There is a new affiliate marketing tactic going around… and Kate doesn’t want you falling for it! This tactic can really derail your business. In today’s episode, Kate is sharing what this new tactic is and explaining why it isn’t one you want to incorporate in your strategy. Plus, she’s sharing how to include affiliate marketing in your strategy and make it successful.
So let’s talk about how this affiliate marketing tactic works and why Kate doesn’t want you to fall for it…
The new affiliate marketing tactic you don’t want to use
When Kate was researching ways to expand Simple Pin Media’s audience on YouTube several months ago, she kept running into videos that were promising individuals could make X amount of money in X amount of time using different affiliate marketing programs. This is a super popular affiliate marketing tactic that is going around the internet right now. Kate warns against it. In her experience, there are a lot of factors that go into making money with affiliate marketing such as time, determination, money, and how big your audience is. It’s really hard to promise specific results when you don’t know the exact situation of the person buying the program.
Related: Affiliate Marketing Tips for Beginners
You Cannot GUARANTEE Results
Do not fall for any marketing tactic that promises a specific amount of growth over a specific amount of time.
Kate has stayed away from claiming that Simple Pin can help you “grow your email list by one thousand email subscribers in one month from Pinterest”, because she knows that wouldn’t be possible for every client. Here at Simple Pin, we’ve committed to say we can help you grow on Pinterest, but growth is relative to a lot of different factors.
One of the top questions we get in our Discovery Calls from people is about the kind of growth they can expect on Pinterest. Typically we see anywhere from 2% to 8%, but that is never a guarantee.
Successful Affiliate Marketing Requires Connection
The top five niches on Pinterest are: food, fashion, weddings, beauty, and home. The idea sold in these affiliate marketing strategies is if you take those particular topics or niches, and then begin to create content around that, you can just put your affiliate links into that content. And that does make sense. But where it breaks down is when somebody creates a profile that is just based on that particular niche.
So for example, let’s go with a fall fashion niche. This person does not have a website; they just have a Pinterest account. They start to keyword their profile towards fall fashion, and then they go and write on a site that takes contributing writers. They choose to write about the top 10 fall fashion trends for women with jeans. Using AI, they write up a blog post and add in affiliate marketing links to different jeans. Something to keep in mind here, is that this person has never actually tried these jeans. Most likely, they don’t even care about these jeans. So there’s a lot of things already breaking down here.
After they publish the blog post, they’ll create a pin, and pin it to Pinterest. It will lead to this particular article about the top 10 jean trends in women’s fall fashion. But you don’t know who is giving you this list because there’s no About Page and there’s no website.
The claim here with these kinds of affiliate marketing tactics, is that the more pins you can do that lead to these particular posts, the more money you’re going to make. And they could make some money; somebody could read this and truly believe that these are the top 10 jeans for women in the fall of 2024, and buy them. But Kate believes there needs to be a person behind an article that is authentic and actually believes in what they are selling. There should be a website to let people know who is selling and why they’re selling. Most people are not going to just trust an article, and you’re probably going to get less purchases because there is no connection to an actual person.
People Are Looking To Make A Quick Dollar
There is an ethical problem with this kind of affiliate marketing because these people are looking for the money grab. They don’t really care about helping women find the right types of jeans. It’s a game to them. They make you believe that you can make $1,000 off Pinterest affiliate marketing links when in reality, they might be getting 50% of that traffic and revenue from other platforms but omitting that information from you.
If you adopt or buy into this tactic from someone promising you can make a certain amount of money in a certain period of time, the problem is that you are taking advice from someone who isn’t running a business like you are. They are solely in it to make a quick dollar.
Related: Affiliate Marketing 2024
So Then, What’s the Solution?
Somebody talking about this can make it sound really appealing, but it’s flawed in a lot of ways. So how do you as a small business owner leverage affiliate marketing in a strategic way that can increase your revenue over the long term?
Don’t deviate from your niche. Whether you are somebody that talks about fall fashion or somebody who talks about home decor, stay in your lane. This is key to good affiliate marketing.
Tasha Agruso from Kaleidoscope Living was on our podcast a few years back and she talked about how she does her affiliate marketing. Her strategy is definitely one you want to take notes from. Tasha has a home decorating business. She helps people see that you can decorate your home in a beautiful way without spending a ton of money. In addition to her own content, she finds these really creative tools, or hacks, or things you might want to buy on Amazon or another affiliate site. She started by creating her own really great content and then adds in her affiliate links that relate to each post. She is probably making $2,000-$3,000 a month just through affiliate links, but she is able to do this because she has created a connection with her readers; people know who she is and trust her guidance when it comes to home decor. They trust that the links they find on her site have been tested and used by her.
If you are a small business owner looking to use affiliate marketing tactics in your strategy, and you truly care about your audience, you want to know that the links you are recommending are things you would actually use yourself. AND you want to have already created quality content.
Connection needs to come first for long-term affiliate marketing success. Simply slapping some affiliate links on your website and creating pins on Pinterest will not be sustainable long-term, and it won’t yield the results you want.
One last thing to consider before falling for these strategies is that affiliate marketing might not be right for you and your business. It might actually be a distraction from what can already make you money on your website. Take a step back, look at what you have to offer, and determine if affiliate marketing is really worth your time.
If you need help determining whether affiliate marketing is for you or not, reach out to us at simplepinmedia.com or DM on Instagram @simplepinmedia. We are always happy to help!
Our goal here at Simple Pin Media is always to take the data and the history that we have, and help you make good marketing decisions for your business.
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