There’s no shortage of affiliate marketing success blueprints out there. These blueprints supposedly walk you through all the steps you need to achieve success with your affiliate marketing business. They give you all sorts of technical information. Many come with great looking pictures and charts. So far so good right?
The problem is a lot of those resources simply hype you up and get you all excited about affiliate marketing, but at the end of the day they leave you hanging. How come? Well, it’s one thing to figure out what to do, when to do it and how to do it. As important as these pieces of information may be, ultimately if you don’t know why you should be doing things, you will fail. It’s only a matter of time. Failure will get the better of you sooner rather than later.
This is why it’s really important to understand the power of purpose as reflected by the three factors I’m going to talk about below. Ignore these and you should not be surprised if your affiliate marketing business doesn’t get the results that you had hoped for. In fact, don’t be too shocked if it doesn’t get any results at all. It may well turn out that you have put together an affiliate marketing business that lacks the three most important ingredients for ultimate success.
Mindset
The most important factor for affiliate marketing success if the right mindset. You have to attack it with the right attitude. You can’t just believe the hype. You can’t just be excited about the prospect of making money. You have to do something more.
You have to approach it with a mindset of a student because if you were to look at it from the perspective of somebody who is mining for gold, a string of disappointment would be enough to derail you. Failing to see that money materialize would be enough to discourage you and you end up quitting.
When you allow yourself to approach your business like a student, it will be very hard to shake you off. You’re always on the lookout for learning. This way even if you fail, or if you meet with one challenge after another, you still feel positive. You still keep at it– to keep experimenting until you overcome. Think like a student, not a gold prospector.
Return on effort
At some point in the game, you have to know when to fold your cards. You have to know when to call it quits. If it turns out that you’re putting in too much time and effort in your business even though it’s making money, it may not be worth it. You have to be completely honest with yourself regarding the return on effort threshold, which you will not compromise on.
If you don’t get that return, get ready to sell your website or to shut it down. Focus on something else that will earn you more money. Time is your most important asset and you’re wasting your time and you’re wasting a tremendous amount of opportunity cost sticking to something that has a low return on effort.
Content strategy
Even if you’re just promoting a link, you still have to have a content strategy. The strategy must make sense. The strategy must deliver value to people you are trying to turn into your costumers. If you don’t have this kind of value-based strategy, or if you have absolutely no content strategy at all, then it’s only a matter of time until you fail. Maybe you make a few sales here and there but that is still a failure. Focus on having a solid content strategy right out of the gate.
Keep the three neglected factors above in mind if you take your affiliate marketing business’ success seriously. These three factors will take you to where you need to go. You have to focus on them. You need to make sure that they guide you.