Epic Gardening: From Affiliate Blog To E-Commerce Empire

-CREATOR OF THE DAY-

EPIC GARDENING

Epic Gardening is a one-stop content shop for gardening enthusiasts.

Last year it generated $27,000,000 in revenue.

It produces a huge amount of content on a variety of different platforms.

• Blog - 1-2 million visits/month

• YouTube - 2.46 million subs

• Instagram - 955K subs

• TikTok - 2.7 million subs

• Facebook - 673K followers

Here are 5 of its content strategies you can use to build your own content empire.

1. Testing on TikTok

We talk about content repurposing a lot here.

Especially in the context of short-form video.

It’s never been easier to simply post the same short-form video on several different platforms and get some degree of success.

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts - the exact same video on all of them.

Epic Gardening is a little more cautious.

Kevin Espiritu has previously said that he uses TikTok as a testing ground for video concepts.

If it takes off on TikTok, he’ll then repurpose the video on the other platforms he views as more important to his brand (i.e. YouTube and Instagram).

Those that really take off as short-form videos he’d then flesh out into a long-form video.

While Epic Gardening’s blog is a big money-maker, he does believe his YouTube audience is the most loyal and valuable.

He doesn’t want to dilute the content on there with a bunch of shorts that don’t really hit.

Testing concepts on TikTok is an underrated strategy you could try out for yourself.

2. The power of the personal brand

Kevin Espiritu is the founder and most widely recognized face within the Epic Gardening brand.

Despite now having a large team behind him, he’s still present in almost every single video.

A lot of prolific content creators (especially bloggers) like to remain anonymous or present themselves as being part of a team.

Kevin has previously said that he saw this as an opportunity.

By showing his face everywhere he built an enormous amount of trust with his audience.

He’s become a celebrity in the gardening niche - a serious authority.

In the world of content, it’s much easier to sell products and services when there’s a face behind the content.

3. Cut out the middleman

Back when it was an affiliate blog, Epic Gardening would have made something like a 3-8% commission on its recommended products.

All affiliates are at the mercy of the companies/brands they recommend.

Amazon Associates (its affiliate program) could decide to halve commissions (again) and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Kevin Espiritu noticed that gardening beds were a hugely popular product.

The ones he was recommending (as an affiliate) were selling like gangbusters.

He decided to cut out the middleman.

Instead of making a 3-8% commission as an affiliate, he could sell the products directly to his audience with a 20-30% profit margin.

He now owns warehouses filled with gardening beds (and other products) and Epic Gardening can confidently be labeled an e-commerce giant.

This is a great example of the content-to-commerce transition.

Logan Paul has done it with Prime Energy drinks.

MrBeast is killing it with Feastables chocolates.

It’s nowhere near as easy as simply creating content and monetizing with display ads and affiliate products.

But it’s a proven method of scaling a content business to 7 figures and beyond.

4. Evergreen niches are a dream

Epic Gardening is in the enviable position of rarely having to update its old content.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m sure they do, purely for the sake of keeping old blog posts fresh.

But there’s only so much that changes in the world of gardening.

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that tomato care hasn’t changed much in the last five years, for instance.

There aren’t many niches that can boast of this benefit.

Creators in the tech niche, for instance, are often constantly updating their old content.

Before you jump into a niche, consider how often you’ll have to update your content before you do so.

If you’re already creating content, consider whether you want to pursue subniches within your niche that won’t need as much updating over time.

Let’s take the men’s fashion niche as an example.

“10 Stylish Smart-Casual Summer Outfits” is a piece of content that will need updating regularly.

Trends fall in and out of favor.

“Loafers Sizing Guide”, on the other hand, is more evergreen as the information won’t change much from one year to the next.

5. Become an early adopter

Epic Gardening’s well-rounded social media presence would make most creators sick with jealousy.

2.7 million TikTok followers is mind-blowing, considering how it’s just a portion of the overall online audience.

Kevin Espiritu attributes a lot of his success on the platform to being early.

When he started posting videos on Epic Gardening’s TikTok account, the platform was still in its infancy.

In fact, he had no idea whether it would be a worthwhile investment of his time.

There have been plenty of platforms labeled the “next big thing” that failed shortly after.

TikTok could have been one of them.

But Kevin doesn’t mind this.

He’s previously said that investing 60 hours into learning a new platform could pay off massively if the platform were to eventually take off.

If it doesn’t, he’ll cut his losses and move on.

Key Takeaways:

• Consider testing content concepts on certain platforms (eg. TikTok, Twitter) before repurposing/fleshing them out.

• Having a recognizable face behind the content can be invaluable when it comes to trust and authority.

• For advanced creators, cutting out the middleman and transitioning from an affiliate to an e-commerce company is worth considering.

• Evergreen niches and subniches can save a creator from having to regularly update old pieces of content.

• Becoming an early adopter of new platforms may not always pay off - many of them will inevitably fail. But you’ll have a major first-mover advantage if any of them do make it big.

-TOOL OF THE DAY-

BEAUTIFUL AI

Stunning AI-generated charts and presentations based on templates.

Beautiful.ai takes your text prompts and turns them into visuals.

Example:

Text prompt: “Google’s ad revenue from 2010 through 2020”

AI-generated chart:

Adding charts and other visual bites to your content is an easy way to come across as more authoritative and legitimate.