“What is your biggest struggle in affiliate marketing right now?” This is a question that you’ll read a lot of times in forums groups or social media.
I collected the common answers, from all affiliate marketing beginners and here are the answers to the common affiliate marketing mistakes and struggles.
Let’s end this struggle. Here are some tips for the collected answers
Contents
1) Not Getting Started And Overthinking
A lot of people are overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. Of course, they are… there are tons of information and it’s hard to distinguish quality and nonsense sometimes.
It can be tough to keep it simple when everybody is trying to tell you that you need a website, all social media channels, complicated automation, multiple funnels and all kinds of software and stuff…
The right is: It can help but you don’t need any of that. If you like to, you can make tons of money only using your Facebook profile…Just focus on one thing!
This is a problem for a lot of beginners have because of the overwhelming mass of information can get you into a paralysis of overthinking and looking for the “best” thing to do.
There is no such thing as a “best” method, only one that suits you best. People make money on youtube, with blogging, with social media, it’s a question of preference.
So the best thing you can do is pick one and start. Starting perfect is a myth. Find one who does what you would like to do and follow closely.
We all make mistakes and learn in the process. You’ll get better, adjust and improve.
What would you LIKE to do? Start with that, and only that.
You can add more layers and channels later. Don’t even think about starting everything at once; you’ll fail with certainty…
I highly recommend starting with free traffic first. Organic FB, blogging, YouTube or any other social media.
Don’t fall for the misconception that you start with FB ads, make an ad and magically double your money every time someone clicks on your ad.
Paid advertising is another level, and you’ll need some serious cash to test until you find profitable ads. Learn the basics first.
You need three things:
- A product
- A sales process
- Leads…
Simple Examples:
- Clickfunnels – A funnel with bonuses – Youtube
- High Ticket coaching – FB Messenger – Outreach
- Air B’n’B – Enticing Content with a link in bio – Instagram
- Dog Training – Link in Blog/or Lead Magnet – SEO and Blogging
Figure those out organically, and when you find a system that works and brings commissions, you can start pouring money on that with paid ads.
But until then, stay away from paid ads when you’re starting.
Pick one thing that you’ll like or enjoy doing and commit to that. Blend out all the other gurus, methods, and shiny objects until you can make it work.
Every method works; you just need to stick to it. Be patient because you won’t see success right from the beginning, that’s totally normal.
2) Can’t Decide What To Sell – Can’t Find An Market Without Competition
There are basically only two methods of deciding what to sell:
- Pick something that you like or you’re passionate about.
- Pick something with a good commission
The first one will help you to stick to the process. You’ll have to create a lot of content…and when you write or make videos about something that you actually enjoy, you’ll probably have more fun doing that.
Make your hobby your business. Do you think you can’t make money with a hobby? You’re probably wrong. There is nearly nothing in the world wide web that you can’t monetize.
People are making tons of money doing reviews for nerf guns…or creating stories for kids with lego…
The second way is going where the money is. Find a product that gives you a decent commission that can also be a recurring commission or high ticket to get the most out of your effort.
The perfect scenario would, of course, be something that you’re passionate about AND that pays recurring or high commissions.
Now there is one significant rule. DON’T SELL CRAP!
Pick a high-quality product that you know, like, and believe in. I highly recommend using the products that you promote yourself. That will help you with promoting them because you know what’s inside.
I see so many people promoting products, they obviously don’t use or know what’s inside… that will kill your reputation. Don’t be that guy…
You don’t need to find a “blue ocean” necessarily. Just find your angle in the “red ocean”. There is a reason why there is competition in a niche or market. It’s where the money is!
You don’t need to be in one of the big three health/wealth/relationships, but that’s where the money is.
Even now, when the world is in a crisis, people are concerned about their health, wealth, and relationships more than ever.
What would you think are the sales numbers for home fitness programs, relationship advice, and make money online opportunities in the Corona-Crisis?
So ideally stay in one of those evergreens.
3) Having No Money To Invest Or To Get Started
You don’t need any money at all to invest!
This not exactly one of the major affiliate marketing mistakes but false beliefs. Money can help you accelerate the process. Money can help you to get a mentor, a course, or a blueprint, but you don’t need it when you don’t want to spend money in the beginning. Affiliate programs are mostly free to join.
