Here’s 6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates. Affiliate marketing can be tough, especially if you’re a beginner. There’s a lot to learn and then you need to actually do something, once you know what to do.
But you don’t know what the outcome will be, and you’re a little uncertain whether it’s worth your time and the effort. In this state of “cautious trepidation” you’re not taking bold steps. More like you’re taking nervous and unsure actions and then looking for results to confirm whether it’s worth your while! You’re uncertain, so you tread carefully.
The problem here is that when you look for results, you confirm your scepticism, and this leads to inaction.
Perhaps you write a blog post, and share it on your social media platform. Nothing happens. So you create an ebook, and place it on your website. Still nothing. At this stage you’ve spent several days/weeks/months with no results to show. Perhaps affiliate marketing isn’t for you after all, you think to yourself! Hmmm!
Around 95% of affiliates will quit, so by not doing so you’re already ahead of the herd! But you also want to start generating sales, or your efforts are pointless. Or are they? Perhaps a better way of looking at your affiliate marketing efforts is from the point of view of a great analogy – the Chinese Bamboo Tree.
6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates – #1…The Chinese Bamboo Tree
So here’s game changer number 1! The Chinese Bamboo tree takes 5 years of gestation under the surface of the soil. Once it sprouts through the soil, it grows 90 feet in five weeks! During it’s gestation period, it needs to be watered and fertilised. Affiliate marketing is a little like this too.
First you spend time learning and studying, to understand how it works. Next you build some infrastructure around your affiliate business – a website and an email marketing system perhaps. This all takes time and it’s time where you don’t see any results because you’re in the early phase of building your foundations.
The next phase is marketing. You must learn some kind of marketing strategy to attract an audience in order to promote and sell your affiliate product. Some affiliates will post on social media, others will write blog posts or create videos. Some will run ads, sending traffic into their sales funnels.
Depending on your particular circumstances, marketing budget, choice of marketing method and the relative competition in your niche, this can take some time! It’s going to be different for everyone. Here’s the point. If you start looking for results before you’ve done the work, the result will be inaction. You’ll look for the shoots of the “Chinese Bamboo” before you’ve given it time to develop.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer -#2… Think Big & Acquire The Right Knowledge
The “roots” of your Chinese Bamboo tree are your knowledge and aspirations. Everything grows from that. If you’re thinking you’ll just make a little “on the side” extra cash each month, your actions and results will grow from that kind of thinking.
If you think a little bigger, and decide to replace your income from affiliate marketing, you can absolutely do that too – but only if you believe you can first!
Henry Ford : “Whether a man believes he can or he can’t, he’s right”
So, be honest. What is your vision for your affiliate business? What does success look like for you?
In a similar vein, the knowledge you acquire in the beginning will set you on a path. In a straight line, even a 1% deviation off target will take a rocket far off its target on a trip to the moon.
Thinking big and acquiring the right knowledge is therefore a pretty important factor. If you’ve got a bad strategy, for example, even if you work really hard at it for months, it still won’t pay off! See my post on how to earn more money online with less effort.
6 Game Changers For Struggling Affiliates – The BattleFront Soldier
A while ago I started learning Forex marketing, before I decided to become an affiliate. I studied for a couple of years but eventually gave up because it didn’t work for me. I just lost money! But I learned quite a lot in the process and one of the things I learned was to be a “sniper” not a battlefront soldier.
“A trader is a sniper, not a battlefront soldier” – one of my mentors told me.
The same is true of affiliate marketing.
When I started affiliate marketing I posted my affiliate link everywhere that would allow it. I posted it on eBay, I posted it on my social media profiles, just everywhere! But nobody bought any affiliate products from it.
Why?
Simply because I was out blasting my affiliate link like a battlefront soldier. Whereas I should have been a “sniper”. A sniper might take longer to find their target. They lay in wait, perhaps for months. Then they take a single shot, and get their target.
In the case of affiliate marketing, their “target” is a sale.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer – #3 Be A “Sniper”
So how can you be the sniper as an affiliate marketer? One of the best ways to become the “sniper” as an affiliate is to understand your customer avatar. See the customer avatar worksheet pdf for more on this. The customer avatar, is the type of person you can best serve with your particular affiliate product. By understanding “who” this is, you can more effectively target them online very specifically and ignore the rest.
