How I Bankrolled My Business With Affiliate Marketing
Who doesn't love easy money? The kind you can make in your sleep? If you don't raise your hand...I'm skeptical of you my friend.
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You may not have found the how to making easy money, but deep down I know you secretly crave nailing the concept. Good news! I’m diving deep into the world of selling other people’s products and services! I know we talk so much about building up your own business, but what would it look like if you could earn an income from selling someone else’s product or service that you love? I’m sharing the 2 ways I've used affiliate marketing, which one I like better and why, and my 3 part strategy to rock affiliate sales. This episode is a game changer if you’re not sure what you want to do in the next journey of your business, but you know you want to have multiple streams of income in order to create your financial freedom.
What is Affiliate Marketing and is it different from Multi-Level-Marketing?
The formal definition is: a marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays a commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals. Basically, its when you refer people to a product or service and get a commission if they purchase because of you. There are a few different types of affiliate marketing, like sharing a link to something you love that will give you money if someone purchases. Multi-level marketing businesses could be categorized as affiliate marketing, but I view them as vastly different due to the nature of control you have over your success. In multi-level marketing you are dependent on who you bring in under you to sell a service or product, in addition to them doing a good job of it. In affiliate marketing, you are telling people about the service or product and in that regard can control how good of a job you do with the message.
My Affiliate Marketing Style
I don’t do a ton of affiliate marketing because when I left the MLM type of passive income I was so skeptical about anything offering a referral type of payment. The secondary truth is: I have so many visions of products I want to offer with my company and services I've created that I was worried affiliate marketing would be in competition with my own business. This couldn't be further from the reality and I've found over the past year that affiliate marketing is a simple strategy I can stack on top of my primary products and offers in order to not only create further income but also supplement my audiences experience with my own offerings. I’m SUPER selective about who and what I will affiliate for because I am highly protective of my audience and what I put my name behind so I choose to be intentional about this strategy and in how I implement it.
Part 1: Be Careful in Your Selection
The biggest thing to note is that there is a level of responsibility with affiliate marketing. Choose what you’re selling and sharing VERY carefully. You want to choose something you’re naturally passionate about, you enjoy talking about, and you’ve used and experienced first hand. My personal rule of thumb is 6 months. I absolutely not want to affiliate for something that I haven't used and loved for at least 6 months, because I want to know that I can honestly tell my audience about how I'm using the product and give very real pros and cons for it. My promise is this: you'll never see something on my Tools of the Trade page that I'm not currently using. Same thing with my amazon storefront. If I bought it and returned it, it doesn't land there.
Part 2: Be Super Strategic
It's true-you can be an affiliate these days for almost anything. My biggest tip here is to focus on building a true brand for yourself and not just a “business” around affiliate marketing. Sprinkle in the affiliate marketing to your brand as one big cohesive family of products and the people who follow your advice will appreciate it.
Let's unpack that some more. I talk alot about podcasting, and have a course on creating your own podcast. I also talk alot about emails and the power of a list that you continue to grow and nurture with well written email sequences. I personally use Kajabi for those of these pieces of my business. Kajabi is where I house my list, create landing pages for opt-ins or freebies, and I use the blog for the shownotes of The B-Word Podcast episodes. I can talk authentically about the why I recommend this product over others. And it pairs well with what I myself offer. By using personal stories and experiences I can really show people that I'm a human who has an experience and can be trusted. They are far more likely to turn to the products I recommend as a result.
Part 3: Add in the non-paying recommendations
I truly do care about my audience and in helping you succeed in business with simple strategies. That's why the third layer to my affiliate marketing strategy is to incorporate a healthy amount of supplemental products and companies that I have no commission income potential for. Social squares is one of those companies. I truly love the stock photos their membership provides and use them all the time in my own social media or web pages. They currently have no affiliate program but that's ok with me. I still tell my audience about them here on the podcast, and link to them in shownotes because they've made my own personal marketing efforts so much easier and prettier. I want to shout about it to the rooftops and so I do. The side benefit here is that when I offer up solutions with NO monetary push to me, I gain extra trust with you my audience. Not bad, huh?
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Since You Loved This Episode, Here's A Few Other Episodes I Know You'll Enjoy:
Episode 84: The Year Of The Sphere Starts With Customer Experience
Episode 74: Mastering the Foundation of Referrals With Stacey Brown Randall
Links mentioned in this episode:
<<Social Squares Stock Membership>>
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