Fundamental Tips to Propel Your Affiliate Marketing Program
Affiliate marketing is a lucrative but also equally difficult venture with the potential to provide you with a long-lasting stream of residual earnings—assuming you know what you’re doing. Most online start-ups give up and fail within the first year because they don’t strategize; they merely waltz into it with delusions of grandeur.
As an affiliate marketer, you need to know and understand the product and/or service you’re representing. Without a thorough background, you’ll appear unreliable and therefore lose your audience’s trust. Without this intimate trust, you stand absolutely no chance of earning any conversions. What point is there in building a steady stream of traffic if you appear so aloof that you scare away prospective customers?
By the same token, you must also know and understand your audience. Marketing your product to anybody is akin to sitting on a park bench with a product in the hope that someone who needs it will suddenly swing on by. It’s unrealistic and foolish. To excel at affiliate marketing, you must be able to literally visualize your target audience sufficiently enough to be able to address him or her in a natural way.
Another important but often times overlooked fundamental to affiliate marketing for online start-ups is focusing on quality over quantity. Many of your affiliate marketers try to build traffic by churning out article after article on your Company Name + Coupons. Being on Coupon sites is important because so many users who purchase online are looking for a deal and through the use of Google it is very easy to find it. Coupon affiliates, which are ok to start with, turn out to be your worst affiliates because they are getting credit for orders that would have taken place anyhow. To protect yourself, you should create your own coupon site to prevent paying out needless commissions. The coupon space is something you can try to control, but want to find affiliates who run successful blogs, social media sites and have large opt-in email lists.
Last but not least, never give up. This may seem trivial, but it’s a core component to affiliate marketing for online start-ups. The truth is that affiliate marketing is extremely difficult. It takes time to learn the ropes. Super affiliates don’t just magically wake up one day and discover that their site is selling faster than iPads. They work hard, sometimes for years, and more importantly, they pay close attention and never stop trying.
Chris Kenney is the Director of Online Marketing at Gemvara. Gemvara allows user to customize their pieces to select a design, metal and gemstone. Gemvara offers a wide selection of Gemstone Jewelry, Ruby Rings, Wedding Rings & Black Diamond Engagement Rings.