Posting your affiliate links anywhere and everywhere is being the “battle front soldier”. But you’re wasting a lot of effort with this tactic. Most people online aren’t interested in what you’re offering. But when you bring this understanding to your affiliate business, and get very specific about “who” your target audience is, you can become more intentional about every action you perform online to attract them.
Each blog post is crafted with your customer avatar in mind. Each video/ advert speaks intentionally to their needs, and in their language – speaking to their pains and problems. Adverts are targeted towards the demographics of your target audience – those exact people who are most likely to want, and even need your product/service.
6 Game Changers If You’re A Struggling Affiliate Marketer – #4 …Take Responsibility
You are the weakest link if your affiliate business isn’t working! It’s not the fault of the “business” or of your marketing tactic, it’s you! Unless you take full responsibility for this, you can always sidestep your responsibility for success with your affiliate business. If you do this, you will look for excuses rather than solutions.
Your business cannot grow beyond the thinking you bring to it. So if somewhere inside your mind, you don’t believe in yourself, or think you’re incapable of the success you really want, or that it’s simply unachievable, that is what you need to fix! This is often related to your “identity” or self image – how you see yourself in the world. See also how to change your self image.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate. – C. G. Jung
There’s power in accountability. When you accept that you’re fully responsible, regardless of your circumstances, it can be very empowering for you and your business. Are you honestly taking full responsibility for the results in your affiliate business?
#5 Your Circle Of Influence
Jim Rohn – “You are the average of the 5 people you spend most time with”.
If you’re a struggling affiliate, it’s definitely worth having a look at your circle of influence – close friends/family who you might go to for support and advice. Are they supporting you and cheering you on with your affiliate endeavours? Or are they undermining your efforts and/or secretly hoping you’ll fail?
Although this sounds a little harsh, the dynamics of a friendship can change dramatically if you succeed beyond the success of your circle, or in a different way. So there are subconscious conflicts going on beneath the surface, even if your circle doesn’t let on overtly.
Ideally find people on a similar quest to you. You can join an online community of entrepreneurs here.
#6 …Giving Vs Getting, Producing Not Consuming
When I became an affiliate all I could think about was pasting my affiliate link and getting those sales. I was desperate for a sale. Unfortunately, desperation is seldom a great marker of success! After joining an online business mentorship program (access here), I got given some great advice:
Give first, get later – switch your mindset to giving/helping, rather than to getting
I realised I was mostly focused on “getting”, in my affiliate endeavours. This came across in my email messaging, my advertising and my writing. It was a great realisation. So I started thinking about my intention when writing a blog post. Over time, I was able to switch from “getting” to helping.
This made a massive impact for me. Things changed quite clearly and I was enjoying the process much more because I wasn’t obsessing about my results (or lack of them).
Giving also means producing content rather than absorbing it. Just think about how much content you absorb/consume on a daily basis. Most of us are consumers and not producers. By switching your activity to producing content, rather than only consuming it, you’re helping people and leading them to your affiliate products simultaneously.
Recap/Summary
So there’s my 6 game changers for struggling affiliates. Here’s a quick recap:
- Affiliate marketing is like the Chinese Bamboo tree – work on fertilising the soil and watering it – grow in knowledge and experience and don’t look for results until you’re in full swing with your affiliate habits. The work will pay off, but you must be patient. The Chinese Bamboo grows 90 feet in only 5 weeks once it breaks the surface of the soil. The same is true of affiliate marketing if you take the right action steps (and keep taking them)
- Think big and get the right knowledge – thinking small seldom creates large results. So think in terms of the volume of people you can reach, how you can serve and the right action steps for your given situation and circumstances. The wrong knowledge can take you far off course.
- Be a “sniper” not a battle front soldier – a sniper knows his target. So don’t blast everyone online looking for the sale. Know your target audience and customer avatar, and make every action secure in that knowledge that you’re targeting the right type of person with every action you take.
- Take full responsibility – is your self image or identity sabotaging your best efforts. Make an effort to notice and understand the programs running in the background of your unconscious mind. See my post on how to change your subconscious beliefs.
- Your circle of influence – are your closest friends and relatives unconsciously wishing your failure, or do they genuinely want your success? Do you take advice from people who are more successful than you, or less? Find other affiliates by joining an online community.
- Become a producer rather than a consumer, start giving/helping rather than trying to constantly “get” from your affiliate marketing business. Take an inventory of the time you spend consuming material online versus producing it.
