What’s free, easy, and can make you money in your sleep?
Affiliate marketing.
I know, it sounds kind of complicated and possibly even a little boring.
For some of you, it might conjure up images of salesy Instagram posts or sponsored blog articles.
For others, affiliate marketing may have lost its luster because you don’t know how to utilize your links.
And for the rest of you, you’re probably wondering what in the world affiliate marketing is in the first place.
I like Pat Flynn’s definition:
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people's (or company's) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
Read that again and let it sink in.
Affiliate marketing allows you to earn passive income by promoting the products you already use and love.
It’s another stream of passive income for your business.
It doesn’t cost you anything to set up. It doesn’t take a bunch of time to implement. And it can literally make you money in your sleep.
(Affiliate marketing isn't sounding so boring now, is it?)
But here’s the thing: Many people sign up for affiliate programs and receive their individual links, but they don’t understand how to make the best use of them. So they simply stick them in a blog post every once in awhile, share them on social media here and there, and call it a day.
That’s only scratching the surface.
If anyone knows about effective affiliate strategies, it’s Justine Grey.
After working with large companies like Freshbooks and Shopify to get their affiliate programs up and running, Justine has seen firsthand all kinds of clever ways that business owners have been using their affiliate links to generate passive income.
And she joined me last week in an Ellechat webinar to share 11 of them.
If you’ve been looking for another stream of income to help relieve some of the financial pressure of taking your business full-time, this webinar gives you insight for how to earn commission in a non-salesy way.
If you’re like me and you’ve been using affiliate links here and there but could use some tips on how to use them more effectively, this webinar provides direction.
And if you’re just curious about affiliate marketing and want to see if it’s right for you, you have nothing to lose by watching the replay.
Justine and I also discussed:
- The benefits of affiliate marketing
- How to choose which affiliate programs to participate in
- And examples for each of the 11 clever ways to use affiliate links
“The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to invest the time and effort to create a product to sell. You can begin selling something as an affiliate as soon as you have a platform to sell on.”
If you’re looking for a way to monetize your blog or create a passive income stream for your creative business, affiliate marketing is the way to go.
You can watch the replay by registering through the Crowdcast window below, or keep scrolling and take a look at the transcript.
Transcript
Lauren:
Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Elle Chat on 11 clever ways to use affiliate links. I'm really, really excited to have Justine Gray joining me today. She is an expert when it comes to affiliates. She's not only worked with Fresh Books and Shopify, but she's helped build their affiliate programs. When it comes to affiliates, there's really no one better for this.
I thought it would be good just to start out and learn a little about you and how you got started in affiliate marketing. How did you get to where you are right now?
Justine:
It started basically with a blog almost I guess 8, 9 years ago.
That blog was all about how to market your handmade jewelry business because at the time I had an Etsy shop and I was whole selling at retail stores. I had my work in about 12 different stores and people kept asking me questions like, "How are you getting your products into retail stores? How can I do the same?" I started a blog and I thought, "I'm going to make so much money off of ad space, it's going to be amazing," and after one month of hustling I was exhausted and I had $3 from ad space.
Lauren:
I think we've all been there at some point so don't feel bad.
Justine:
Basically, that's how I first discovered affiliate marketing, I was looking for ways to monetize. I just fell in love with the idea of it. I thought, "I don't have a product, this is perfect." That's how I got started. I also had other income streams, I think it's really important to diversify. You don't want to just rely on affiliate marketing even if you're doing really well with it because you just never know, a company could shut down or you could change business models. It's always good to diversify it so I did, but as I started to experiment with it, it just got better and better. That's how I started as a content affiliate. I was really just blogging and then eventually landed a gig at Fresh Books, it's a cloud accounting software company here in Toronto. I pitched them the idea on the affiliate program as soon as I showed up and they're like, "Get out of here, you don't work on that," but after a while, they were like, "Okay, take some money and just get out of our face."
I started that program in 2013 and built it up for the last few years and now I freelance and I get to still manage parts of it as well.
Lauren:
That's awesome. How are you liking freelancing?
Justine:
Freelancing is good. It's so nice to just not have to go commute and…office politics and all that gone.
Lauren:
A little more freedom to go do things on your own terms. For those who are tuning in and really may not be familiar with affiliate marketing, how would you define it?
