Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner
Although the lazy days of the summer ‘sales slump' are just about upon us come June, don't give up your affiliate marketing efforts too soon.
June is the time to pick up revenue from other holidays besides Father's Day and graduations.
July is the month for national day celebrations in Canada and the U.S., i.e. Canada Day on July 1st and Independence Day in the U.S. on July 4th. Happy Canada Day!
Happy Independence Day!
Here is a list of all holidays and observances that present affiliate marketing opportunities for July 2016:
Let the parties begin!
Any affiliate in almost any niche can help their readers celebrate by sharing ideas for:
Having hosted more than a few Canada Day block parties, I think of all those things that you need to support a crowd:
BTW, if you do a Google search for “Canada Day Party” with or without quotes, you should see 2 listings with some of my Canada Day party pictures come up from years past. 🙂
Good SEO, eh?
Check out how I Got a First Page Google Listing in Only 9 Seconds.
Because it was a Canada Day, part of our requirement to attend the party was to wear something red and white… so patriotic clothing
And after you've finished getting your site together to help your visitors celebrate the holidays, take time to read these 2 motivational articles about gaining independence through having your own business:
Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
P.S. Independence and national holiday celebrations occur throughout the year in other countries. For an extensive list of national days around the globe, please visit Wikipedia – National Days.
Recession or not, Mother's Day is still one of the most commercially successful occasions in North America.Over the past 5 years, statistical reports from various associations indicate that:
Better yet… According to a report released by the National Retail Federation this week, 21.5% of consumers will turn to online retail sites, up slightly from 19.7% last year — with each spending an average of $219.40 on gifts for mother.
You can promote flowers, spa treatments (gift certificates), chocolates and all the usual assortment of typical mother's day gifts, OR you can try to be a little more unique by meshing your niche with your favorite mom's interests. Here are a few ideas:
Sell the romantic, intriguing, and mysterious Message In A Bottle
Promote health and love with a gift that helps her quit smoking
Offer Dinner of the Month Club certificates through Restaurant.com
Encourage your readers to buy their mom's her own domain name and web hosting for a year. 🙂
Go eco-friendly and promote trees through Nature Hills Nursery
And my personal favorite, Amazing Clubs which has wine, beer, dinner, cigar, cheese, movie and many more monthly clubs.
In May, other popular events, holidays and special days coming up this month are:
Holidays in May 2016 in include:
There's still plenty of time to plan for and promote the latter 2 holidays, which traditionally represent the first weekend of outdoor activities throughout most of the U.S. and Canada. Think barbeques, camping and baseball!!
Have fun.
Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
Looking for a niche or a product to sell?
Well, some merchants share clues about the type of niche markets that work best for affiliates.
Here, for example is a partial email that I just received from CSN Stores:
CSN Stores is merchant on the ShareaSale Network and comprises over 250 specialized online stores that offer a wide variety of home goods including tools, office furniture, bedding, lighting, outdoor furniture, luggage, baby furniture & more.
… I (Eileen the Affiliate Manager) recently compiled a list of CSN's most popular brands in 2010. I'd like to share just our top 5 with you. Since these brands were such best sellers last year they might have high conversion rates again this year so feel free to feature them if you wish! ‘Top 5' is defined by net number of orders for the entire year of 2010.
CSN's Top 5 Brands of 2010:
- Wildon Home
- KidKraft
- Winsome (pantryware and lifestyle furniture)
- Home Styles (furniture)
- Midwest Pets
CSN's Top 5 Brands of 2010 through Affiliate Sales Only:
- Kidkraft
- Wildon Home
- DaVinci
- JoJo Designs
- Melissa and Doug
That should tell you that not only is furniture a good market, but specifically that relating to kids and pets.
Check your merchants' emails frequently for good clues such as these.
And if they don't share their data with you – ask!!
Check out the holiday calendar and you'll notice that there are a number of holidays and observances which lend themselves to affiliate marketing opportunities in March.
The most popular dates and events are:
Month-long Celebrations in March
Celebrations by Date in March 2016:
The defining color for the month is decidedly green.
But your blog doesn't need to be dedicated to basketball, holidays, all things Irish, green living or gardening to profit from those topics.
Here are examples of how to integrate these topics into a number of different niche topics.
Use your imagination. Almost any two niches can be married successfully with a little thought.
Well, you can sell just about anything related to the niche and the theme – i.e. t-shirts, cookbooks, team jerseys (any type of clothing), event tickets, gift cards – you name it.
Be unique in both your content product offerings.
