Affiliate marketing programs have become a viable business model for marketers and a sustainable way to make a living online. The great thing is that most are free to join and will even provide you with an arsenal of promotion tools to get you started. You can literally get started making money with affiliate marketing for free if you choose to do so, which is why it is so enticing, especially to people just getting started.

However, as with any business, there are certain pitfalls that you need to avoid in order to be successful. here are 3 common mistakes to avoid when starting out with your affiliate marketing business.

Mistake #1: Choosing The Wrong Affiliate Program
There are two main things you need to do when choosing the right affiliate program and product to promote. The first thing has nothing to do with the product at all, and that is find a hungry crowd, a targeted market that is in need of something. For instance, let’s say you found some research showing that pet owners are finding it hard to buy expensive pet food for their pets, but they like to feed them the healthy brands.

Now you find the right product to promote. In this case, maybe an ebook on how to make your own pet food that saves you tons of money, but gives your pets the same nutritional value as the most expensive foods on the market.

Mistake #2: Joining Too Many Affiliate Programs
Some people, especially when starting out with affiliate marketing, overwhelm themselves by joining too many programs and for some reason think that they will make more money if they have more to promote. The fact is, starting out by promoting only a handful of products in or around the same niche is the best approach so that you can stay focused until you get those ones making sales. Then, you can always create new campaigns.

Mistake #3: Unfamiliar With The Product
When you’re promoting a product or service it really is beneficial if you know as much about it as possible. In fact, it’s recommended that you buy it and experience yourself if you really want to be able to talk about it well. There may come a time when someone asks you a question about it and you have no answers. This also helps if you are to build an opt-in list within the niche (which you are, right?). You want to be able to interact and answer questions for your subscribers and recommend products and services in a way that doesn’t sound fake or scripted.

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When you want to attract new subscribers to your opt-in list, it can be overwhelming to get started, especially when you know you’ll be competing with several other Internet marketers. The best way to build a massive list to improve your affiliate marketing sales is to entice your visitors with incentives to subscribe.

Here are 7 excellent ways to entice your visitors to subscribe to your opt-in list:

1.  Newsletter
Starting a newsletter is one of the most popular incentives to use when building an opt-in list for your affiliate marketing efforts. With an online newsletter, you can position yourself as an expert in your field, build credibility and trust, and ultimately more sales. However, one word of caution: don’t blast your list with nothing but sales. The reason your subscribers signed up is to get some free valuable information, so be sure to give it to them before pitching and affiliate product or service. Also, be sure to keep your content fresh, The biggest reason that people unsubscribe to newsletters is that they don’t feel the information is relevant to them any longer.

2. Free download
Often combined with a newsletter, the free download is a great incentive because it’s instant gratification and if it’s presented right, it can be perceived as a must-have item. For instance, if you were to provide the “3 secrets to making more money in your niche” in exchange for an email, that can be very enticing. The download could be a set of articles, an ebook, free software, or a number of other ideas. Make it valuable and you will have a happy subscriber list in no time!

3. Free Course
Another great way to get visitors to subscribe to your opt-in list is to offer them a free course on a relevant topic in whatever niche you are promoting.  A course can be small (but informative) consisting of as little as 5 or 10 articles spread out of a month’s time. This is just enough frequency to keep you in their minds and build a relationship, but also infrequent enough that it doesn’t seem like you’re bombarding their email

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If you’re trying to make money online, whether it is affiliate marketing or any other type of business, opt-in list building is key to generating  long term success. In fact, many internet marketers spend over 80% of their time building their opt-in list.

There is one main reason that you should build an opt-in list and believe it or not, it’s not to make massive amounts of money. Of course, you want to make money from your list, but you must realize that the number one reason to generate the list is to build a relation with your customers and gain their trust. Making money is secondary.

You see, the money won’t come, or at least it will be a lot harder to generate, if you don’t bond with your readers, customers, and followers.

One of the biggest mistakes new marketers make is building an opt-in list and then bombarding them with offers immediately after they have opted in to receive emails from you.

Depending on the type of list you are generating, it is likely that the user chose to opt-in to your email list in order to receive some valuable free information on whatever niche topic you are in. So, be sure to give that to them, otherwise you are sure to have a large unsubscribe ratio.

This is especially true for affiliate marketing. As an affiliate, you are making money from recommending other people’s products and services. You must first gain the trust of your readers before you go and blast them with every offer under the sun.

The ultimate goal is to continue to add new subscribers to your list while keeping the current subscribers happy. Even after they have been on your list for a while, be sure to continue sending them a freebie report, articles, downloads, and other valuable information every couple weeks at least. This will keep them happy and actually look forward to opening your emails which will pay off in the long run when you get a high open rate to the times when you do send out an offer that will make you money.

Don’t be a salesman. You need to look out for your subscribers and be their friends. Do that, and they will gladly buy from you.

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