Justine:
I would define it as a partnership between merchants. Somebody who has products for sale. When they partner up the affiliate, or the publisher, will use a special tracking link and if anyone clicks that link and buys something, or takes another action, there's other kinds of actions that you can take to get commission such as a free trial, an e-mail, then you get paid by the company.
Lauren:
That's awesome. What would you say are the biggest benefits of affiliate marketing?
Justine:
The first one I think is that it's free. It costs nothing to get started and really the companies are the ones that have to pay for it because they're paying you and then they're paying the companies that they're hosting their programs. It costs nothing to you at all, even when you start making money, which is great. Another benefit is it helps you to diversify your income streams. If you don't have product yet but ... It's just really important, again, to diversify. You don't want to rely on just any one source. For me, I had done professional, I was blogging for companies and I knew that wasn't ... I shouldn't just do that because if one month they said, "We don't need an article, Justine," I'm screwed. Affiliate marketing is a great way to have another income stream.
Lauren:
I know for when I was trying to take my business full time that I needed as many different income streams as possible just to take the pressure off of one of them. Relying really heavily on design services was a little riskier than diversifying and making passive income. You don't have to do more work to do more money with affiliate marketing. You do more marketing, you can point more people toward those links but it doesn't require as much time as something like service based businesses too.
Justine:
Yes, the passive income is key. I think those are a couple benefits. The other one is there's just no audience minimum. You don't need to have any ... You should have maybe one visitor a day or something but you don't really have to have a minimum. I think I even saw a question down below that said, "I'm having trouble partnering because I don't have any big following," and I thought to myself, "That's strange because that should never be a prerequisite." As an affiliate manager, I approve applications for Fresh Books and other companies and that's never a factor, a professional looking blog is really all I'm looking for.
Lauren:
Design.
Justine:
I'm not a stickler for design. I know not everyone's as great as you designing but just definitely professional. I never think to myself, "I don't have any traffic I'm not accepting," because I want to grow with them.
Lauren:
That's awesome. I think you're calming people's fears about affiliate marketing already. That's awesome, so many benefits from affiliate marketing, and I'm glad you said that because I feel like a lot of people think about affiliate marketing that it's down the line or they do have to grow their audience a ton in order to even start with that, especially with sponsored ads and things along those lines. I think that's really comforting to hear, that you can start basically anywhere.
Justine:
Definitely and you don't want to start later because you almost leave money on the table if you do because let's say you write a blog post, your very first one and then you think, "Nobody's going to see this for a while," but then they start to see it and by then you're kind of busy so you're not going to go back and by the time you go back and add stuff you've lost a little bit of potential income.
Lauren:
Right, and say one of those posts goes viral on Pinterest and you realize it until later, you just missed an awesome opportunity.
Justine:
Exactly.
Lauren:
That's a really good point. I love that you said that. This is a question and something that I've thought about often too is how do you choose which affiliate programs to partner with? How do you find out about them? How do you suggest going about that?
Justine:
I think there's three questions you want to ask yourself. The first is, "What products do I use and love," and I think everyone's heard it before, and for good reason, if you are a customer of a product or a company then you're going to be really authentic in the way that you promote them. It's just going to be like, "Hey guys, I use this thing. It's awesome," and it's not going to feel weird for you and for the person who's reading your post. I think that's the best place to start. The second question would be, "What products have I tried in the past?" It's a similar thing but it's different because let's say Lauren, when you first started out you probably used a certain set of tools that you're not necessarily using all of now because you evolved and you're a teacher. You're teaching people somewhat in beginner stage say to where you are now so you're not going to recommend someone your $10,000 tool but you're going to recommend the tool that helped you get to your $10,000 tool level.
That is another one where it helps to think of tools you used in the past that are still going to benefit your audience, or products that you've used in the past. I think of fashion bloggers it's like they start off with maybe Target because it's affordable and then as their blog grows they're all of a sudden wearing really fancy things. It's still important to have a balance and remember where your people are. That's totally okay. Then the third I would say is, "What products will my audience benefit from?" This is products that you're not currently using but you know that would be beneficial maybe to round out a story. Let's say you're writing a blog post and Lauren, you're focusing on Squarespace but you know some people in your audience might be on WordPress and you don't want to totally leave them out so you'll include a few WordPress related things. If you spend a lot of time researching to get those tools in there, maybe interviewing some friends of yours that use WordPress or sourcing a lot of information, putting it all together, you deserve to get paid.
