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5 Common Affiliate Marketing Struggles and How to Overcome Them

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Stefan V.

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Affiliate Marketing Has Its Struggles

While product owners often have successful sales strategies in place like using armies of affiliate to sell for them, affiliate marketers themselves often reap little, if any, rewards. Why? There are many main issues that affiliate marketers struggle with while trying to promote their affiliate products and land sales. Several main issues are listed below, in no particular order of preference. Then after the list of issues, discover how to overcome them quickly and easily.

5 Common Affiliate Marketing Struggles

Here are five common affiliate marketing struggles.

  1. Lack of tech skills for Internet marketing can cause many an affiliate marketer to stumble. Many affiliate marketers lack much needed tech skills in today’s web-based world. They struggle with setting up leads capture pages, aka squeeze pages, setting up autoresponders, blogs, social media channels and other Internet marketing methods.
  2. Affiliate commissions can be very small and can take months to reach the marketer, long after promotional expenses are used for all the hard work of generating leads, clicks and sales.
  3. Communication can break down. Language barriers can be a problem. Consider the Tower of Babel and it doesn’t take much to imagine how difficult it is to really get a point across in another language that you wish to market in.
    And too many affiliates try to market something that they have either never purchased and even used before. They are trying to sell something that are not experienced with. A fine example is an affiliate who is new to working from home, yet wants to promote a get-rich-fast, work-from home scheme. If the affiliate has made it work, yes, by all means he should promote it. However, if the affiliate has never even earned any money from it, it’s not wise for him to promote the program until financial results are solid.
  4. Know what you are trying to market, who your target audience is and what you are trying to get them to do (i.e. you need sales experience, too). Go back to #2 above where the affiliate marketer needs to thoroughly understand the product in order to discuss its features and benefits. Focusing on a dynamic two-step offer of a main feature and benefit plus a call to action at the end of each marketing piece is key with affiliate marketing promotions. The more specific the content and call to action, the better. In other words if you want someone to click and subscribe to your online form, tell them to do just that – and tell them why they should (i.e. tell them what’s in it for them.)
  5. Support from the product owner / main seller is important. Too many affiliate marketers are left in the dark with regards to product support and affiliate marketing tools. All too often an affiliate marketer may get a coded link and a banner or other 1-time marketing piece, and that’s it. Then they are left on their own to figure out the best ways to market the product, how to make their own banners, squeeze pages and so on, to attract leads, clicks, and sales.

How to Overcome Them

If you want to overcome these struggles, keep these 7 points in mind.

  1. focus on what you know
  2. only market products you’ve used and understand well
  3. start with something that will be highly attractive to your audience
  4. choose a product that easy to communicate to readers in any language
  5. have a clear call to action
  6. put your offer where people can find it easily
  7. let that first affiliate product start earning before you try a second one

Keep your eyes on offering value to your audience and making it easy to buy from you and you’ll find your affiliate experience goes more smoothly.

Author’s Bio:

Stefan V. is in Germany a financial expert and he combines the power of his knowledge into the online marketing business. He has done some trial and error until he found the best products, informations, strategies and monetizations. Be in touch and find more here Seven Figure Society

How to Manage Your Finances in the Cloud

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Once upon a time, personal finances were relegated to stacks of messy piles that would often find its place next to a trashcan. Then came software packages like Quicken that allowed families and individuals to crunch financial information and make sense of it all through simple templates.

However, limitations soon become evident, as software’s ability to help users set budgets and manage personal finances day-to-day only went as far as the user’s own limited expertise.

Now there is a wave of new personal finance websites and applications like Mint that not only perform the tasks of conventional financial software, but that also serve to help individuals and families make day-to-day decisions about their finances.

This is the primary difference — and advantage — of these new cloud-based financial sites. While financial software passively absorbs the banalities of one’s utility bills and investment portfolio, sites like Mint actively advise users—effectively acting as a personal financial manager, helping users stick to monthly budgets and achieve long term financial goals.

Getting started with a personal finance site is also much easier than installing and inputting data into a software package. Logging in, a new user will be asked to provide either a bank account or credit card account number, the website then takes over to import all the relevant information about this primary account.

