Affiliate Marketing Published date: October 05, 2007 © 2007 Avangate B.V. page 1 Affiliate Stress 7 tips to deal with the affiliate marketer stress Cristian Dorobantescu, Affiliate Network Coordinator, Avangate B.V. Affiliate Marketing, Published date: October 05, 2007 With the 80/20 rule going on the Affiliate marketing business, it's easy to realize that there are a lot of unhappy affiliates out there. Frustrated affiliates, stressed affiliates, demoralized affiliates. The most common questions you will find on any affiliate forums are around the ways of getting some sort of success in affiliate marketing: getting visitors to the site, convert them into sales or increasing the volumes. If you are: 􀂾 waiting for the first site visitors 􀂾 waiting for the first sale 􀂾 or looking for ways to increase any of the above and you don't get them early enough or good enough, chances are that you are going to suffer some form of affiliate marketer stress. Most affiliates work on a trial & error model, and as soon as you hear the word "error" more than you hear "success" it just ads-up to the stress. Affiliate marketing tends to be a lonely job, or at least an unsocial one. You stay in front of the computer in your basement, bedroom or whatever and you wait things to happen. You check statistics very often, look to see how your site performs and if visitors will actually buy something. In most cases, this will actually take a long time, and you will have to work your but to try new things, add things or improve things. By the time you will get at some level of success you will be a lonely wolf in his nest, working in pajamas all day long, maybe forgetting about personal hygiene. Moreover, your family will not www.avangate.com Affiliate Marketing Published date: October 05, 2007 © 2007 Avangate B.V. page 2 understand or trust what you are doing and therefore they are not able to help and support. It's hard to make a difference, and even harder to find the ways to be successful. Because (getting back to the 80/20 rule now), you simply don't know how to make things work and you are just waiting for a miracle to happen. And that's a major source of stress, unhappiness and frustration. I'm not going to tell you how to be successful as an Affiliate Marketer -the web is booming with more or less credible pieces of advice and stories. It's strange however that we don't have resources on how to deal with frustration in affiliate marketing which is actually addressing the largest part of the affiliate marketers. 7 Tips to deal with the affiliate marketer stress 1. Stop thinking affiliate marketing is an easy job. I know you probably read some of those getting rich quick stories, but -they are not true. Affiliate marketing is hard, and has been hard for Top affiliates as well before becoming famous for what they do. 2. Affiliate marketing should be started as a side job. It's not going to make you real money (unless you are really lucky) in the first 6 month, a year or maybe two. Why add the "getting enough income to support life" to the frustration? It's an unnecessary frustration which you can easily and safely avoid. And even more, being successful at your regular job might actually make you feel better about yourself as well. 3. Multiple income sources. Try to make a little from more things -what is successful today might get belly up tomorrow. It also increases your chances to get lucky and make it as a successful affiliate marketer. And even if you don't do excellent on any of the things you try, the sum of things might just make you successful enough. 4. Ask for help from Affiliate Managers. I am an Affiliate Manager and I can tell you that I'm getting paid to make sales happen. I'd love to get 20 phone calls per day and 200 emails from www.avangate.com Affiliate Marketing Published date: October 05, 2007 © 2007 Avangate B.V. page 3 affiliates asking for help. I'd love to have even more phone calls or emails (that would be the best reason to ask for that blond assistant I've always dreamed :) to have). Still, so few affiliates are asking for help. 5. Go out for a night or two or even for a week. It's a real World out there that is not connected to Internet. Get the real thing for a while instead of the virtual one. It will help you relax, evaluate things and maybe getting a different meaning of your life and work. 6. Keep on doing it. Sure, the easiest way to get to the stress relief is to stop. But that's not going to actually help out on the long run -time will pass and you will keep asking yourself what went wrong and if you are good enough to do it well. Could you do better? 7. Get a social life. Beer might help. Staying long hours in front of the computer looking for the magical answer will probably make you smarter or willing to succeed, but don't forget, you are an affiliate to get a good life and not live to be an affiliate. Looking to get help on affiliate marketing? Give me a call or write me (+31 20 890 8080 or email: info@avangate.com ), I would be glad to help at least on selling software (we are only getting software in our network). I will help you because you will help me get that blond assistant. *** Sign up now for the Avangate Digest Newsletter and receive our Internet marketing tips, shareware industry tools, techniques and resources as soon as they're released. E-mail this to a friend*** Copyright © 2007 www.avangate.com all rights reserved. This article was written by Cristian Dorobantescu, Affiliate Network Coordinator at Avangate B.V. The author has in depth knowledge of internet marketing services and website analysis applied to the software industry and e-commerce development. www.avangate.com Affiliate Marketing Published date: October 05, 2007 © 2007 Avangate B.V. page 4 This article may be reproduced in a website, e-zine, CD-ROM, book, magazine, etc. so long as the above information is included in full, including the link back to this website. Please e-mail at articles@avangate.com, before using the article. *** About Avangate B.V. Avangate B.V. provides solutions for electronic software distribution and reseller management, assisting software companies worldwide in successfully selling their products online and at the same time efficiently managing a distribution network. The company’s offer includes an eCommerce platform incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus software marketing services and additional marketing and sales tools such as an affiliate network, automated cross selling options, software promotion management, real time reporting, 24/7 shopper support, and the myAvangate reseller management program specifically designed for software sales. More information can be found on the corporate website, at www.avangate.com Avangate B.V. Van Heuven Goedhartlaan 937, 1181 LD Amstelveen, The Netherlands Tel: +31 208908080 Fax: +31 202031309 Email: info@avangate.com Web: www.avangate.com .member of GECAD Group, delivering innovative IT solutions Worldwide since 1992 www.avangate.com