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7 Campaign Killing Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

By John Thornhill

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Published: 07Aug2010
Word count: 739
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Affiliate marketing is becoming more and more popular, especially with the current state of the economy. High unemployment rates have many people turning to the internet as a means of making ends meet.

It sounds great at first. You're told all you have to do is start a free blog and write a few articles, and you can achieve wild riches. Many people buy into this myth, and are let down after weeks go by and they haven't made a single dollar.

Believe it or not, more than ninety percent of internet entrepreneurs fold up shop within the first month. Once reality sets in, it's easy to get discouraged. Affiliate marketing, like any other business, requires hard work and effort for success to become a reality.

In this article, we're going to discuss seven of the worst mistakes that an affiliate marketer can make. If you can avoid these career killing pitfalls, you'll have a good chance at becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Using Free Services

The problem with many affiliate marketers is they don't want to make an investment into their business. This is due in part to all of the tutorials available that instruct marketers to use free services. While there is nothing wrong with free services, the lack of imminent control over one's content can be a problem. If the company providing the free service decided to delete your account, or went out of business, you could lose content that may have been making you some money.

2. Promoting The Wrong Product

Market research is especially important in affiliate marketing. Many affiliates promote products that have a very low demand, hence making it near impossible to succeed. Researching your chosen niche is crucial.

3. Promoting Too Many Products

It's easy to lose focus. There are so many great products to promote that many affiliate marketers try to promote five or ten products at once. It's not good to spread yourself so thin. Rather than promoting ten products and giving ten percent effort to each, it's better to put one-hundred percent effort into promoting a single product.

4. Not Starting An Email List

Many affiliate marketers refuse to believe in the importance of email marketing. This is partly due to the wealth of information available about article marketing. Many are led to believe that article marketing is a miracle money maker. While it's true that money can be made this way, it's much better to establish a contact and build trust with a potential buyer through email.

5. Spamming

Spam is a grey area when it comes to affiliate marketing. Basically, spamming is blatantly promoting your products or services to those who didn't ask for information. The worst kind of spam is email spam. Many affiliate marketers engage in this without even knowing. Spamming is a surefire way to ruin your reputation as a marketer.

6. Not Writing Unique Content

Affiliate marketing requires a lot of writing. It usually comes in the form of sales copy, classified ads, and articles. Since outsourcing the work is costly, many affiliate marketers turn to what's known as private label rights, or "PLR" articles. These are articles that have been written specifically for the use of others. The problem is that they have been sold to many people. This means that they are no longer unique. Most marketers rewrite the content before publishing, but the general idea of the article remains the same. Content is king on the internet, and those that write fresh, exciting content will always have a leg up on the competition.

7. Not Using The Products They Promote

A great way to promote affiliate marketing products is by writing reviews. However, many affiliate marketers review products that they don't own. If written properly, this can be effective. For the most part, though, readers can tell if the reviewer has actually tried the product. It's not a good idea to recommend a product to anyone that you don't like and use. If you don't purchase the product, you can't honestly know if you like it. If the product isn't quality, and you continue to recommend it, you'll quickly lose customers and tarnish your reputation.

Affiliate marketing is hard work. However, you shouldn't get discouraged. The best advice I could give you is to avoid making the above mistakes, and NEVER, EVER give up! Persistence and knowledge are the two most important tools you could possess if you want to be a successful affiliate marketer.

John Thornhill is a full time Internet Marketer and has sold thousands of products as an affiliate. Find out more about John and his no nonsense marketing approach at his blog: http://www.planetsmsblog.com/

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