This Rock Climber Turned His Hobby Into A $1,000+ Per Month Side Hustle. How He Did It
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Do you have expensive taste in hobbies? Let a side hustle fund your passion projects.
Sam Laird, a social media manager and website administrator, created Climbing Shoe Review, a gear reviews blog, as a way to finance his love of rock climbing. “My friends were always struggling to support their hobbies,” he says. “I didn’t want to have to worry about money when it came to my passion for climbing, so I decided to find a way to make money from it.”
Laird says he learned about hobby websites and how people can make passive income through affiliate links by driving traffic to their blogs. “I figured I could do the same by launching a blog reviewing climbing shoes.” The climbing enthusiast’s income from affiliate commissions was $1,183.69 for September 2022, based on documents reviewed by NextAdvisor.
A website or blog can make you passive income using affiliate links, but Laird says it’s not for everyone. Here’s how the side hustle works, along with tips from a climber who makes money while he sleeps.
Choose a Niche That Actually Interests You
Laird notes that he never had any intention of starting an affiliate blog. He was happy with his career as a social media manager and website administrator. But with increased responsibilities at work, he says he seldom had the time or money to pursue his passion and meet other climbers.
“I launched my blog to stay connected to the climbing community,” he says. “I had tried a few different side hustles, which flopped. When I saw marketers churning out low-quality climbing content that wasn’t helpful, I knew I could do better.” Laird used his digital skills to create a website reviewing climbing shoes. He recommends picking a niche that you’re passionate about, because progress will feel slow at first.
Related: Best Web Hosting to Get Your Website Live
“Making money with affiliate sites comes down to choosing the right niche,” he says, “and from a business perspective, climbing shoes are a terrible niche. The return rate is high, and the sport is seasonal.” Laird kept reviewing shoes because he loves the sport, and over time Climbing Shoe Review gained traction. The increased momentum attracted not only more visitors, but brands and advertisers as well.
“I’ve connected with athletes and industry experts, and built a strong community.”
A photo of Sam Laird climbing. The social media manager originally started a climbing shoes website as a way to connect with fellow climbers virtually. The site reviews shoes and other gear, and includes affiliate links to the products, which pay Laird a commission. (Photos courtesy of Sam Laird)
Sam Laird bouldering in different types of climbing shoes to test them out.
“Entry-level climbing shoes start from just under $100, while high-performance, popular pairs can be priced closer to $300,” according to a blog post from Laird’s shoe review website. How It Makes Money
Sam’s website monetizes by directing traffic to Amazon and other climbing shoe manufacturers’ sites. When a visitor purchases through Sam’s affiliate link, he gets a small commission from the sale. Content websites can generate income passively, because the owner only needs to create the content once. The owner will earn a commission from those sales if readers visit the site and purchase items using the affiliate link.
Related: Best Web Builders to Launch a Website Quickly
Here are Laird’s top tips for creating a money-making affiliate blog:
Use a Side Hustle to Fund Your Passions
A side hustle is a great way to make extra money, but what you do with that money is entirely up to you. Brainstorm ideas on how to generate income that funds your hobbies, and you’ll be able to spend more time doing what you love.
Related: Winter Is Coming. 9 Side Hustles You can Do Without Leaving the House
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How To Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money In 2023
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To start affiliate marketing without money, people often think you must become a blogger with a dedicated website — draining money and resources. Although it is helpful to have a blog when you can reinvest in your business and scale upward, it’s not essential. Affiliate marketing with no money means affiliate marketing with free traffic.
TikTok is a potential free traffic source that relatively few marketers, about 14%, currently utilize. Luckily, TikTok doesn’t appear to throttle the organic reach of content creators.
Tiktok doesn’t use follower count as a ranking signal, so you don’t need a million followers to make money as an affiliate. You just need to reach the right people. Here’s how to start affiliate marketing on TikTok.
Related: 3 Tips to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing
Choose a niche affiliate program
To succeed in affiliate marketing on TikTok, focus on what people spend their disposable income on and stick to it. Once you provide hacks around these areas, you can influence people to purchase them using your link.
An example of this is the Shein Haul. Some categories you could consider include clothing, makeup, electronic gadgets, food, lifestyle and fashion. As a Tiktoker, you can simply start by showing off some items you got on Shein. Add links to the items, as people want to order any clothing they like during your try-on.
Hack your TikTok channel growth with emerging trends
At the core of TikTok genetic makeup are “trends.” The app is built around trends. To grow your TikTok reach and start affiliate marketing with no money on the platform, you have to begin to understand trends. Creatively tap into TikTok trends by:
When your content finally goes viral, capitalize on the content that goes viral to build momentum in pushing traffic to your affiliate offer. How can you do this? Engage with every comment on your profile, welcome new followers and ask them what they want to see. This will skyrocket engagement with the viral video and increase its reach. Replicate this process in other videos.
Implement the product into your videos organically
People will scroll away if you sound like a robotic sales ad. To do affiliate marketing on TikTok, infuse your products organically by doing a storytime while using the product, adding it to your daily routine, sharing the product as a reply to a comment asking about it or doing a product review. Try to be as objective as possible.
