Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Although we get paid a commission when you click through our links, all opinions and content are our own and we stand behind all brands and products we are sponsored by.
Affiliate Marketing is one of the ways that we are able to develop multiple streams of revenue at construction2style. It is earning a commission by promoting another brands product. How it works is as simple as finding a product you like, promoting it to your viewers and making some extra cash. On the other hand, it’s also as complicated as creating a strong content strategy behind your promotion. Because without that, you’re looking at making a small profit. If you think smartly and follow these guidelines, you’ll be able to make a decent amount.
Step One: Develop your Brand Story
First, you want to create your brand story. For us, we’re a home improvement blog, but we also share small doses of our family lifestyle. If you’re not quite sure what your brand story is, you can download our past workshop all about how to develop a brand story HERE.
My recommendation is to always have one strong niche that is focused on your main brand story and then if you’re open to it, for a lot of benefits besides just affiliate marketing, have 1-2 other niche’s that you sprinkle into your brand story.
Look at Kristin Cavallari for example. Kristin started off with a cookbook, My True Roots. Then because she has such good style, she launched Uncommon James, which is a jewelry line. Now on season 2 of Very Cavallari, they bought a new home and are slowly fixing it up and since has launched a home line…and is now moving into a children’s clothing line. I don’t care if you like her or not, she’s a smart business lady! Now because she’s been doing it all successfully, she has launched another book called Balancing in Heels.
Or Joanna Gaines. She started with home remodels that led into a store that led into a cookbook, furniture line, paint line, bed and breakfast, bakery and I’m sure they won’t stop there!
There are a ton of other influencer and bloggers doing this same thing, but you get it. My point is, don’t ever feel like you have to stick with one niche, because it’s your brand story and I bet your story has a lot. Start with one focus that will eventually lead you to others.
Step Two: Serve your Audience
Once you develop your story, start serving your audience. Don’t feel like you have to have a lot of followers, readers, or viewers to get rolling with affiliate marketing. If you are truly serving your audience, all that will come later.
What I always remind people is…think about your wedding and how many people were there. Or the last event you went to and how many people were there. I bet it was under 300 people and both times you felt like there were so many eyeballs on you. Now think about if you have under 300 followers, why in the world would you think that isn’t a lot of eyeballs on you?! That’s a lot! And if you’re serving your readers, they will listen to you.
You need to start serving before you start selling!
Ideas on Ways to Serve:
- Go back to your last posts and change out all the “I’s” with “You”
- Give free advice
- Give a tutorial
- Do a giveaway
- Write an encouraging post
- Send out a newsletter
- Pay it forward
- Help other’s shine!
Step Three: Create your Content Strategy
Like I said, once you start serving your audience, the numbers will start climbing. Don’t get caught up in the numbers game. Just stay focused on serve, serve, serve. Then, start thinking about your content strategy for affiliate links. For example, I have affiliate links throughout this post, in which I’m serving you guys with free education that will bring value in making you money.
Here we put together a complete shopping guide with links to all of our favorite rugs. Every link has an affiliate link.
For Valentine’s Day we put together a gift guide for him, her, and your littles.
We also partnered with BlueHost, so anytime any one read our guide to starting a blog and signs up, we immediately make $150.
At the end of every one of our projects, we try to only go and buy items that we can style the homes that link back through an affiliate program. Then we create a blog post centered around that project on styling day with links. We share those styling items on social media with links and anytime anyone asks where we got the items that are shown in the picture…you’ve got it, we only share that affiliate link.
When we work with clients and are planning out their remodel, we send them a mood board and a selection sheet. And you bet we’re using affiliate links as much as we can. That way, depending on the affiliate program, every time your client is clicking on that link to check it out for the 100th time, you’re making a small commission.
Content Strategy Ideas In a Nutshell:
- Shopping Guides
- Gift Guides
- How-to Tutorials
- Styling Sessions
- Selection Sheets
- Social Media Quick Tips
- Product Reviews
Step Four: Apply to Affiliate Marketing Programs
Now that you’ve come up with a few content strategy ideas, you want to make sure the brands are apart of an affiliate marketing program. There are a ton of programs out there, but we mainly focus on 3, but are involved with 5.
Affiliate Programs we Love:
- Reward Style
- Shop Your Likes (Use our code to get in: y8Q6G)
- Amazon
- CJ Affiliate
- Shareasale
You can take our course HERE to get a dive deep into ways to utilize each of these programs. It’s only $57 and we’ll show you how to make that money back with one story.
Step Five: Serve and Sell
Lastly, since you have been serving your audience for so long that they love and trust you, they will click over and buy from you. With some of the affiliate programs that we mentioned, you get paid per click while others are per sale. All of our favorite brands are all on different platforms too, so that is why we’re signed up with a handful of different programs. But we’ve found that all of our favorites are within these 5 platforms, so we don’t have a need to sign up for more right now.
Just don’t forget as you’re starting to sell, to not forget to serve. Always continue to give value and don’t just randomly put a picture up on Instagram that is click bate telling people to swipe up to find out what you’re talking about. Because once they catch on, the trust will be gone and so will your readers.
Now go serve and sell and make that extra money! Leave a comment if you have questions and I’ll be sure to help you out.
