Want to lose money in affiliate marketing? Don’t choose your product wisely.

All too often I see posts from frustrated affiliate marketers, who are trying their best to promote a product, only to see no sales. And surprisingly, often they seem to do everything right. They listen what the gurus say, and then they replicate it as best as they can. So why is it, that even with all the SEO, copy, design, marketing, blogging, adword campaigns, social networking and all other kinds of new and old school techniques they are not able to monetize their efforts? What to look for, what to improve? Choose the right product to promote.

There are tons of affiliate programs promoting thousands of products. The problem is – many of them are just worth nothing. Picking up the right product to promote is a must. No SEO trick is going to save your failing sales if the product is not something people want or need. Remember, we live in a society completely saturated with marketing messages, and people do recognize that. People check reviews of your product and talk to other users before they buy. And with such an easy access to information, the old saying “One happy customer will tell a friend, one unhappy customer will tell dozen friends” comes into play now more then ever.

The first thing to consider when choosing the product is a familiarity. You simply need to use the product and stand by it. This has been said million times, yet again and again you read the same question – ‘what should I promote?’. It is tempting to just pick a product based on highest profit margin. But if you do not know anything about the product itself, then you do not know anything about the most important aspect of any successful marketing campaign – the target audience. So even if the product is (accidentally) a good product, your sales will still be low and you will waste your money on a doomed campaign.

So you got the right product, now what? The second thing to consider is – marketability. Although selecting the right product is essential for any affiliate promotion, you still won’t get anywhere if the audience is too small, or even worse, not reachable. People spend more and more time online, however, there are some products for which online promotion is very unlikely to work. This again comes down to knowing your audience. For some products, traditional sale techniques will work much better than the best online sale letter. So when choosing the affiliate product, make sure you can actually sell it online.

And finally, there is one more thing that will make or break any campaign – profitability. If your profit margin is too small and so is the audience, then you are very likely to actually lose money, regardless of sales. Either you can move a lot of products for smaller margins, or less products for higher margins. It is not about number of sales, it is about your bottom line – am I making money, or am I losing money? Watch your bottom line like a hawk and do not let impressions interfere with the core numbers and statistics.

Choosing the right product is indeed the first step you need to make before you dive into any marketing. Knowing what to market, whom to market it to and have a good idea about bottom line numbers is what you need to base your marketing efforts on. Unless you are exceptionally lucky, or a true affiliate marketing guru, the other way around will always result in a failure and money loss. Just don’t do it.

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