Essentially, your priority should be to provide valuable information to your audience in an entertaining manner. Then strategically weave the affiliate product into the fun videos.
Related: I Ran the First Version of TikTok. Here’s What I Learned About Spotting Viral Trends.
Promote like crazy
Once you get the views, it’s time to promote your affiliate links and maximize your engagements. You can do this by:
1. Linking affiliate products
Add your affiliate links in easily discoverable areas by:
2. Build your other social platform audience
Redirect your generated traffic to build engagements and followers on your other platforms. Do this by customizing your profiles and adding a Youtube or Instagram link. Also, let your viewers know they can watch the full clip on Youtube (if you have one).
Final thoughts
Starting affiliate marketing with no money means building an audience with a free traffic source — in this case, TikTok. Though TikTok does not restrict organic reach, unlike most social platforms, it still requires a great deal of consistency. Remain consistent in creating entertaining yet valuable content. When you finally start making money doing affiliate marketing on TikTok, invest in TikTok paid ads to scale even faster.
Related: 5 Essential Strategies for Boosting Your Brand’s Popularity on TikTok
How To Make More Money As An Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is gaining all the hype these days. With digital marketing becoming the new norm in advertising, there’s no denying the success companies can achieve by reaching out to affiliate partners. This is where an opportunity to earn as an affiliate marketer comes in. An affiliate marketer earns by promoting other individuals’ and companies’ goods and services.
New affiliates are in for a challenge, as there’s still a need to grow while also earning a good profit potential. Success doesn’t happen overnight, as even the most established ones have had to start somewhere. The right effort and strategies can help pull you through, so there is always time to learn straight from the experts.
Below are some of the best insights on growing your earnings as an affiliate marketer.
Choose Affiliate Partners And Programs Wisely
So, you’ve decided to be an affiliate marketer. You can’t earn independently, as you’ll have to partner with programs, companies, and sponsors who take you in as their affiliate. While you’ll want to earn the most, this doesn’t mean saying ‘yes’ to all possible programs you’ll find. Choosing affiliate partners and programs are essential, so you can be certain they’re profitable and worth your effort.
Working as an affiliate marketer is a challenging feat. Of course, as a beginner, you won’t get gigs from big-name brands just yet. The pay will be lower than more seasoned affiliate marketers, too. But this doesn’t mean downgrading your rates. A good partner should value your effort in every post or marketing campaign, so it’s a win-win for you both. It’s like launching a startup, where so much is at stake during those first few months in the industry.
Some factors can help shape this decision, like choosing:
With the factors above, you can now learn to narrow down your options of affiliate programs to work with. Read here for supplementary ideas.
Cultivate A Rapport With Your Audience
Your audience refers to your readers, viewers, or followers. Usually, the attention you can draw from a crowd depends on your niche. You can get information on your audience’s demographics by studying your analytics.
When starting and growing your affiliate marketing career, it’s important to cultivate and build a good rapport with your audience. For starters, you can have only 10, but remember, those followers are crucial for your growth. You may gain 10,000 more through those 10 followers once you’ve touched on their specific interests and whims.
An excellent way to start is to establish yourself as an expert in your chosen niche. You’ll be more believable that way.
For instance, you’re a mother. If you truly have a passion for all things related to parenting, then focus on parenting-related content. Because you’re a mom yourself, your audience may trust you more as they believe you use those products and speak from real-life experience. This may be better than going all over the place with varying niches, all in exchange for the profit you’ll earn.
Create An Epic Post. All The Time.
Working as an affiliate marketer can be very tempting, as there’s no denying how profitable it can be. However, this isn’t to say that you can jump on the bandwagon without studying and preparing for it. If there’s one thing many of those who failed to gain traction as affiliate marketers will share, it’s that they’re not ready for the content they have to produce.
Affiliate marketing is a good opportunity, but that also means so many more others have seen that opportunity as well. The competition is stiff, so if you don’t come up with epic content all the time, growth may not be felt.
That said, it’s essential to learn how to produce quality content in written or video format. Have a content calendar so you can note which ones to post and do it consistently. This way, you can prevent experiencing a mental block or not knowing what to post next.
Remember, consistency is key. You must keep the hype up by giving your audience something to regularly look forward to so they know there’s a new post to enjoy from you on certain days of the week.
Increase Your Affiliate Marketing Income Today
If you have great sales skills and enjoy writing content and putting up videos, you’ll be glad to know that being an affiliate marketer may fit in well with you. There’s an opportunity for everyone, but that’s a good enough start that you already inherently enjoy what an affiliate marketer entails. Next comes all the hard work. You have to be willing to put in the best effort to keep the profit coming in. That’s when growth as an affiliate marketer is felt, something that’s now within your reach with the guide above.
Author Bio: Carlos Albert graduated business marketing five years ago and is now an affiliate marketer. After working for corporations, he decided to be the boss of himself and gamble into the world of digital marketing. He consistently attends training and seminars to be on the loop with affiliate marketer, an effort which proved to be crucial to his current level of success.