Check out one of the best free programs and trainings out there: The Clickfunnels Affiliate Program
A Youtube or Instagram channel or your Facebook Messenger is free. Yes, you can use tools to build bridge pages, automate processes, capture leads, analyze data, or pay someone for advice…
I’m a big fan of investing in yourself BUT you can absolutely 100% start free.
4) Now Knowing How To Get Traffic
The biggest issue I see is the lack of patience and strategy. The strategies aren’t that hard to learn. But being patient, doing the work, and not stopping is the hard part.
Doing organic Facebook strategies can bring you faster results, but you need to be active.
Doing SEO and Youtube just takes time. It can be super frustrating to keep pounding on your content, not seeing any results, but that’s what will make the difference between those who make it and those who don’t.
Of course, you can use paid traffic and throw a lot of money into traffic generation, but you should know exactly what you do. Build organically first and amplify with paid traffic!
5) Not Having Enough Bonuses For Your Offer
The Bonus war is on! Don’t be part of it. To incentivize people to buy from you it’s highly advised to add complementary bonuses to your offer. That means you craft an offer around the product you promote and give away bonuses, so people will have more reasons to buy.
But you don’t need a hundred crappy PDF’s for your bonus offer…no one needs that.
Try to be unique and find something valuable to complement the product you’re selling, even though it’s your personal support with the setup that will be super valuable already.
Think about which problems someone will suddenly have when using the product you’re promoting. Craft your bonus offer around that and give personal support.
And then start… You can always upgrade your offer along the way.
Both, not having an offer at all or just stuffing it with useless crap are real affiliate marketing mistakes. Give people a reason to buy from you!
Even though you’re breaking into a new niche. Take a look into what other people offer. Find out where you can get that or how to create it. Or even pay someone to do it.
They don’t have an offer in that niche? Awesome! Create one and you’ll stand out already! Look for PLR products or the public library, convert text into audio or video presentations, or create checklists with onboarding steps for the product. Try to come up with ways, your customer will have it easier to digest the product that he purchases.
Maybe find someone to make a joint venture to support you. Is it a lot of work? Yes! Do you want to stand out? Then do the work!
A great way to get your offer stack upgraded is an expert interview. Reach out to people from the niche and ask for an Interview and get it into your offer stack. You get a cool goodie, and they get some more reach within your audience.
6) Finding a Mentor
Finding a good mentor is easy. Finding an affordable one may be not.
It took me months only to find the opportunity. Keep your eyes open. Find someone you like and who has a good reputation. When he has a paid mentorship program that you can hardly afford, then ask yourself how hard you want to be where he is now.
Make a decision…Not enough money yet? Work your way in. Follow people who you would consider as a mentor. Engage with their content. Try to add value to their audience.
Ask them if you could do anything for them to get some sort of mentorship, be that moderating their groups, writing content for them, editing videos…just anything you could possibly do, and do it for free in exchange for mentorship.
Still can’t find one? Try to find out if he has mentees. Reach out to them and ask for the same agreement. You’ll start at one level lower. But would you go directly to Tiger Woods if you want to learn to golf?
7) Having The Wrong Mindset Or Shiny Object Syndrome
Are you lacking consistency?
This is one of the bigger affiliate marketing mistakes…Well, mindset problem in general…
I’m a big believer that mindset is more important than skills. What is the point of having a skill or knowing something but not implementing it?
You’ll need self-discipline to get the work done that needs to be done. Start reading, listening, or watching to the right content that gives you that urge to get things done.
Anything that motivates you or puts you into the right frame of mind. Do this daily!
We all fall into bad habits lightly. So we need to create habits that enable us to get stuff done. When you clutter your mind with Netflix, mindless scrolling, TV and Gaming, if you can’t focus on work…stop it.
Make a detox. I don’t say quit forever but make a break. What is more important to you, hitting your goals and getting that dreamlife of freedom or watching an episode of “whatever”?
So quit all of that for a week. Don’t look at your phone. Get some positive input from books, podcasts, or videos for a limited time every day and see the magic happen with your work ethics.
Shiny object syndrome is totally real. Nearly everyone I talk to has tried multiple online ventures trying to find “the one thing” that makes money.
But also everyone who has success agrees, cut out all the stuff, and focus on one thing. Blend out the rest. Unsubscribe from the Youtube channels and newsletters you don’t need. Don’t look for the next thing. Stay in the lane and do nothing else until you start getting traction.
