The 5 Deadly Sins of Affiliate Marketing (You Could Be Making) #3

Why Leads Do Not Convert

            You have a list of 1000 people. You hear the top affiliate marketers stressing the importance of targeted traffic. You follow their advice but your leads are still not converting. You crunch up in despair. Why?

Low Quality Information

            The trend these days is that everyone is providing a free 5-day or 7-day e-course. While this is a very good idea to show that you are an expert in a particular field, I am appalled by the standards of the information.

            I recently subscribed to a time management e-course and I immediately saw the mistakes the publisher made.

1) Pitches in the e-mail             

            I open the email and surprise, surprise! In between the introduction and the link to the e-course is a pitch selling his e-book. This is a huge mistake because it is not in context and he is selling me a product on the first contact before he shows me what he is worth.

2) Too short or too long sections

            I was able to give him another chance because he might be providing me quality information. I click on the link that leads to his clever. Note this clever technique as it will bring your lead to browse through your website again.

            However, the content was nothing short of atrocious. It had 4 bullet points with 3 sentences below each. Not only does it look as if he put little or no effort into it, it seems as if he does not care for my welfare. At the end of the page is another sales pitch. What did I do? I unsubscribed right away.

            I proceeded to another e-mail and this e-course had an overwhelming amount of information – I scrolled down and it was 8 pages long. I decided to scan through the first lesson and I realized that there was very good information, interspersed with lots of fluff.

So you will have to find a balance between being too skimpy and too elaborate. Get to the point without degrading the quality of your content.

Building a Relationship

            Be the welcoming and generous friend to your leads. Give away high quality reports that are no longer than 20 pages to your leads and devoid of pitches.

            This is not difficult to do. You could compile a selection of high quality articles from article directories or your own articles, conduct an interview with an expert in the field or compile frequently asked questions.

            The purpose here is to build a relationship and the desired action you want from your leads here is to go to your website or blog for more free information.

Lesson of the day: your leads will convert if you solve their problems by giving away free high quality information and increase your value to them in their eyes.