If you have been following this blog for awhile, you probably noticed that about a year ago I started talking about affiliates a lot, and I haven’t stopped!
In fact, the more I get into affiliate marketing the more I LOVE IT.
There are lots of ways to make money blogging, the possibilities are truly endless, so in preparation for the 4-week affiliate master class I’m teaching starting on Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to write out just a few of the ways that affiliate marketing has rocked my blogging world over the past year.
ONE – It pays the bills. Since I now blog full time, this is a huge priority for me. I need things to pay my bills, and affiliate marketing does just that.
TWO – It is consistent. I love a good sponsored post… I love the immediate income that sponsored posts bring and the challenge of working with a brand to create something awesome. What I don’t love is that I only get paid for that post once. Even if I write the BEST POST EVER, the brand isn’t going to come around and cut me a check for my work every single month. (True, they may hire me again, which is stellar, but requires more work on my end). With affiliates you make money on your posts again and again. Every time a good affiliate post goes viral it’s money in the bank. Having posts that continue to make money after the initial posting period makes my job a whole lot easier.
THREE – Using old content – I have been blogging a LONG time, which means I have all these old posts just sitting around not doing much for me aside from ad income when I promote them. Using affiliates I can go back and make those old posts work twice as hard, just by adding in some new affiliate links. Suddenly, instead of just making money of the thing I did today, I’m making money off things I did last week and last year (and even a few years ago).
FOUR – There’s options – I love experimenting with the way I run my business. Sometimes I like to try something different with a brand and see what happens. When I’m doing sponsored posts, I feel like I need to play it safe a little bit more and do things I KNOW will work. With affiliates, I am more free to try things 1,000 different ways, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, since I’m the one in control of that relationship and I have time to experiment.
FIVE – It makes me a better blogger – With other types of blog work, it’s easy to get complacent since we don’t necessarily see how many people went to the store and bought the particular type of detergent we blogged about in yesterday’s post. Sure, we see how many page views the post got, but we don’t know how those views have translated into sales for the brand. With affiliate marketing you typically get paid only when some one makes a purchase. That means you learn to work hard to actually make sales. Working this way for my affiliates has ended up improving the way I do sponsored posts and other work with brands because I have seen how it works from post-to-sale and know how to yield the results they need.
SIX – It’s a powerful marketing tool – I have affiliate pins that make a few dollars a month. I’m not breaking any income-records with a pin that gives me $15 a month, but look at the difference…given the choice between a pin that is going to earn me a few dollars every single month (especially if I just add it to my regular tailwind schedule) and a sponsored pin I do for a brand that is going to be pinned once and forgotten by both brand and blogger. Clearly, the affiliate pin is more powerful, for me AND the brand.
SEVEN – Monetizing social – Like I mentioned above, affiliate links allow you to make money on Pinterest, but they also work on Instagram and Facebook too! Even twitter, if you have a good following there. When you are using them right, your readers will enjoy seeing them from you, even on your social media platforms and you can start making money on every platform you manage.
I could go on and on! As your affiliate strategy grows, it builds passive income for your blog which takes a lot of the stress off of your shoulders to pull in blog money from every which way. Affiliates can give you the freedom to be more selective about the other types of opportunities you take, or just free up your time to focus on the parts that you love.
Starting Tuesday, January 10th I’ll be teaching a 4-week master class to help you with your affiliate strategy. We’ll go through different ways affiliate marketing can work for bloggers and how to implement links on your site in a way that won’t annoy your readers.
You can ready more and sign up for the master class here. Your opportunity to join closes at 7pm CST on Tuesday January 10th and the first live video will be at 8pm CST on the same day!
This class will be one live video a week, and then assignments to help you implement what you are learning. I take the hands-on approach so after the class you aren’t left with lots of great information but struggling to know where to begin implementing what you know! I’ll be there to support you through the week and help you if you get stuck trying to make something work on your blog.
I hope to see you there!!!
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