MommyBloggers as Affiliate Marketers

I just attended a session at Affiliate Summit with a great group of mommybloggers. If you want to reach mommybloggers, read on…

Wendy Limauge, Sweeties Swag – she teaches people to win sweepstakes (www.sweetiessweeps.com) & teaches mom bloggers how to monetize their blogs (www.mommybloggersguide.com). She says blogs can be ugly & often make more money than pretty blogs. She also recommends using Blogspot (surprising).

Carrie Rocha, Pocket Your Dollars

Kim Rowley, Key Internet Marketing – I got to talk to Kim and she's going to feature my online PR tshirt on her t-shirt Friday feature.

Heather Sokol, Inexpensively and Just Heather

Moderator Deborah Carney, Team Loxly

Here are some tips to working with mommybloggers:

• Get more interactivity with readers – ask for feedback about the products you review – adjust accordingly. If your readers are positive, talk about it more. If not, don't review that product or promote it.

• Mommybloggers want it to be simple. Simple for them and for their audience (not highly technical, short forms, etc). They're less likely to want a lot of technical options.

• Reach out to them – offer a product to review. Set guidelines about what type of sites you’ll send to. Look at their PageRank, # of visitors (use Compete.com). Look for a good fit.

• Product reviews are great for market research or test for affiliate managers. Give mommybloggers samples and have them ask their readers what they think. Get great feedback.

• Traditional affiliate marketers start with SEO and traffic. Most are 1-off sales. Mommybloggers usually start with a community, then learn to monetize after. It's community-based marketing.

• For mommybloggers – ask questions: What recipe would you try if you win this product? (send to affiliate site)

• Many merchants skip affiliate programs and go directly to mommybloggers to promote their products (Example: Old Navy wants mommybloggers to promotes their sales – the problem is they want them to do it for free. Many have started to charge for this service because it takes time to write post, get products to winners, make sure they are happy, etc)

• Unlike traditional affiliate marketers – mom bloggers promote each other & share information. They talk to each other (which is why you should avoid pissing them off) and help each other out.

How do you find mommybloggers if you're an affiliate network or merchant? Find one, look who they are following on Twitter, and you'll find the rest of them. You have a few at the top of this post.

There's also:
Southernsavers.com
freebies4mom.com
moneysavingmom.com
dealsavingmom.com

I sat next to Mia @miavallo and she wrote a related post: MommyBloggers: Changing the Face of Affiliate Marketing