Affiliate Marketing for Crochet Bloggers
For the longest time I was shy about selling. I felt that I was imposing my need to earn an income onto my readers. Obviously I got over that. 
I find that most people see affiliate links as the virtual coupon. People love the savings you get from coupons but they hate having to wait in line behind a ‘crazy coupon lady’.
Partnering with companies is smart business. They get a low cost means of spreading the word about their products and you get a means of earning some cash for your family.
Isn’t the purpose of any business to make a profit? So, how come it is hard for people to buy from artisans like crochet handcrafters? Don’t we deserve to make a living too?
Maybe it is simply jealousy. After all if you crochet for a living you actually enjoy your job.
What Exactly is Affiliate Marketing
Basically you recommend products and services to your readers from partner companies. When your reader or subscriber purchases something using your unique id then you will earn a commission.
Commissions can be anywhere from 3% all the way up to 100%. Usually physical products are at the lower end and digital products receive higher commissions.
The Top 4 Tools I Use to Promote Partners
1. My Mastermind Group
I belong to a great mastermind group called SoloMasterminds. This group has a library of resources to teach members all about marketing and growing a sustainable business.
2. Daily Affiliate Tasks
I can’t rave about this enough. Susan Meyers delivers bite size lessons on how to market your products in a profitable way. Each day you are given a task to complete. I purchased her membership a couple of months ago and have seen some pretty phenomenal results. I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere with marketing.
3. Aweber
Okay, so many of you who know me have probably seen me change over the years. I used to recommend free hosting for businesses. I no longer do that. I also used to recommend MailChimp because it was what I could afford – “free”.
What changed? I finally started listening to my business mentors. You know, my number one resource? These are all things they told me to do from the beginning.
Why Aweber? For me, it is just about reputation, deliverability, and stress-free.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like MailChimp. It’s just they have a tighter policy on affiliate marketing than aWeber. Marketers use aWeber while businesses use MailChimp. Simple as that.
4. Pretty Link Plugin
This is a WordPress Plugin which lets you shorten your links. Sometimes affiliate links are super long so in order to make them ‘prettier’ this little plug-in helps. I use the free version but if you get the paid version you can pretty much make the re-directs and forget it. Each time you use the keyword associated with that link it will automatically link it for you.
What Companies do I Recommend?
- Annies
- Free-crochet Patterns
- JoAnn’s
- Interweave
- Craftsy
How are you doing in the challenge? Is it getting a bit ‘challenging’?
Some tips to help you through the next couple of weeks.
Try to write your posts before hand. You can pre-schedule posts so that you don’t have to write every day.
Ask someone to guest post for you. This way you can take a break. (I volunteer if you need someone.)
Post a video, an infographic or a photo and call that your post for the day.
Hi Sara, This is a very good post. I don’t have any advertising on my site – or affiliate links – I will be doing my first sponsored post later this month – I’m so hesitant about adding affiliate links. I don’t really understand the ‘process’ involved – I understand the whole ‘no follow’ rule and notifying about the ‘sponsored’ posts, etc. but if I put an affiliate link up do I have to keep it there for set amount of time or can I remove it whenever I want? Can I just add a title to the side-bar that says “affiliate links” and then put their buttons there? Or is there some huge process I have to go through? Thanks! Rhondda
Rhondda, Yes, the NOFOLLOW rule is very important especially with Google. I don’t know how it is for your country but here in the US we have to clearly state we are compensated either with cash or physical items.
There was a time I avoided it because just thinking of all the legal issues overwhelmed me.
Affiliate marketing is a process. You can place their banners on your sidebar but often times that isn’t the best use of them. So many people ignore banner ads or have ad blockers (like I do) so don’t even see the ads.
I did a post on 10 ways to promote your partner company that will give you more of an idea of how to do this.
A sponsored post is different. It depends on who you contract with. Most sponsored posts have a required time you must keep the post active as well as the link they give you.
By the way, you don’t have to do affiliate marketing. If you are making enough with crochet alone you can just blog for the sake of blogging and building your relationships with your customers.
I have teamed up with the Blogher Community for my advertising as I don’t really have a site that sells anything. I didn’t want to bombard my readership with too many adds from a variety of sources. With Blogher, I have one source and they take care of everything else. I’m going to try it for a year and see how it goes.
Thanks for sharing your ideas though. Very helpful!
That sounds like a good plan. I’ve been hesitant about using ads on this blog but have finally started. Notice those purple ads? I will check my stats after 4 weeks to see how they work both for the site and my readers.
Taking a survey or asking for feedback from your readers is important and can provide you with valuable information.
Having dabbled in network marketing for over 30 years, I find affiliate marketing very attractive. But I haven’t done it well, relying on banner ads in my blog’s sidebar. I’ve earned a grand total of zip in affiliate commissions that way. I really want to start doing product reviews (since I like to write) which I think would be a lot more effective. I need to get off my duff and just do it, right?
Patrice, I have a post that gives you 10 ways to promote your affiliate partners. My business mentor says banners ads are the least likely to get clicked and earn revenue.
I know the frustration of using partners and then not making any money from them. It can get very discouraging and make you want to quit. I recommend learning from someone who is actually earning from it – Kelly and my business mentors in Solomasterminds are Queens at this.
I love being an affiliate for companies and/or programs that I believe in and have used myself. I do recommend several and I’ve earned decent money from doing it. I think it’s a great way to earn some money online .
Leanne, The more I learn about marketing the more I see financial benefits. It’s taken me awhile – stubbornness I guess – BUT I’m finally able to take action on all the knowledge I’ve soaked in over the last 12 years.
Wonderful info, Sara. I really need to improve my use of my affiliates. Thanks!
Hi Jessie, glad to have you stop by. It is my main focus this year. I’m ‘doing it afraid’ and learning as I go. Definitely seeing benefits from doing that.
You can learn from Moogly Blog. She does a great round up of savings, coupons, and deals. Many of these are her affiliates. Adding them to your newsletter is another way to share them.