Hello my beautiful friends, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This week I’m going to be talking about how to make money with affiliate marketing. We will be diving into how affiliate marketing works, the benefits of affiliate marketing, how to decide which programs to be an affiliate for, how to organize your affiliate links, and finally sharing some final notes on best practices when it comes to affiliate marketing.

This episode will only scratch the surface of everything you can possibly do with affiliate marketing, but I want this to serve as a starting point for anyone who wants to start using affiliate marketing in their business or wants to better utilize it. For the purpose of this episode, we’re discussing how affiliate marketing works when you are an affiliate of someone else's product, course, or software tool.

Webster’s online dictionary defines ‘Affiliate Marketing’ as:

“A marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays a commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.”

So rather than a company paying for ads to market their product or service, you, as an individual become the marketing ‘arm’ and because you market their product, you are compensated.

When I first started using affiliate marketing it felt ‘icky’. But once I realized that the company may not have made that sale without my recommendation, it became a lot more natural for me to utilize affiliate marketing for my benefit and as long as it is a tool, program, software, etc., that I use and personally believe in. I eventually realized it doesn’t need to feel ‘icky’ at all.

Something thing to keep in mind about affiliate marketing is that it can really be a passive form of income. You don’t need to create the product, you just need to believe in it and recommend it to those you feel would benefit from it, especially when it can fill a gap for your audience. Products or services that you know, like and trust, and you feel aligns with your audience; these are the ones you want to market.

One of the biggest recommendations I have when it comes to affiliate marketing is that you always want to make sure you are aligned with the offer or product and that you’re excited about sharing it and authentic when doing so. Another recommendation I have is to always disclose that you are using affiliate links. It is a good thing to be upfront about them, and in some cases/ locations you’re legally required to do so.

Tips for Getting Organized

Create a Google Sheet (easy!) for all of the affiliate programs you are already signed up for or a part of
Make columns for the name of the company, product/ service name, your login information, the unique URL that you’re given that is specific to you, and any redirect you’ve created for this URL for your own website. (For example, I am an affiliate of Podia. My affiliate URL for Podia includes a long line of numbers and letters that is impossible to remember. So I created a redirect on my Squarespace website to make it easier for my audience to find what they are looking for, and easier for me to remember. So if you go to www.shediditherway.com/podia it will redirect you to my affiliate link.)

There are so many ways to keep your affiliate links and information organized and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I also recommend creating a resource page on your website, keeping all of your recommended resources, with affiliate links, in one place on your website making it easy to find. Additionally you can create individual blog posts, highlighting each of them, digging deeper into why you recommend them. If you really want to exercise affiliate marketing and get into it, you need to make sure you're driving leads or eyeballs to those pages so that people are clicking on those links and purchasing as well.

Another thing to consider is not to piggyback too many affiliate offers (unless that is your sole business) one after another. If you tend to recommend products or services back to back too frequently it becomes too much for your audience. I would rather recommend my top three programs that are really strategic and intentional, that I can focus my time and energy on when it comes to launching and marketing those programs rather than trying to do a bunch of different ones.

I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about this. This is just more of my personal experience with affiliate marketing. When it comes to affiliate programs that I've been part of it takes work. It's more than just throwing up a landing page and telling people about it once. You have to market the program or product.

Until next time, keep doing it your way.

Insights:

“So rather than a company paying for ads to market their product or service, you, as an individual become the marketing ‘arm’ and because you market their product, you are compensated.”
“Something thing to keep in mind about affiliate marketing is that it can really be a passive form of income.”
“I would rather recommend my top three programs that are really strategic and intentional, that I can focus my time and energy on when it comes to launching and marketing those programs rather than trying to do a bunch of different ones.”

Resources:

Visit Pat Flynn’s Website
Check out one of Pat Flynn’s Podcasts

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