects. They are then more likely to buy from you. 5. Trying To Do Everything For Nothing Much like any other business, an affiliate marketing business calls for investment. What you get in is what you put out. Super affiliates invest in software that automates labor intensive tasks for them. For example, a reliable email autoresponder will send out messages on autopilot to new subscribers and allow you to quickly contact your prospects whenever you want. Regardless of your age, education or technical skills there are no specific requirements for being successful with affiliate marketing. However you will be more successful with a solid business model to work from, clear direction, training and support. If you don't know where to start or you're not achieving the online success that you want, check out the FREE Affiliate Marketing Business Video Series at http://www.jonallo.com/