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3 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Succeed With Affiliate Marketing

Utilize these three tactics to establishing yourself as a successful affiliate marketer.


Last Update: June 19, 2015

Internet advertising has grown exponentially in the last five years. In last year alone, the total amount of money spent by merchants and vendors for advertising exceeded an estimated $81 billion.

Affiliate marketing, performance-based marketing, is one of the best ways for a small business to reward one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s individual marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing plays a significant role in bringing new customers and clients to the table.

It is an idea that originated with the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million dollars per year on the Prodigy service. Since it’s conception, affiliate marketing has become a behemoth in the advertising world.

Successful affiliate marketers, such as Mike Filsaime and Chris Farrell, possess strong brands, media savvy, and determination. They set their goals and work diligently to conquer them.

Utilize the following three tips and strategies, that these experts practice every day, to establishing yourself as a successful affiliate marketer:

 

1. Be Authentic

Successful businesses rely on effective communication and relationships. If you attempt to build business relationships on falsities, they will crumble quickly. Too often, marketers attempt to adopt a persona that’s alien to them so they can impress or otherwise appeal to an audience.

The end result is tension between what is real and what is presented, or an audience who easily sees right through a fake persona.  In either case, you fail to connect with customers and sacrifice credibility. The greatest success in affiliate marketing comes when your audience can truly identify with you. Be true to yourself, offer genuine value, and the acceptance and rewards will follow.

 

2. Be Consistent and Informed

Novice affiliate marketers struggle with this concept at times. They often switch from one method of promoting products to another too quickly. In pursuit of the next big thing, they don’t establish themselves as reliable or knowledgeable.

Instead of developing strengths in one area and leveraging those skills on a consistent basis with a repeat audience, they constantly shift and never become an expert in any method. You’ll develop a better gauge for which strategies are working – or not working – if you develop a consistent system, and your base will grow through your work to meet expectations.

Another common mistake made by affiliate marketers is to pick a product based on perceived conversion rates or because another affiliate marketer hit a gold mine with the product. Again, you should not be chasing after coat tails for a quick and easy ride.

You have to know your strengths as a marketer. You need to be informed about a product and its potential market. You should also be able to add value to that product. You might not hit a grand slam every time, but you will build your credibility and eventually find a winner that matches your expertise.

 

3. Be Confident and Determined

It’s quite possible you’ll hit some rough patches in choosing an affiliate marketing program that work for you. It takes time, patience, and energy to reach your affiliate marketing goals. After a product initially fails to automatically skyrocket, affiliate marketers may become hesitant and lack confidence because things didn’t work out. That’s natural.

However, if you get stuck in that mindset and keep foraging the Internet for more information to help you make the “perfect” decision you’ll settle into analysis paralysis. In this state, you have so much information that you end up confused, apprehensive and don’t act.

Others, when faced with big decisions or a negative turn of events, simply give up. The trait that often separates the successful marketer from the mediocre marketer is perseverance. It’s nearly impossible not to have some sort of mistake occur as you are learning your strengths and skills as a marketer. You should accept those mistakes, reflect on them, and then use the new knowledge you’ve gained from a setback to help you succeed in your next endeavor. Those who are truly striving for their goals do not give up easily.

Affiliate marketing offers a world of possibility. With determination, confidence, knowledge, and authenticity, you can capture your audience and succeed in finding the perfect products or services to market to make you the next success story.

 

Dush Ramachandran is a Business Transformation Coach for The Net Momentum. He has built and sold two of his own companies, and most recently, served as VP of Sales and Business Development at ClickBank, where he was instrumental in growing the company’s revenues nearly 500% in five years. Dush is the host of the “Entrepreneur Effect” radio show and is the author of an upcoming book on entrepreneurial success.

 

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