Search your favorite affiliate networks for St. Patrick's and spring specials. Shareasale in particular always has “Prepare for the Upcoming Holidays” near the top of its interface with holiday names linked to promotions from your affiliated merchants.
Here's a unique product / service that I came across recently that would work for so many different types of blogs, and not just in March.
It's called Going Green Today and it's on the Performance Based ECO affiliate network. What they do is create action plans for 90 day Green Makeovers through free lifestyle assessments. Visitors take the assessments to see if they can save $2000 from their costs of living.
Look for it in the near future on http://RosalindGardner.com which sports a Greener Living section.
See… no matter what the month, you can blog about almost anything. 🙂
So, what are you blogging about in March?
Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
Is your site ready for Christmas shoppers?An Accenture survey forecasts that folks will be shopping for Christmas earlier this year, with 69 percent planning to complete the bulk of their holiday shopping by Dec. 7th. Too, consumers are more deal-oriented than ever before, with 25% of them expecting at least 50 percent discounts before they buy.
According to a Gallup survey, the Christmas spending forecast is down slightly this year, with consumers planning to spend $740 on gifts compared to $801 as per surveys taken at the same time last year.
With more merchants competing for fewer dollars, the deals are going to be phenomenal. In fact, merchants have already started to lower their prices to get a leg up on the competition.
Sears launched a campaign on October 31st, called “Black Friday Now” with deep discounts happening every Saturday from now until Christmas.
Saturdays???
‘Black Friday', which falls on the day after American Thanksgiving (November 27th) is the first day of the Christmas season and is usually the busiest shopping day of the year… offline.
‘Cyber Monday' is the Monday after Thanksgiving. The term was first used by Shop.org, whose research showed that 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales on that day.
So what does that tell us?
That we'd better plan to get our affiliate sites and PPC campaigns ready for the Christmas shopping rush earlier than ever. I've noticed that folks are talking about Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals on consumer sites already. In fact,
So, although the big Christmas shopping days are still almost a month away, you need to get your site and PPC campaigns ramped up now.
Keep these suggestions in mind as you prepare your site for the 2009 holiday season – and you'll thank me for your increased conversions this year! 🙂
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
If you browse around the internet, you'll notice that people all over the world are blogging and making money doing it!
These are people just like you; people with little experience, without a background in computer science, or a big bank account to dig into. They used programs like Google Blogger (blogger.com) or WordPress (WordPress.org) to quickly and easily set up their blogs, often at no cost. Now all you have to ask yourself is what hobby or niche should you blog about?
It's a great way to tell others about new recipes, ideas, and products available in the world of cooking, as well as sharing regional specialties. But, don't worry if you can't cook. You can write a cooking blog for others who are learning to cook. How much fun would it be to share your successes as well as your “hope you don't chip a tooth” muffins? Starting a recipe blog can be a wonderful way to share your interest and make money in the process. If cooking is your passion (or even if it isn't) — a recipe blog may be a profitable way to get a taste of online business.
You need a talent or love of cooking. You don't need to know all the fancy gourmet cooking terms; you just need to know how to put a dish together that tastes good.
You also need to be able to write your recipes in an organized, concise, and easy-to-follow format. You may want to be able to use a digital camera, or find someone who can, in order to take pictures of your food, or you could use publicly licensed photos of food that you find on the internet. Of course, you'll need patience. Every blog has a unproductive period at first, so don't get discouraged. It will take time for your blog to build and for people to find you.
Here are some ideas…
Make Money by Selling Products: A person who loves to cook, often loves all the kitchen paraphernalia that comes along with it. If you have gadgets and cookbooks available to purchase on your blog, you can reap the rewards that the retail markets are enjoying. You can share your recipes, cooking tips, opinions, and sell products all at the same time. Nice little income producing idea.
Make Money by Selling Advertising: Once your blog gets noticed, and traffic starts coming your way, you'll find advertising on your blog to be a nice, profitable way to generate income. This is something to keep in mind, but you won't really hit your stride making money with this method until you start getting readers. Just file this idea away so you can start making your plans.
Make Money by Selling Your Blog: If you've been noticed by the search engines and media, you have arrived! Now may be the time to consider selling your blog for the big bucks. (Some blogs have sold for millions.) You can also create blogs for sale when you get this good.
With some focused time and creativity, you should be able to develop a recipe blog that is uniquely yours, a place to post your favorite family recipes, restaurant secrets, cooking disasters, or other information you want to share in the world of cooking. But, thinking isn't doing — you've got to act in order to succeed.
What do think about this article? Please share it with us! If you have a comment or question about these WordPress tips, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,