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It's Make Money Monday, moms, and you know what that means...another way for stay-at-home moms to make a little extra cash. This week we'll look at the potentially endless cash flow that can come from affiliate marketing.
If you've never heard of affiliate marketing, in a nut shell it's becoming the middleman and making a commission off the sale of a product or service that you're helping to promote. If you're asking, "Why would a retailer pay someone else a commission on the sale of their product?" the answer is simple. You're essentially becoming their "affiliate" by using your own outlets (a website, blog, online freelance content, etc) to market their product or service without them doing any additional work. But, you, as the affiliate, don't do any of the labor such as sales, shipping, processing or customer service. Here's a quick example:
Sally Mom writes a monthly post on her blog about baby products moms can't live without. She then searches for affiliate programs (more on that in a minute) that sell the specific products. When she finds an affiliate program that sells the product, such as Amazon.com she generates a link and hyperlinks to the product directly from her blog. When someone clicks on Sally Mom's link they're directed to the Amazon.com site. When the consumer purchases the product from that outlet, Sally earns a commission (Amazon.com pays between 4-15%) on the sale.
While 5% isn't much to make off a sale, it is if all you're doing is linking to it off a website you already run. Plus, there are thousands of retailers that pay much, much more, some as much as 75% off the sale of their products.
To find affiliate programs, that are of interest to you and related to your websites, you can simply do a google search for say "baby products affiliates" or "stroller affiliate programs." Or, what is much easier, (read: SAHM-friendly) is you can join an affiliate network such as Shareasale.com, LinkShare.com, Commission Junction, or Clickbank. These sites are databases of affiliate programs all in one place. You can search for relative products or retailers and apply to join their affiliate programs. If you're new to affiliate marketing or you don't want to apply to numerous affiliate programs Amazon's affiliate program may be the way to go. The commission is on the lower end, but what can't you find on Amazon??? Nothing! Which makes it easy to use and Amazon.com has the name recognition potential buyers are looking for.
For moms who already keep a blog or website or do a little freelance writing online affiilate marketing is an easy way monetize those sites further and pick up some extra cash.
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The Good: The potential to make hundreds of dollars off quality products, while doing nothing but creating a hyperlink. The (Not So) Bad: Use existing web content as a platform. The Ugly: If you get too affiliate link-happy, your website or blog risks coming across as a link farm rather than a valuable source of information and recommendations. |
If Affiliate Marketing just isn't for you, check out my other Make Money Monday articles and ideas.
Have a scoop we should share with other moms? How about tricks-of-the-trade? Or just want to send me a note? Send an email to Baltimoremoms@gmail.com
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Comments
Affiliate marketing is fantastic for the right person - one who's determined to keep learning. I know because I've been earning a good full-time living from affiliate marketing since 1998. I've put in a LOT of effort to get myself and my websites found online. Try googling my name. :)
One of the most important things I've learned is that it helps hugely if you take a long-term view and build a website that is genuinely useful, one that other website owners will talk about. If you don't do this, it's a bit like building a store in the middle of a desert. There's a lot more to learn than how to add a link to blog. My free 18-step Affiliate Program Tutorial gives an overview.
Well affiliate marketing is alot of work but i tried this and actually started making $85 a day average in the first 2 weeks. It involved about 1 hour of research a day, and then posting links on twitter using this system homejobwork.com
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