Tell the truth, how much did you earn last month as an affiliate?
There is no shying away from the truth – most people who promote affiliate offers are broke.
It’s funny because you’d read reviews and see fake screenshots that never existed.
Most if not all affiliate marketers have ego. They’d rather flaunt it than seek for help.
I don’t know about you, but making money online has become a cliché.
You can’t trust most of the income reports you see these days. Some are real, why others are not.
I’m writing from experience. The truth is, making a living online through affiliate marketing can be a lot confusing. Did you know why?
Affiliates have neglected the ethics of marketing. But that can change right now if you read through this post.
It’s a short post, but would help you discover the #1 reason why 75% of affiliate marketers are broke. I’m not here to talk about driving thousands of visitors to a sales page.
It’s more than that – and you don’t even need 1000 visitors to succeed as an affiliate. That could help, but quality is much more important.
Without much ado, the ultimate reason why a lot of people don’t earn decent income from their affiliate offers is because they’re SELLING.
What’s wrong with selling?
You may not agree with me – at least, you’ve read from several blogs that to earn income online, you must sell a product.
Yes, I agree to that. But if you’re an affiliate marketer, your duty is not to sell. Maybe this is your first time of reading this, and I’m glad it’d change your life today. It was my saving grace.
Ask yourself this question, if you’ve been called to sell a product, what’s the role of the salesletter? Each time you’re desperate to sell your affiliate product, you’d miss out on the real cash. Potential buyers are very intelligent.
What they’re after is the solution to their problem. They’re willing to purchase whatever product you recommend, providing that it can help them.
Don’t try to sell to them – there is a better way to introduce your offer and break out of affiliate marketing nightmare.
So, the mistake that’s kept you bound is, “SELLING.”
I need you to understand that the role of the salesletter and salespage is to sell the product. Your duty as an affiliate marketer is to “PRESELL.”
Pre + Sell = affiliate success
The prefix “pre” means “before” in English language. And I need you to consider it carefully. Let’s illustrate so that you can take action right away.
If you’re promoting Hostgator web hosting package as an affiliate, for instance, how do you position yourself as an expert?
It’s simple, which is why affiliate agents ignore it. Too often, marketers think that for a system to work out well, it must be complicated.
It has to be technical and out-of-the-box. But that’s not true. A super affiliate has a different mindset. They usually prepare potential buyers before leading them through to the salespage.
If you could get people interested in your offer, you can easily persuade them to buy when they hit the store. That’s why you MUST pre-SELL your offers.
And one great way to do that is to create a separate landing page. Then get the facts about the product you’re affiliated to, and write an exclusive review.
Promote offers, don’t try to sell
On a final note, you’d be promoting the offer to the right people. Don’t create the impression that you need their money. Of course you want them to buy, but not by trick or B.S.
Ideally, promote affiliate products you’re using or have used. This way, you can vouch for them. If a particular offer isn’t so good, don’t hide it – say the truth by revealing the ugly aspect as well.
You’d observe an increase in sales. This has worked marvelously for me and I’m sure it’d produce better results for you – only if you take action today.
If you’re looking for an affiliate program that pays well and converts greatly, T3leads payday affiliate program could be the right bet.
Take this home
If you can provide valuable information about the product you’re promoting, prospects would be motivated to pay for it.
Write reviews, create short videos with screenshots highlighting the member area of the program, or giveaway few chapters of the e-book at no cost.
This way, you can captivate buyer’s mind fast. T3leads, shareasale, paydotcom and others are credible third party networks with thousands of good offers.
You also need quality content to presell properly. See content marketing for step by step tutorial.
Did you find this post helpful? Leave a comment below – See you ahead!
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About Michael Chibuzor
Love the tips Michael because offering value makes you a sales generating machine, not pushing your product down throats.
Thanks!
I welcome your comment my good friend. And thanks for your support throughout 2012. Happy New Year!
That’s true Ryan. Some markets bombard their people with ads and click now, without even stating what people would get out from their purchase. For example, if you are an affiliate who sells learn binary course and guides online, you should set up a sample of your guide or even post testimonials.
