We all know that affiliate marketing is hard to make work and might not be very worthwhile for many interior designers.
I’ve heard so many people say it doesn’t work for them and it is a huge time suck, etc. I get it. It does take a lot of time. There is a learning curve. You WON’T necessarily see immediate or spectacular results. We all know that.
If you are trying to be a big designer and run a profitable design business where you are making money from fees and product, then you should definitely focus your main efforts there.
However…..
When to use affiliate links
There are some situations when affiliate links are great for a designer to use.
Here’s a big misconception about affiliate linking I see….
Don’t think of affiliate linking as something that is only showing up on a blogpost that might be seen randomly by the general public.
That is actually the most difficult place to convert a sale, unless you have a very engaged and active readership or have a lot of traffic to some particular posts.
Here’s the big take away I hope everyone understands who reads this…..affiliate linking works best when you have a close connection with that buyer.
Although it helps to have a lot of connections and to sell with that same linking over and over, there are other ways to take advantage of affiliate linking that capitalize on strong connections too.
Again, if you are intent on building a custom design business that has your client getting all product through you, no matter what, this may not be for you. I’m sharing how I choose to balance my time with my business and what works for me.
affiliate links are part of my blog income
I’ll be sharing more on this panel in the South Hall at KBIS2020. Noon on Wed, Jan 22. Come say hi!
Yes, I make money from my blog.
I’m going to share a bit about what I’ve found that works for me, although I still have a LOT to learn and work on.
I do know there are people who are killing it out there with affiliate links.
I’m no expert at this, I don’t make tons of money at affiliate linking, but I do make enough to call it a “layer” of income. I make enough to cover the time involved and then some, and since I have a vital website that does work for me and brings me strong traffic, it behooves me to monetize it.
I’d be stupid not to.
In light of all that...I’m going to share some tips that might help make your affiliate marketing links a little more profitable, if you are looking to explore this endeavor.
I’ve written them up in a downloadable pdf for purchase, linked right here.
Who is affiliate linking for?
One more thing….I’m not advocating that you exchange the time you are spending on developing your dream of a big design business for affiliate linking. This won’t likely render you the same kind of revenue. You might be better served hiring a business consultant for that.
(I say “likely” because I’ve learned to never say never, as you’ll see below.)
This is for those of you who are interested in learning about this process and might want to try some better tactics and strategies to get more success.
If you haven’t had success with it, maybe that’s because you haven’t really learned some strategies and tips that might give you better results. :-)
An Affiliate Link Success Story
I remember, some years ago, someone who is currently a “big blogger”, who had a readership smaller than mine at the time, called me one day, out of the blue.
At that time, I was experiencing a downturn in traffic, I wasn’t making any money off my blog then, which was really frustrating me. It was basically just promoting my business. I loved blogging, but wanted to turn it into something that made money too and at that time, I couldn’t figure out how to do it.
When she called, she was all upbeat and positive and wanted to discuss blogging. I admitted that I loved blogging and we talked about all the positive aspects of it.
I didn’t share my negative feelings with her at that time, I didn’t try to talk her out of pursuing this dream. I shared some insight I had, we visited, and then we left the conversation at that.
That blogger went on to exceed my own blog, many times over, and make her blog into a big, full time income, with plenty of it coming from affiliate links.
So, if you want to explore this avenue, I don’t want to say, “Don’t waste your time with this”. ;-) I think just about anything is worth trying for awhile if you enjoy this and want to attempt it.
I also want you to note that affiliate linking success is a unique combination of best practices, consistency, connection to your audience, and patience for building long term results.