Balancing Affiliate Marketing And Relationship With Your Readers

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When Court tagged me to chime in on this roving band of internet marketers, I was flattered, thrilled, and had a few opinions to toss into the collective.

Which comes first the money or the readers?

The error I see many new bloggers make is wanting to jump into making the big bucks a la John, Darren, et all, right away. (Hey, who wouldn’t want an impressive bankroll?) So they get their blog, they sign up for as many “make money” affiliate marketing programs as possible and plaster their blog with ads.

Before writing their first post.

What happens when the first few folks find the said new blog? Do they go “oh wow, this kid knows his stuff – he’s got so many sponsors!?” Or do you suppose they move on to other blogs that are more content than advertisements?

Sure your content may be stellar, but if you annoy or scare readers away, who’s going to click your ads and make you the big bucks?

As someone who professionally helps folks go after their goals in a better way – I invite you to go after your riches while entertaining, informing, and loving your readers.

You can do this! It just takes a few steps:

• Clairify!
  
  

  Get really clear about what your blog’s purpose is, who your readers are, what THEY want, and how you can best offer it to them. Get clear about how much money you want your blog to make, and how much of that should come from affiliate marketing, and how much of it should come from other services you can offer when your readership trusts you.

• Classify!

  Classify your marketing efforts into categories like – “Courtesy Resources,” “Businesses I support,” “Money Makers,” and “Reader Recommends.” Sure, some ventures wont make you as much as others, but if you provide things for your readers’ benefit, they’ll support you for your benefit! If they visit and feel like you’re only trying to make a buck off of them, they can, and will, find expertise similar to yours elsewhere.

• Testify!

  If a business has given you phenomenal service, let your readers know. If you love a product, recommend it to your readers – whether or not you make money from the recommendation. If one of your readers wrote something that you think others should see – link to it!

Social Marketing

Believe it or not – networking with your readers IS marketing. You are increasing your own brand awareness. And you’re increasing the likelihood of them recommending you to a friend, digging you, and clicking the links that will make you money.

Keep your personality, add community

I think I chose to write about this because it was one of the things that I myself have had to work on. From years of journaling online, I’m used to a blog being a personal thing. And to some extent it is and still should be. But taking that mindset and flipping it from writing for myself first, to considering the readers and how to best help them is something I pretty consistently tweak.

From getting rid of a paid blogging referral service that wasn’t sending me projects that would benefit my readers, to revamping my sidebar to put emphasis on the articles of the site. Certainly should a sponsor fit the needs of my clients and readers, I’d consider placing them prominently. However, with affiliates and money making services that I’m just testing out – the readers that want to see who I’m promoting, can find it. Those that come just for the articles, coaching services, and such see priority placement of what they want to see.

When you visit my site. I want you to like what you read, get inspiration from how I live and run my businesses, and hopefully learn something useful for yourself. I also want you to return.

Quick Tip – Trust and Money

As you experiment with your site and how to best make money online, I hope you’ll keep these two questions in mind:

1. What do you most want to make money from? (your own services, other people’s products, PPC?)

2. What do your readers want?

And if the affiliation you’re promoting doesn’t fit into both of those categories… keep looking.

Trust is a fickle thing. It takes a lifetime to gain and a moment to ruin.