Are You an Affiliate Marketing Failure?

The biggest challenge to this method of selling a product is that todays successful marketer must almost always accomplish it without ever hearing, seeing or coming into contact with the great majority of his customers. It shouldn't be a surprise that so few really "make it."

The negative statistics sure don't stop some of us though. People are lured into affiliate marketing quite like a moth to a lightbulb-we just can't help ourselves...even if we know the probable outcome.

And because affiliate marketing is arguably the quickest method of generating an online income, there won't be a shortage of new hopefuls any time soon.

Affiliate marketing is a balancing act played out between product developers and their affiliates. The developer supplies a product or line of products as well as some marketing support and the affiliate attempts to sell the product, through various and multiple channels and streams.

When sales do materialize it can seem to be a pretty fair deal; affiliate commissions run as high as 95%. And while it's true that the product has to meet some standards, (doing what it says it will do being pretty important), in the long run it's the cunning, perseverance and creativity of the affiliate that will determine if, this week anyway, the relationship with the developer is "fair and balanced."

In my observations I was perplexed by the number of articles that compared affiliate marketing to more traditional advertising and concluded that affiliate programs are more effective, often risk-free and more cost-efficient. If any one of those were true, why, again, do so many people fail?

I must admit that, for awhile anyway, that question had me completely stumped. Logic rules out luck. Not entirely of course, but enough that we can probably say with confidence that all of those that have succeeded did so with at least something more than just luck. And so I continued to read, watch and study. Hoping for something to jump out and say, "Ha! I was who you were looking for-I decide who fails and who succeeds online ."

No such luck.

And then it hit me. Slowly at first, but then with a gale-force blast. As I sat reading in yet another Guru's forum I had my moment of clarity. And I will state up front that I don't believe any person or company perpetuates what I am about to describe. Not intentionally.

In any communal situation, be it animal or human, through personality, negotiation skills or brute force a select minority become leaders. Until they die or are unseated, they sit atop the food chain, crumbs trickling down. And then there is everyone else. Except everyone else equals about 98% of the total, and here lies the biggest problem.

I always felt a little uneasy when I would sit in a seminar and hear a trainer or a Guru talk about driving visitors and potential customers to your website or blog, but I didn't know why I felt uncomfortable. I do now.

Customers and visitors do purchase online, without a doubt. What Joe and Jan Surfer do not buy, however, are tapes on list building, website templates in bulk, Adsense keyword software or header graphics. They don't usually need more than one small, shared hosting account, if one at all. They definitely do not know what blog and ping is, what keyword density means, or who Corey Rudl was.

I am an online shopping addict. Yet until a little over two years ago, I didn't belong to a single "Lifetime Gold-Level Membership" site; hadn't bought any article or ebook software, and didn't have an auto-responder account. And I didn't know anyone who had.

The truth is that I had never heard of those things, those terms, and even if I had I definitely didn't have a need for any of them. Or a "want." It occurred to me tht affiliate marketing comes very close to resembling the California Gold Rush- the successful entrepenuers were those, like Levi Strauss, who sold the "dream"...and the tools. They didn't get rich by getting dirty and sleeping on the ground. They got rich selling stuff to those that did.

And so the affiliate marketing supply chain goes like this: Guru A comes up with the latest, greatest, must-have widget and turns to his equal, Guru B, for some distribution help. Guru B recruits Gurus C and D because they have very large newsletter bases. A few weeks before launch the hype starts, and you can "see" the A affiliates doing their pre-sales. Almost by magic, testimonials from other recognizable neames appear in sales copy.

The B affiliates are scrambling with trying to organize their medium sized lists, and the C affiliates? Well, no one has told us anything...yet.

Note: If you ever wondered why a $197.00 product could be selling for less than 10 bucks 3 weeks later, you're about to find out.

On launch day, the proverbial reminder letter arrives at 6 AM letting the A affiliates know that, "We go live at Noon!" The B affiliates are obsessively adding up how many "for sures" they have. And the C affiliates? While we may have heard some rumblings, no official word has yet to reach us about any of this.

The clock strikes Noon and the auto-responders are humming. Within 30 minutes the majority of the A affiliates have received their letter, made their purchase, and are downloading their bonuses. In a few minutes it will be the A affiliates working the responders, adding a personal touch. "I used "it" for just an hour today and made almost One Thousand Dollars" screams the latest testimonials.

As the emails reach the B affiliates, they too reach for their wallets for this "must have" product du 'jour . It is this group that will actually use the product more than the others, having purchased it not just to resell it but to improve their (weight, closing ratio, web design skills, list building, ebook making, niche vocabulary.)

By 5 PM the Gurus are at Happy Hour, the A's are making a few last calls to their more sizable downlines, and the B's are still playing with their new toy.

Oh, us C's? We've heard a few more rumors, nothing concrete, and besides, we probably cant afford it.

The next day however the A's do nothing but stay on the backsides of the B's, encouraging, berating, cheering them on. It is then that we get our details, usually in the form of an email that begins, "Dear FirstNameFix". Those of us with a few bucks go ahead and buy it, but only if the bonuses were very high in quantity. When you're a C, more must be better. And although we are the majority, we rarely get cheered... unless a Guru or an A are having another "training" and want us to attend.

And then, almost as quickly as it began, it begins to end.

Sure, a few C's will try and hit up family members or neighbors, but other than that, Game Over. The A's already bought theirs, as did the B's. All of us C's are pretty much in the same boat, and we also happen to be on each others lists. Did you catch that?

"We're all on each others lists."

And so the demand comes to a screeching halt. You see A's don't buy from B's and C's. B's don't buy from C's and A's, and C's can only hit Dad or the neighbors up so many times. The problem here is not that the C's didn't try or aren't equipped...there is simply no mass of customers left to sell to. We get to cherry pick the late stragglers, but thats about it.

Now don't get me wrong. A few C's will eventually come up with their own product, form a J.V. with a B, and if the product is a success you'll witness the birth of two junior Gurus.

But those of us that couldn't seem to turn affiliate marketing into a full-time living didn't fail. We didn't do anything wrong at all.

We just ran out of people to sell to...

"Hey, ummm Dad? Got a minute?"