I think that's totally acceptable. Everyone has a different view on this. I think if you're just going to grab a name and throw it up and you don't use it then don't do that but if you're taking a lot of time and investing your time in even educating yourself about something to help others then I think it's totally acceptable.
Lauren:
I love that you said that, and I love your point about past products because there are things like MailChimp, which I used to use and it worked great for me but I've since switched to ConvertKit. I can still promote a course on MailChimp just approach it a little bit differently. I love that you said because too, I try to focus on products that I'm already using because like you said, I can promote it in a way that's authentic. I'm not going to promote something I don't use and know nothing about. If I write a post on ConvertKit or Crowdcast or any of the things I love, I'm already going to write that post but I can get paid from the links included in that and become an affiliate then it's a no-brainer.
I want to go ahead and dive into the 11 clever ways to use affiliate links. I feel like most of the time when we think of affiliate links we think of links in blog posts or in Instagram bios. But that can get a little boring and maybe isn’t using affiliate links to their full potential. You have 11 ways to share with us today, right?
Justine:
Yes.
Lauren:
Let's just dive in.
Justine:
Before we dive in I do want to give you guys a little pep talk. I always try to get people in the right mindset for affiliate stuff first. At first, it's going to definitely start to feel like you're really working for free. You're promoting products and you're not making any money at first. You get discouraged but I think you got to get in the mindset of, for example, if you started a Twitter account you're not just going to throw out a tweet and bounce, you're going to stay and you're going to try to make it work. I think just making sure that you know that yes, it's going to feel weird at first. You're not going to make money overnight but just work at it like you would blogging or social media and in time just incorporate it slowly and then gradually build up to more as you have more time. I think that's the best approach you can take.
Lauren:
I'm so glad you said that because especially with Freelance Academy, the new course that I launched this week, we're talking a lot about blogging and I said the same thing. You have to think about it as a long-term strategy instead of just thinking about the short term, which is easy to do, but as with anything just thinking about the long term and having patience and endurance because before you know it, it will start to take off and grow and then grow exponentially.
Justine:
Right. I'm going to jump into the 11 ways now. I think maybe the easiest thing would be to go through all 11 and then at the end I can show you guys examples for each one if that works for you.
Lauren:
Yes, that's perfect.
1 | Create an outside-the-box tutorial
Justine:
The first way is create an outside-the-box tutorial. When done right tutorials are a really great way to sell a product without saying, "Go and buy this right now." If you're just showing people how to use it, it's the perfect way to get started. One thing, a lot of times general tutorials are things like just showing how a certain feature works or just concentrating on a basic way to use it, but an outside the box tutorial is something where you're going to do something different. You're going to show people how to achieve something with that product. “How to 10 times your traffic with this tool,” or, "How I turn heads at every event with this awesome beauty product." How did you achieve something with it that they want to achieve. Another idea would be something like how to create something with a product. “How to create workbooks with Adobe and InDesign.” You can be an affiliate for something and then show how to do something really cool with it.
I saw an outside-the-box tutorial that was how to make a scarf with this crochet hook. I was like, "I need that crochet hook if I'm going to make that awesome scarf!" Then, lately would be how to use a product in multiple ways. Not just the one way or the basic way, but how can somebody where this scarf in four different seasons or five different occasions. I would say that's the first one.
Lauren:
I love that, and I think it's so much more organic, like you said, than just, "Buy this product." Here's actually how to use to use it and then by presenting all the benefits or the outcome, they're naturally going to want to buy the product involved. That's awesome.
2 | Use extra pockets of real estate on your website
Justine:
Then the second way I would say is utilize extra pockets of real estate on your website. There's a few different places, the first is the space between your blog post and your comments. If people make it that far they're super engaged so why not link to something that they might be interested in either related to your content or just related to your site. You can use something more general as well. That space could be utilized. A lot of people use it for recommended posts, things like that. If you do, you can always do both. You can make your widget a bit smaller and have something to the right. I have a great example of that, or you can swap out or related widget for a month and just see what happens, test it out and if you make some money and it's more impactful than say the traffic or the subscribers then something to consider.
