You of course need people to read your reviews and purchase the product you’re recommending… but if this is your only focus, you’re doing your readers a disservice. You see, it’s just as crucial to let them know which products won’t work for them as it is to introduce them to products that will.

Within the ideal affiliate marketer-list relationship, you are guiding your readers through sharp and hazardous rocks… and they’re trusting you to bring them safely ashore. Push your reader a bit too hard, and she will climb into a life raft that isn’t the right fit for her – and when she all of a sudden finds herself slammed into a rock, her confidence in you is going to be shaken. She’s going to head off to the next boat, to see if it was any better than yours.

The problem here? You didn’t show her what not to buy – what wouldn’t work for her. That’s why it’s important to be completely up-front in your reviews, and include disqualifying facts and statements – even if it means one less sale.

For example, let’s say you sum up a product like so…

“This product is not at all for newcomers to the game. It consistently makes assumptions that you’ll know sophisticated tracking terminology and assumes you hold a business masters’ degree. However, if you’re tired of a surfeit of “newbie” tutorials, this system will really give you something to sink your teeth into.”

Sure, you’ve lost the sale from your “newbie” reader that you would have had, if you’d kept quiet about the product’s complexity and extolled only its money-making potential. But sacrificing the sale is a good investment in the long run, because you stopped your “newbie” list member from wasting her money on a system she would have ultimately abandoned in frustration. And, had that happened, you would have forfeited her trust.

This way, you “lost” one sale… but you’re one important step closer to keeping that customer for life.

Filed under: Marketing

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