Nowadays many affiliate networks allow you to use Facebook to market the product. You might need to spend some money initially , but if the offer is good enough you might get high returns from it. Well, money makes more money 🙂
Hello
It was a pleasure reading the article Michael. I have not been in affiliate marketing but i really liked the point you tried to explain in the post. I agree that a true affiliate marketer will not try to sell his product, but instead will explain how the product can be useful to the buyer.
Sanjib
Explaining the usefulness is the key. Thank you so much for adding your 2-cent.
Affiliate Marketing is the only thing I haven’t tried fully. Though it seems hard to sell other’s products.
I started affiliate marketing years ago. I have not made significant inroads but since I have made some money that gave me assucrance that there is a potential income stream there. So I just need to know how to increase the traffic to my various sites. This is an Informative post.
P.S. Thanks for giving a Google +1 to my lens about Texas real estate in Cedar Park.
Wishing you success in the new year and beyond!
Hey Michael,
You made many valid points. You stated here, “Ideally, promote affiliate products you’re using or have used. This way, you can vouch for them. If a particular offer isn’t so good, don’t hide it – say the truth by revealing the ugly aspect as well.”
I think some online marketers are timid when it comes to revealing the negative aspects of products. For the simple reason they think a negative review will turn the customers away and not make the sell. But when you do reveal the ugly side of a product or course you are building trust and credibility with reader’s. Trust and credibility are priceless in any business! So, writing a positive review about a bad product just to make a commission isn’t worth it. Because when the product flops you will automatically loose a customers that will never come back.
This is a very real post! Enjoyed!
Marc Bell
I’m glad you understood and agreed to my affiliate marketing points. Merry Xmas to you!
Being a travel blogger myself, i had not thought about affiliate marketing in this way. I have hardly generated 10-20 sales in the past year. May be this approach will help me. Thanks for sharing your approach of PRE-SELL
I never think of pre+sell before. That’s a good tip to try I guess. thanks for the post Michael
All the best
I never ever imagined that any person will explain such things in such awful manner. First of all I would like to congrats you for making us aware that most of the affiliators are not a kind of affiliator which they show.
Affiliate marketing is no doubt is kind of business where you are working as salesman. So very first duty of a salesman is to show each and every aspect (Including bad) of the product he is selling. Buyers are so smart these days that they don’t buy any product until they read atleast 4-5 reviews about the product.
And the only thing differentiate you from all is how you presented your product. Here comes the point of making an effective landing page.
I can say that doing affiliate marketing not only need that you selected the product and you are done. It need you to be perfect in every aspect like selecting the best way to drive traffic, selecting proper landing page, proper and convincing sale letter and more importantly selling/marketing skills.
Again thanks for bringing such valuable article.
Awful manner!
Could you please clarify your comment. Thank you so much and happy New Year!
Michael, Please tell which point you didn’t understood.
Hey Nagi, you did say that I explained the topic in such an “awful manner.” That’s what I didn’t understand.
That simply means you did awesome Job. 🙂
I never knew that this is the truth behind so called successful Affiliate Marketers. I always see 14-15 year old kids claiming $1000 per day via affiliates. I think they are in same category.
YES! its true Michael, when I promote affiliate links on my blog, I blindly post banners or text links and not ever tried to pre-sell or convince people attention that what all the benefits they can get by this purchase.
Thanks to the wonderful piece.
Henceforth, you should always presell the product by highlighting the benefits. I’m sure your sales would increase tremendously. And don’t try to hide the ugly aspects of the product. Write about it, but at the end of the review, give helpful suggestions that can override the ugly aspect. It works Naveen.
Michael I like your idea of “Promote offers, don’t try to sell”. I have not been so lucky in affiliate marketing before but now I am starting to think about it.
Promoting products is the best way to get best conversions . Don’t try to much affiliate programs at once and have potential to earn some decent money online .
Presellingis not necessarily the best way to promote the products. If the products are already branded i dont think preselling is much required. Preselling is required only if the product is brand new and you need to capture the market share in a quicker manner. And Yes I agree preselling is the best way to be promote brand new product and a good practice for an ethical affiliate.