Income Claim Marketing: Why you Should Not Waste your Time

Income claim marketing has become a common braggadocious behavior that most bloggers have come across. It’s appealing to read with a touch of envy on top.

People are attracted to those who itemize their blog income reports each month with a source list for every dollar earned.

I’m not a big fan of this practice and frankly, it seems a little weird. Do people go to a party and brag to everyone about how much money they made last month at their job?

Or maybe you meet someone at the coffee shop and they tell you how much they banked last month?

I haven’t met anyone who does that in person, so…

Why do it online?

Why You Should Stop Reading Blog Income Reports

Here are three reasons why you shouldn’t fall into the income claim marketing trap.

Studying Blog Income Reports Does not Develop Skills

As an experienced blogger, I can tell you that blogging is hard work and requires a myriad of skills.

We all have limited time to work on developing the needed skills for success.

So … If you are spending your precious time reading income claim reports, you have less time to build the skills that YOU actually need to generate YOUR income.

Here’s the deal:

Income report marketing sells one thing: success with a dash of hope.

Selling the possibility of success is fine as proof that if others are making money, then it is possible for you make money too.

What’s missing from the equation is the skill and techniques that went into generating that income.

Just because an individual made a ton of money with a certain affiliate product, doesn’t mean you will too.

What was their strategy for getting traffic and converting that traffic to buyers?

What was their technique for writing content that sells?

Which leads me to the next reason why blog income reports are a waste of time.

Your Blog Audience is not the same

If you read an income report and think, WOW! That blogger made a ton of money from SiteGround! You may think that if you become an affiliate too, you can duplicate that success.

Not true!

If your blog is about essential oils and healthy living, then selling webhosting wouldn’t even be a good fit for your target audience.

So, if you insist on reading income reports, be aware of your target audience and what would be a good fit.

The good news is …

You can get some good ideas about affiliate products that you didn’t think of before.

But again, without the skills that it took to convert a blog visitor into a buyer, you likely won’t experience the same success even you sign up for that affiliate program.

Bloggers who Use Income Reports to Make More Money off YOU

Most of the time, bloggers post income reports to make more money, not to help you learn how to duplicate that income.

For example, here’s a snippet of a top blogger’s income report. Note that the sources of income are all affiliate links.

I have to admit, that’s a brilliant way to market online! Lure people with a huge monthly income report and then provide affiliate links so visitors can click through and possibly convert to a buyer.

That’s why it’s called: income report marketing!

And, this individual doesn’t even use BlueHost webhosting although it’s one of their biggest money makers. Why would someone heavily recommend a service that they would never use themselves?

You can figure out the answer to that one.

Build your Own Blogging Empire Instead

Instead of taking the time to read income reports which provide you with no value, spend your time wisely.

Invest in developing the skills and techniques you need to have YOUR own success.

When you have a recipe for sustainable blog growth, you will become unstoppable!

Don’t be one of those people that lure bloggers in with big income numbers and recommendations that you don’t even use.

Build your blog business on mutual benefit, trust, and loyalty.

Here are skills that can help:

Define your Target Audience and Niche

I meet many bloggers who call themselves “Lifestyle bloggers.” OK. So who is the audience you are targeting?

Lifestyle can mean anything. In the online marketing world, your audience is NOT everyone.

Is your lifestyle blog focused on life as stay at home mom, or an adventure traveler?

It can be so many things but if you want to really make money, you need to focus in on a niche. Write for that audience and get to know them well.

That’s how you will start earning an income. Not by reading income reports.

Your niche market helps you to define exactly who you are marketing to online. If not, how would you know what to write or what products and services your audience would want?

Write Content that Attracts your Ideal Audience

Be a good marketer and build successful relationships with your target audience. You do that by providing value in every piece of content you write and making recommendations that will truly help your audience.

Good marketers inform their audience and provide them with information that helps them in some way. For example if you have a healthy living blog, do some keyword research about what’s trending or what people are searching for.

Give them what they are already looking for!

Makes sense, right?

If you provide blog content that people are already searching for, then they will be attracted to what you have to offer.

It’s really that simple. Attraction marketing is built on a foundation of always giving before you take.

With your content, you give incredible value to help your audience before you take their money.

Your content should be closely aligned with your audience. Be your authentic self and recommend only what you truly believe in. Don’t con your audience or try to convince them.

It’s a mistake to make recommendations that you don’t even believe in. After a while, your audience will catch on.

While you are at it, be sure to write posts that are well-written with no mistakes. That helps build the trust factor with your audience.

I recommend using a tool like Grammarly to help ensure that every post you write is error free.

Use Search Engine Marketing Techniques (SEO)

Blog income reports won’t tell you about the time it took to optimize every blog post for SEO and the time to get to the top of the search engines.

SEO is one of the most important skills you should learn.

It’s a long term strategy but can bring you sustainable traffic for years to come.

In my niche blogs, I’ve gotten all my traffic from doing good SEO. I still have posts written 7 years ago appearing at the top of Google results.

That is a very satisfying feeling.

Here’s the deal.

It takes time and patience.

Of course, getting your blog posts out there immediate is also gratifying, but there’s another technique for that which I’ll get to in a moment.

Imagine if you can earn income week after week for years because you took the time to optimize your blog posts?

You can learn more about SEO in a post I wrote about How to Increase traffic to your Site.

Also be sure to grab my no-cost training on SEO Image Optimization.

Promote Each Blog Post you Write

We’ve already established that SEO is a long term strategy.

Promoting your content NOW is a short term strategy to get you results now.

For every post I write, I spend a lot more time promoting it in social media as I wait patiently to rise to the coveted position in Google search results.

I know you are busy! That’s what auto schedulers are for. I use them frequently and have a few I can actually recommend to you.

Hootsuite: awesome tool to schedule across multiple social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Don’t underestimate the amount of traffic you can get from Twitter!
Tailwind: You can schedule to Pinterest and Instagram with Tailwind. It’s a huge time saver to help you.
Missinglettr: MissingLettr is a social media tool that lets you create targeted and automated social media campaigns for your content.
Social Jukebox: One of my personal favorites, you can schedule social media posts with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
PromoRepublic: Discover, customize and publish to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin. You can create visual posts in addition to scheduling.