Still not convinced you’ll pull this off? Then get an accountability partner.
Not a close friend of yours…someone you know but not someone who lets you get away with your stuff…Make a contract that will ensure you’ll be punished when not doing the tasks.
Talk once a week with each other. Didn’t do your tasks? Pay $100 to the other person! Would that be an incentive to do the work?
8) Thinking A Market Or Niche Is Saturated
Most of the time there is no saturation…Period.
There are more than enough people out there. Two billion people on Facebook alone.
To become a Clickfunnels dream car winner you need to subscribe 100 users under your affiliate links.
Do you want a Clickfunnels dream car? There are 250.000 people in the Clickfunnels Facebook group alone, only 115.000 are Clickfunnels users (probably not even all in the group), and you need only 100! That’s 0.04% of this group.
That’s the Clickfunnels group alone, think about all the other groups and people from the online world using page-builder, funnel and email software doing online marketing in all kinds of industries… forget about saturation.
9) Not Knowing How To Get Leads Or Build A List
Ask yourself why someone should subscribe to your list?
Give a highly valuable lead magnet that people can’t resist. Try to solve one major pain point people have. Test different pain points, headlines, and so on until you find something that really sticks with your audience.
10) Trying To Get Content And Posts Written For All The Platforms!
That’s a tough one. Depending on how many platforms you want to post, this can be challenging, but I wouldn’t even recommend doing more than 2two platforms at once.
Even though there are tools like, Hootsuite who will spread your content on different platforms simultaneously it’s not a proper way of social media marketing.
Every platform should have a unique approach. Posting exactly the same piece of content on all platforms just makes you look lazy.
People like Peng Joon or GaryVee can do that, but they have a team…
Recycle your content to save time. When doing a video, transcribe it into a blog post or vice versa. Take snippets out of it for your social media.
Don’t try to create a unique and new piece of content for 3-5 different platforms; it’s impossible when you’re on your own. Better narrow down and focus on creating more high quality on fewer channels.
11) How To Figure Out The Ideal Client
Ask yourself some questions and do the research.
- Who uses my product?
- Who needs, or would benefit from it?
- What are problems, questions, roadblocks that my product can eliminate
- Which results does my ideal customer want?
- Match those with your product. Try to find out where your ideal customer hangs out on the internet. And hook them into your product. Ask them a couple of questions and build your perfect avatar.
- A lot of the time, we ourselves are part of our target audience. What are your problems that your product can solve?
Answering those questions will help you to build a customer avatar and find the ideal client for your products.
12) Not Knowing The Technical Side Around Setting Up Automations
Do you really need automation right now? Or do you just want it because it’s fancy? Simple get’s the job done.
Otherwise, there are tons of tutorials on all kinds of software and automation setups. It’s a learning curve we all need to get through.
Some people have it easier being tech-savvy others have a hard time. If you need to get it done, you can always ask someone for help or hire a freelancer to do the setup for you… OR look for someone who offers personal support along singing up under their affiliate links.
13) Not Being Able To Face Camera
Two ways. Don’t do it then…. or get over it.
You don’t need to get on camera. There are enough ways to do affiliate marketing without getting on camera.
If you think you need to be on Youtube, you can still do screen recordings.You want to be on camera, but you’re to shy? Well… get over it.
There is no other way around. When you really want to do that, then you have to face that fear. Of course, it’s uncomfortable. Most of us are uncomfortable with that, especially in the beginning. But nothing good comes from comfort zones.
The first recordings are the worst, but you’ll get used to it. Make it a challenge… Do one short video every day… Get comfortable with the process.
Do you want to get stopped just by this insecurity of getting on camera? Is this where your dream ends? Come on, dare it, it’s just a video
Related: Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?
Conclusion: Common Affiliate Marketing Mistakes That Can Cause Struggle
There you have it! The most common mistakes and struggles a lot of beginners do in the beginning. Not even beginners… It happens to all of us that we slip into shiny object syndrome or get demotivated from time to time.
But remember one thing. It’s all in your head!
Anyone can make it in affiliate marketing. No one started out perfectly so don’t stress this. Just get started and don’t stop. You’ll figure out the rest on the journey or find someone who can help you!
If you want to get into some free training to get started, just join my Facebook group. You’re welcome!