Many Americans already pay most of their bills through automatic payments drawn from their bank accounts, so sites like Mint are designed to prompt and actively acquire this information as well.

Users will be prompted to add more and more information about their financial lives to their personal page. This can include mortgages, investment portfolios, automobile payments, loans, and also things like projected spending on necessities, as well as the not so necessary.

What makes sites like Mint so extraordinary is that they not only process and aggregate this information; they also make sense of it and then take action.

Mint will calculate average spending and then lay it against a projected budget, providing comparative analysis with the deft and accuracy of a CPA with a Masters in Accounting . The site will not only alert users to the potential for overdraft fees, but will also alert them when spending threatens to overwhelm a budget or when expected income falls short.

Some still have lingering concerns about managing personal finances in the more ethereal realm of the cloud, where a faceless entity directs our most important financial decisions. But, of course, herein lies the true genius of sites like Mint.

Daily finance, budgeting and investing might seem like the more cut-and-dry, analytical parts of our lives, but actual personal finances are bound up with the most emotional decisions we make for ourselves, including how we support our families, and how we imagine our future. As such, these decisions are often made through the haze of our anxieties and desires rather than with a cool head, rationally calculating factors with an eye on the future.

Personal finance sites like Mint not only organize and simplify the various machinations of our financial lives; they also gently disengage monetary decisions from the sometimes-tumultuous emotional world of daily life.

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Author’s Bio:
Tony Radford writes for Accounting EDU, an online resource for individuals interested in career advancement, education, business, and finance tips.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Why Working From Home May Not Work For You

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A Guest Post by
Rachel Carlson

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Work Sweet Work?

Ah, the dream of working from home. So many perks – not having to get up early, no commute, no annoying co-workers, eating from your own fridge, break whenever you want, keep an eye on your kids – you don’t even have to get dressed if you don’t want to. Unless you’re one of the “lucky” people who actually have this privilege (between 2.8 and 44.4 million people in the U.S. work from home depending on who you ask), you’re probably reading this from a cubicle and dreaming of “freedom.” But hold on – working from home isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. I’ve been working from home for several years now, and I can tell you that it’s definitely not for everyone. Let’s start with the biggest hurdle…

Distractions

People who work from home don’t have a traditional boss looking over their shoulder. A freelance writer, for example, probably doesn’t have any boss at all. A medical biller probably has a boss, but the boss isn’t physically in the room, checking to see if work is being completed. This sounds great at first, but it really leads to a pressing question: do you have the motivation and focus to accomplish what you need to do? Remember that you’re on your computer – will you really write that report, or will you spend three hours watching YouTube videos? Even if you think you’re motivated, other little things can add up – by the time you’ve checked your email, looked at your social networks, poured a cup of coffee, taken the dog out, searched for your keys, made a trip to the grocery store, and taken the dog out again, you suddenly realize you’ve lost two hours.

So, be honest with yourself – some people need a standard work environment to get things done. To help you decide if this applies to you, ask yourself these questions:

  • How did you function in school when you had a big assignment? Did you wait until the last second to do it? Did you spend hours on a small assignment because you’d write one sentence and then go out and do other things?
  • Do you have a space in your house/apartment that you can devote solely to work? Or will you be trying to work three feet away from that tempting XBox?
  • How will your pets distract you?
  • How much time do you spend on social networks? Do you automatically open Facebook whenever you open your browser?

Of course, these things can be overcome. In the past, I checked my email constantly while trying to get things done. But creating a schedule, logging out of email and social networks, creating a designated workspace, and setting goals for each day has helped immensely. Just be sure you’re absolutely ready to take the plunge.

Hidden Costs

Cutting out the cost of a commute can be a huge financial relief, but working from home will cause you to spend more money on certain things:

  • Food – You’ll need to keep your refrigerator stocked more than usual if you don’t want to be running out for food all the time.
  • Internet – Obviously, you’ll need an internet connection. But having a clear wireless internet connection will help preserve your sanity. Being tied down to one spot while working from home is not only unhealthy, but it can also prevent you from working in other areas to be less distracted. (Sometimes I go out to my living room couch or the kitchen table if I’m having trouble focusing.)
  • Bills – You’ll be using more electricity, water, and heat/air conditioning when you work from home. It’s likely you’ll also have higher phone bills depending on how much you’ll be required to talk to others.
  • Equipment – Setting up a home office can get expensive. You’ll need to get a comfortable chair, a decent desk, and possibly some extra shelving. Also, your life will revolve around your computer. If something breaks down, you’ll need to shell out the money to fix it immediately. (Just the costs of printer ink can add up.)
  • Time – This is intangible, but if you’re unmotivated and suffering from distraction, you can end up working some very long hours to get work accomplished.

