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This is stop number five on the Affiliates Blog Tour. We’ve covered all sorts of topics from the basics of affiliate marketing to more in depth topics such as using articles and freebies to promote affiliate programs.
Special thanks to Julie for hosting this stop on the tour!
Here’s a fact:
You can’t earn commissions if nobody clicks on your affiliate links.
That means affiliates feel a lot of pressure to share their links as often as possible, yet presenting an affiliate link to your target market frequently and naturally can be a challenge. Many fear that they’ll look like a spammer if they try to share an affiliate link too often.
Fortunately, some affiliate programs are easier to promote than others.
The Mom’s Talk Affiliates program allows you to link to any web page using your affiliate ID. That gives our affiliates incredible flexibility. It means that they can set up links to our non-product pages.
For example, let’s say you have been an avid listener of Kelly’s Work at Home Moms Talk Radio for awhile now and you think your readers would not only like the show but that it would be beneficial to them as well. Great! Grab an affiliate link that points at the WAHM Talk Radio site. Your readers will love the recommendation and hopefully begin listening to the show on a regular basis.
Since Kelly often recommends her own products and coaching services on the show they’ll be exposed to a variety of product offers. If they act on her offer, you’ll earn the commission.
Mom’s Talk Network offers a network of seven mom oriented blogs on a variety of topics and affiliates can link to any blog or any individual blog post. You can even link to guest blog posts that Kelly has written on other blogs.
How cool is it that you can provide your readers with a link to something that’s not a product? They won’t be thinking that you’re just trying to sell them something because you aren’t. You’re recommending a great free resource!
Tishia Lee, Affiliate Manager for Mom’s Talk Affiliates and Kelly McCausey, owner of Mom’s Talk Network are touring the work at home web with great tips on affiliate marketing, check out the full tour schedule here.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
As a super affiliate, deep linking (as it’s called) is definitely high on my list of favorite features. If a merchant allows me to link to free offers, internal pages, specific things on the site – it’s a win/win.
Glad to hear you have your program set up this way. I’m curious which provider you use to manage your affiliate program?
Another tip I’ll offer regarding sharing affiliate links: add value to the process. Write a review, do a case study, write a how-to report or blog post that goes along with the recommendation, do a comparison between similar products. Figure out a way to ADD VALUE along with the affiliate link to engage your readers and generate interest.
Hey Lynn!
We use QuickSales – a 1ShoppingCart brand
Great additional advice, thank you!
Thank you for your thoughts, Lynn.
I do agree that when we write a post or email recommending something we affiliate we should be helpful in our recommendations.
A rule of thumb that I try to use is to first, of course, recommend only good products and services but second, to talk naturally about what I love about the recommendation or don’t like so much especially if the don’t like is something further helpful for the reader to know. Speaking honestly and telling the why behind my recommendations add content without the hype feeling and position me as authentic not salesman”y”. This goes back to reason number one – recommend only what you’d want a good friend to buy. Overall I try to write with the mind of the reader and what I think they may question or wonder about rather than my value points in mind.
Great points, JA. And deep linking gives you a lot more flexibility in how you can frame your recommendation, which is always great.
It’s definitely beneficial to step back and view your recommendation from the readers’ perspective. I always say “spend 10 seconds in their shoes” as a quick exercise when writing anything – an email, blog post, web page, etc.
Sometimes what comes out on our end is not a good match with what they expect, or want/need on their end.
I was also marveling over Kelly’s affiliate program when I thought about it more. I love the idea of deep linking (do I sound techno?) to pages where it’s not a direct sales page or even has a thing to offer as a sale on the page. By linking to content pages that adds value to your post – the best part is YOU didn’t have to write it. Ha! I think Kelly also mentioned the cookie staying active a very long time somewhere in her posts. That sounds like a win/win in my book.
Hi Julie. Thanks for being a part of the Affiliates Blog Tour! We appreciate you taking part in it.
Tishia