Lauren:
That's great. Switching out the posts that you use to the post that you wrote about and include that link.
Justine:
Totally.
Lauren:
That's so smart. I wouldn't have thought of that but yet it's so strategic.
Justine:
It's one of those things where it's like you think about it and you're like, "I'll get it to it one day." It's just that there's so much on your list. It's one of those that aren't used that often. I spend a lot of time researching for this and for that post I wrote and it was really hard to find people doing it. It shows that if you spend the extra time it could be impactful.
Lauren:
That's awesome.
Justine:
I would say the next pocket to look at is your site footer. I know a lot of people do use this maybe to link to their blog theme or something with an affiliate link. That would be one way you could do it. You could also do a graphic or a list of links. I know people think, "Who goes to the footer," but I actually put a heat map on my site and tons of people go to my footer. They scroll all the way down and they click on things. I'm all for the footer.
Lauren:
That's awesome. I should try it in the footer. I even created a page in my footer navigation for tools and then link to some of the tools in there and affiliate links.
Justine:
There's the footer, and then the last one is the sticky sidebar widget. I actually saw this tip from ...You know Brain Harris? I know you know Brain Harris.
Lauren:
Yes, I do. He's great.
Justine:
He's awesome. He had actually done a guest post on the SumoMe blog all about how to increase your e-mail conversions. I went through each tip and tried to implement them and then I thought to myself, "The sticky sidebar widget, this is great for affiliate," because basically what it is, is somebody's scrolling down in your blog they're going to get to all that dead space on the right-hand side where there's nothing, you can actually keep a widget stuck so it follows the person. You can do that with an affiliate banner or a set of links or affiliate posts that are really popular. That's another one for sure.
Lauren:
That's brilliant. I wonder if my coding friend can figure out how to do that in Squarespace. That would be really sweet. I'll keep y'all posted on that.
3 | Write a product comparison post
Justine:
The third way I would say is to write a product comparison post. We know that lots of people do reviews on a single product, but not everyone will go a step further and do what we call product comparison. For example, if I'm going to go buy a stroller, I'm going to read about every stroller in existence before I decide which one I'm personally going to buy. If that blog post that you've written just talks about one stroller the person's going to bounce off to go find a different stroller, but if you decided to say do five products in the same category they have a really good reason to stay and also you're going to help convince them which one is best for them and they're going to click through. Product comparison posts do really well in terms of conversion from the merchant perspective. I'll give you an example with Fresh Books. With Fresh Books, you get paid on the lead, or you can get paid on the lead or the sale.
If I'm working on the sale, any free leads I send to Fresh Books, I don't get paid. But if I write a product comparison post with Fresh Books inside and say Fresh Books is what I would recommend people use when the person gets there it's going to be like they're sold. There's a very good chance that after their free trial is over they're going to want to use Fresh Books. That's one of those where it definitely takes a lot of time to create but it's so impactful from the sale perspective.
Lauren:
That's awesome. I wouldn't even consider that.
4 | Incorporate links into pre-existing content
Justine:
That's number three. Number four, incorporate products into pre-existing content. This one's really simple to do. You see this a lot with people talking about content upgrades like, "Hey, go to your most popular post and add a content upgrade." You can do the same thing with affiliate links. Go to your most popular posts and find a way to incorporate your new affiliate products into your old content because there's definitely a chance that you started out without an affiliate in mind. I would say that with popular posts. At the end, I can show you guys a really quick thing you can do to find also just related posts. For example, I checked your site, Lauren. I was stalking you earlier. It's just this Google hack you can do where you can just search for your site and then a keyword and then it will show you all the posts that have that keyword. Let's say it was invoicing, you could start linking into your 17 hats, affiliate links into every invoice post.
Lauren:
So easy and simple. Yes, that's a really great idea because I've thought about that too where I know I've mentioned it before in that past.
Justine:
Exactly. I tried just searching your own site, but sometimes those search resulsts aren't as great. Google is better.
Lauren:
That's so helpful. That link would be awesome. I'll be on that.
