The online learning industry is expected to do well over $100 billion dollars this year. Yes, $100 billion dollars will be made in the digital world; if you’re a content creator all you need is to take a small piece of the pie to succeed. However, today I want to talk to you about the greed that is specifically happening in the realm of content creators.
When I first started to learn about creating eBooks and digital products, almost four years ago, everyone was telling me about affiliate links and the money I could make from just pushing other peoples content. I get pitched to on a daily basis to push someone else’s product. I’m not really interested in pushing complete strangers products, though. It only yields a 30%+ return to me if sales are landed.
Great Content
There is far and few great content creators out there doing it because they truly care about helping others. Lets just be honest. Most people see dollar signs and run with it. Last month, I was pitched by 30 people to promote their digital products. Some I were aware of but their business tactics cause me not to endorse them. Others have never met me neither interacted with me on social media. Their only focus was to leverage my loyal followers so they could push their old blog post that they turned into an eBook.
Listen, if you’re going to turn your old blog post into an eBook: 1) You need to refine it. 2) You need to add more content. A semi-popular content creator once said “double your blog traffic in x days” with my eBook. I was a follower of her blog, so to my shock, when I bought her $20 eBook it was ALL her old post. Nothing ground breaking. No new great content.
Promote Because You Want To
I have done affiliate links with Amazon, Tiny Prints, Host Gator, and other companies. Then I noticed people would tell me “oh I signed up or purchased this or that because you referred me”. I was confused because I wasn’t getting checks from these companies. People DONT buy instantly; so that 30 day cookies you have with the affiliate link does you no good on day 31. So, I stopped using affiliate links. I promote products and services I use and love. At this time. there is no affiliate link for ICB Consults’ digital products. For almost four years people have referred others on a consistent basis without me needing to pay a dime to do it.
Promote what you love, not because a check is attached to it. There are several brands I love and talk about all the time, and I don’t receive a dime from them. I have actually made friends with the CEO’s of multi-million dollar companies because of how hard I go for them. Nothing beats tweeting back with a CEO or founder of a company. It’s funny when people say “OMG so and so follows you and likes your photos”.
Trust Breeds Success + Loyalty
As of today, there is a combined less than 10K followers on Instagram for Imperfect Concepts and ICB Consult. My audience trust me and believes in me. I would never short change them for a couple of dollars; selling crappy products is never worth the backlash. Mediocre truly does sell to the masses because the masses don’t bother to become educated on anything; failing to know what’s best. Instead, they go with what’s popular. Today, my Fall digital product collection bundle came out for pre-order. Within the first 5 minutes of launch day there was 10 pre-orders.
As a content creator, Beware of participation with affiliate links. The people who are pushing your content don’t truly care if you’re goal is to change the world. They care about the PayPal money.
People who push affiliate products to your audience should only push what you love. No dollar amount is worth losing loyal customers. One day you may want to sell them something maybe. Do you want that mistrust to be tied to your name because of one crappy product years ago you were peddling to them?