Of course, some companies will pay for some of these expenses. But if you’re freelancing, you’re on your own. So, if you’re considering working from home, be sure to weigh these costs against your current situation – and write off what you can at tax time.

Physical and Mental Health

As mentioned earlier, it’s dangerous to just sit around all day. Your current job might at least require you to move to other areas of the office now and then – maybe some stairs are even involved. Chances are, however, that you’ll be moving a lot less when you start working from home. Maybe this won’t bother you, but if you’re health-conscious, you’ll definitely want to consider this aspect of the job.

Finally, think about this statement: when you’re at home, you’re at work. This still weighs on my mind sometimes. While many office workers take their work home, it can still be nice to go to a physically different and comforting place at the end of the day. “Work-from-homers” have much less separation. If you tend to worry a lot about deadlines, or if unfinished work really bothers you, working from home might not be for you. You may find yourself constantly thinking, “I should be working right now.” So, be sure you can seriously separate work from your personal life – even if they both occur in the same place.

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Author’s Bio:
Rachel Carlson is a writer and student that works from home. While she spends a lot of her time writing, she also helps different companies like Clear Wireless with gaining exposure through various blogs and websites. She has recently started a new Twitter account and is finally going to give it a real shot. She can be followed at @carlson_rachel.

Thanks, Rachel. It takes a clear mind and focus to get out a blog post about distractions. Great job! 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Starting a Low-Cost Business at Home

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The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

Starting a Low-Cost Business at Home
by the writers of Bizymoms.com

An increasing number of people today are opting to work-at-home. This is understandable – especially with the rising costs of living and all the problems associated with the recession. Work-at-home jobs make it possible for people to save hundreds of dollars every year.

It’s obvious that those who work away from home will incur additional expenses in comparison to those who work-at-home. And most of these expenses are incurred on an almost daily basis. This is especially true today; with the rising costs of gas, most people find that the “daily commute” is becoming increasingly expensive. Traveling expenses aren’t the only ones you’re going to incur if you don’t work at home. Consider additional costs such as food and clothing. For those who work away from home five days a week (or more, in some cases), extra costs for food and clothing can mount up.

Some work-at-home jobs, such as writing, can start with near zero investment. The internet is a valuable resource for writers of every genre. If you’ve got good writing abilities and a command of the English language, you can take on a variety of work-at-home writing-jobs that might appeal to you. Having your doubts? Conduct a search online. You’ll see that online, the services of freelance writers are in constant demand.

For more information on freelance-writing and freelance writing jobs, visit:

www.freelancewritinggigs.com

www.freelancewriting.com

www.freelancewrite.about.com

A “rising-trend” is that more and more moms are opting to work-at-home. Most work-at-home jobs are great for busy moms because they allow great time-flexibility. This time-flexibility factor allows mom to be more “available” for their children. Work-at-home moms save a lot of money – especially on day-care expenses!

For more information on work-at-home jobs, visit:

www.entrepreneur.com

www.work-at-home.org

Advancements in technology and the widespread use of the Internet have given hundreds of thousands of people the chance to work-at-home. The truly global use of the Internet has made it an invaluable marketing tool; one that most businesses will want to use. This offers lucrative work-at-home opportunities for people around the world. These work-at-home options will allow people to save hundreds of dollars a year – especially on traveling expenses.

Atya Shakir is Manager of Webmaster Relations. he arranged for this article written by the writers of Bizymoms.com , which has been dedicated to helping women work from home for over 10 years! Visit their interactive message boards, informative articles, help and advice from the Bizymoms’ Home Business Support Team and achieve your own work at home dreams with our home business start up kits.

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

Experience the ROI of Relationships