Are you trying to succeed with affiliate marketing but beginning to think you might be a failure due to all the challenges involved in the process?
I’ve been there…
As with everything really, there are ultimately those that succeed and those that fail.
But successful people have nearly all failed along the way. And their failures often become part of a guide for someone else’s success.
If you’re determined to be a success or before you accept failure for good, check out these 13 ways successful affiliate marketers overcome the horrible obstacle of failure along the way to success.
#1 They Accept the Fact that Affiliate Marketing is Harder Than They Thought
That might seem like an obvious thing to have to accept but the truth is that many scammers keep telling newbies that becoming an affiliate marketer and succeeding is easy.
That fact is that the process of affiliate marketing is simple but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. No, this is a real business. It requires a learning curve and it is NOT about a push-button way to steady income.
There are those who can’t get this idea out of their head; the idea that it’s super easy.
Successful affiliates are able to understand that making money online isn’t about finding some secret hack to wealth.
#2 They Don’t Dwell On The Past
It can be a real downer when you look back at your past struggles and think ‘well I’m still not there!’ Or ‘if I haven’t got it right this far, I’m probably never going to.’
There’s nothing you can do to rectify the past. The mistakes you made or the ideas you followed to no avail are now a lesson for the future.
Successful affiliate marketers start each day as if they’re just setting out and that’s how they build on past efforts rather than letting all those rookie mistakes of the past bring on despondency.
#3 They Abandon The Get-Rich-Quick Mentality
By far one of the biggest reasons for failure at affiliate marketing is that most who are new to it are mislead by the creators of get-rich-quick schemes.
Often people invest significant amounts of money into these types of programs but never get into profit and usually lose their money and sometimes fall into serious debt.
At this point many beginners will give up for good. They’ve risked and lost too much money. Others will continue to have fits and starts at making money online using DFY systems.
But a smart and determined few will realise that the entire method and mindset of making money fast and easily is WRONG.
You can’t be a successful internet marketer without learning the skills of marketing and without doing the work. The pitfall is that people are told and they believe that they can.
Once the idea of getting rich quick has left your belief system, you are now in with the very few who really succeed at this business.
#4 They Start Learning the Real Way to Succeed
The good news is that it is possible to learn how to do affiliate marketing properly. We all know that to get good at something you need to know what you’re doing and that usually means learning from trusted experts.
If you are taught properly, you will succeed, provided you follow up on the instructions given to you.
The affiliate’s job is to drive targeted traffic to offers and this often comes down to learning things like niche selection, keyword research, quality content creation, SEO, email marketing and other things.
If you never learn any of this, you won’t be able to build a sustainable online business – it’s really that simple.
#5 They Take Massive Action
An online business in affiliate marketing can turn out to be very lucrative and can even become automated to an extent, meaning that with sufficient time and effort you can build steady streams of passive income.
But the only way this becomes possible is by putting in A LOT work.
And rest assured, it does pay off eventually if you are doing things more or less correctly.
#6 They Chose a Niche They Love
Think about it, if you are creating content day in and day out on a topic you don’t have any real interest in, you’re not going to do so well.
You will struggle to persevere, your content might suck and not get ranked on search engines plus it will likely fail to engage your target audience which will result in not getting conversions.
Successful affiliates don’t just think about what will sell, but what they are interested in selling. Because a business in affiliate marketing can’t just be a robotic process. You need to really be into it if you want to persevere long term and make consistent sales.
What this boils down to is that success is usually attached to a love of one’s niche. Create a business around a real interest like camping in certain areas of the world, Japanese food, DJI drones or what have you.
Interestingly if you talk from the heart, you are far more likely to engage your listeners/readers and engagement leads to trust which in turn leads to sales.
But you can only talk from the heart if you love what you are talking about, right?
You still need to be accurate, factual and all that, but the golden rule is to be yourself, express some emotion and passion, and always avoid roboticism.
#7 They Have a One-On-One Way of Communicating With Their Audience
Another common mistake affiliate marketers make is thinking of their readers as ‘clicks’ rather than as human beings.
But those who really know what they’re doing learn to adapt themselves to their audience in a way that ensures their content is easy to digest and feels to the reader or viewer like it’s aimed at them personally.
This is a very important skill for ranking well in search results and for overall success.
#8 They Have More Than One Income Stream
You’ll usually find that an online business owner who is doing well has more than one source of income.
At the start it isn’t especially advisable to create more than one income stream. Beginners are advised to focus on one thing at a time.
But later on, if one income stream is doing well and there is time to spare, it’s a good idea to build a second income stream (and eventually more) using the same or similar methods as the first income stream.
This is a way of protecting your online business as well as making it bigger. If one income stream starts to decline or fail for whatever reason, you will have others to fall back on.
#9 They Learn How to Fix Problems with Their Business on Their Own
You are going to run into problems now and then with an online business. That’s just how the game goes.
At first you will constantly need to reach out to others like your coach, your online community (if you are part of one) and technical support (if you have a website for example).
But with experience, you will learn to identify and fix issues on your own as is the case with successful affiliate marketers.
An example of a problem with your business could be if you are running a website and you notice that your posts are not being indexed by Google. What do you do about it? With experience you will learn to go to Google Search Console and tackle the problem from there.
#10 They Get Used to the Daily Grind and Enjoy It!
If you’re making steady progress towards a goal it’s because you’re clocking in! It may sound crazy but for a lot of people the biggest problem they have is being lazy. Results are about ‘getting down to business,’ opening the laptop and putting in those hours of work.
Successful affiliate marketers get used to just being in front of their screen and getting on with the work they need to do.
But as mentioned above, they tend to like their niche and their work gradually feels less and less like work and becomes easier and even fun to crack on with.
In this business there is room for a lot of creativity plus you have the freedom to do things in whatever way you like.
Your online business should ideally become your best hobby – something you just love doing and talking about and getting better at.
Having a real passion for attending to your business is a very clear mark of a successful affiliate marketer.
#11 Successful Affiliate Marketers Operate Across Multiple Mediums
This simply means that they usually reach out to their audience via website articles, video content, email marketing and social media platforms.
Again, when starting out it is usually a good idea to stick to one thing, for example, either focus on a blog or a YouTube channel.
Then work your way up to other things and establish a bigger online presence.
Some of your target audience will be more into reading while others will prefer video content. You need to be able to cater to everyone and your brand needs to have a presence on all the popular online platforms.
#12 They Use Past Failures to Their Advantage
All successful affiliates have had to learn not to do certain things which they did before but only to meet with failure.
For example, most have tried shortcuts and DFY systems but without getting anywhere and ultimately losing money.
Others have tried getting content out there which isn’t good enough and is not SEO-friendly.
They have also learned to do certain things which if neglected will result in overall failure in their business.
For example, keyword research; making sure you’re not producing anything that no one is ever going to see or something that no one is looking for, etc.
#13 They Just Keep Going!
In the end it’s down to you whether or not you fail at affiliate marketing. Corny as it is, you really can’t beat the ‘just keep going’ attitude. That’s what takes away all the power of failure and it’s threats against you.
Successful affiliate marketers simply refuse to give up and that is the most decisive move they make against failure. They fail along the way, sure, but in the end they succeed because they just keep going!
They learn more, they try different strategies, they improve on acquired skills etc. until they get to where they want to be.