Affiliate marketing is not as easy as many people would have you believe and, when things aren’t going your way, it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If you’ve ever wondered why your campaigns aren’t working or you’ve thought about throwing in the towel then the reason may be psychological.
Having great landing pages, prelanders and CTAs is one thing, but a large part of being successful in the affiliate marketing world comes from your own mental attitude towards what you do. If you aren’t going to sleep at night wondering what tomorrow will bring then you are off to a bad start. Luckily, we’re here to give you some advice on how to stay motivated and to ensure that you learn from your mistakes. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the main psychological reasons why your campaigns might not be as profitable as they should.
Fear
Fear is a primary cause of many people’s failure, and ironically it is that fear of failure which causes them to fail.
There are several types of fear which might be limiting your chances of success, but the two key ones are fear of failure and fear of success.
Fear of failure seems more practical, after all, it’s a more probable outcome when you’re starting out, and if you can’t afford to lose the money you put into a campaign, it can be a daunting prospect. Therefore, many affiliates don’t make the investments needed to produce a profitable result.
One way to change this is to budget your campaigns monthly alongside your other expenses. If you have a steady income and can afford to pay into your business plan each month, then the money you are spending is not lost.
As with any business, you need to invest money to see a profit later on, and even if you put $500 into a campaign one month and see no conversions, then the data you gain from the campaign will help you to be more effective next time.
Remember, never put more money into a campaign than you can afford to lose. There is no such thing as a perfect formula, and everyone fails from time to time, just make sure your life savings aren’t propping up a failed campaign.
The second fear is the fear of success. While this may seem odd, it is actually quite common. It may be fun to imagine your life after making millions and flying around the world in a private jet but, for many people, when the prospect begins to become a reality, they realize that they are happy as they are. Change, whether positive or negative, can be hard for people. This can lead to a lack of motivation or even deliberate self-sabotage.
One way to combat a fear of success is to have in mind a realistic vision of what your success might be and then produce shorter-term goals for how to get there. Looking at the whole picture of your future career can be dizzying and the contemplation of the amount of time, energy and money it will take up over the years is enough to make most people run a mile. However, if you outline weekly or monthly goals, then you can focus your attention on those and not worry about future goals until you get to them. Looking at your campaigns in this way will make them far more manageable and far less daunting.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is another key element which holds many affiliates back, and it can come as a direct result of having a fear of failure.
Tweaking your campaigns is one thing, but spending days and days fixated by every little detail before they go live is another. Unless you’ve had a string of highly successful campaigns with a formula that you know works, then you’ll need to learn from your data. However, you can only get this data once your campaign is up and running. Therefore, do as good a job as you can before launching but don’t worry about it being perfect. You can always change things later on.
Another problem with perfectionism is that, quite often, a ‘perfect campaign’ that is polished to perfection won’t necessarily succeed as well as one which isn’t. This is why it is important to experiment to see what approach brings you the most conversions.
If you get hooked on trying to make the first version of your campaign perfect, then you will only delay yourself when it comes to getting to the third, fourth or fifth versions, and these will be the ones which perform best.
One way to get over perfectionism is to make a list of experiments you want to try out and then place them into the first version of your campaign to see what works. Think about the first step, not as a road map for the future but as an initial test. The same process is as true for art as it is for business. There is nothing more frightening to an artist than a blank canvas, and it’s not until they throw some paint onto it that they can begin to see the later picture that will emerge. Therefore, make sure you get something out there so that you can begin to build a far truer picture of the shape your campaign will take.