5 | Use merchant provided tools
Justine:
Number five, use merchant provided tools. Most companies want to help you sell so they're going to create things for you. People are used to seeing things like banners, text links, things like that in their accounts when they go to become an affiliate, but what they don't sometimes see is there's widgets you can use and these widgets are really cool because they basically provide an interactive experience on your own site that eventually take people to the merchant's site. You can put it in your sidebar, you can embed in a blog post. I think the most common example that you've probably heard of is you know the Amazon shopping widget? Everyone has those little Amazon stores, that's one example. If you have a merchant you're working with who has those, take advantage of it because it gets people clicking around on your site. One time I saw a quiz one and I did the quiz and of course I'm going to pop over to the other site because I'm like, "Give me those results."
Lauren:
That's really clever.
Justine:
As a merchant, I wish they would do more things like that but for the ones you do work with who have those you should definitely check them out and consider it.
Lauren:
That's awesome.
6 | Create an e-mail series
Justine:
Number six, create a series of e-mails. If you have an e-mail list, this is going to be your most profitable method. It's going to be the best way to earn quickly and the reason is just the time sensitivity factor. Getting into people's inbox's and just like anybody talks about with product launches, selling to your list is very good.
Lauren:
I underestimated it until this last go-round with Freelance Academy. I promise you guys if you're skeptical it really does work.
Justine:
It's the same with affiliate marketing. If you don't have a product for sale, until you have a product for sale, I should say, then use your list and it actually gets people in the mindset of that you're selling a little. I personally don't want to go a year without ever trying to sell something and then all of a sudden I'm like, "I have a product," and they're like, "Get away from me."
Lauren:
They're like, "Who are you?"
Justine:
Use affiliate marketing to warm people up too and also it helps you figure out what works so when you do want to sell your own product, now you've got the formula down. Yes, create a series of e-mails. This works also really well with limited time offer products, courses that are going away or product bundles, things like that.
Lauren:
That's awesome. Here's a question for you too because I had someone ask me this the other day about affiliate links. I’ve heard that some people can get in trouble for not disclosing that they include affiliate links in their e-mail marketing campaigns. Where do you suggest putting that in something like an e-mail campaign?
Justine:
For e-mail it's tricky. When you look at the FTC guidelines, it's very clear for a blog but it's less clear for e-mail and I would say just to always be safe just do it at the top right away before they see anything else. I know it kind of sucks because usually, the first line of your e-mail is what they see in their preview so it's like, "This e-mail is affiliate," it's like oh crap, but you can always start with..
Lauren:
Just ruin it.
Justine:
Yes, just ruin the whole e-mail, but you can always start with a different sentence and then have your second sentence be just like ... I use this in mine. It says, "Heads up, some of my e-mails contain affiliate links, if you don't know what that means scroll down and read my full disclosure at the bottom of this e-mail." I don't want to put the whole thing at the top because it's long and it might be weird. I definitely let them know and then if they want to know what that means or they're confused they can read the whole thing right where I'm linking. I think that's important.
Lauren:
I think too, people appreciate the transparency. If you're giving them great content and you're not trying to sell them all the time. I always have a 90/10 rule of free, helpful content 90% of the time and 10% promotions. I even try to cut back on that. Just to calm the fears of those of you tuning who are like, "Oh no. I don't want to put that at the top." I've had people who have reached out to me and said, "Hey, Lauren. Do you have an affiliate link for this because I want you to get credit for my purchase for things like Crowdcast and ConvertKit."
Justine:
Because they love you.
Lauren:
Which I'm really thankful for. I'm like, "Yes I'll give you the affiliate link." Don't be worried about that. If you're providing helpful content and you're doing right by them they won't mind using those. I don't mind using the affiliate links of people who've given me so much information.
Justine:
To say it's your e-mail subscribers or social followers if they leave you or they unfollow you or they just don't want to support you because you're using affiliate links it's like they're never going to have been your best friend, coolest fan, best buyer ever. They're never have going be that person for you anyways. It sucks but it's okay.
Lauren:
I used to take it very personally like, "Who unsubscribed from my mailing list?!" The things is they would never purchase from me anyway like you said. That's the purpose. It isn't a popularity contest, your using it for business.
Justine:
I always think of people as like the overwhelmed. Sometimes if I subscribe to too many e-mails I start getting overwhelmed and so it's like I put myself in their shoes. If I see an unsubscribed I'm like, "They're just overwhelmed today. It's okay." I understand.
Lauren:
Exactly. I'm glad you said that. Alright, I think we're on number seven.
7 | Bundle an affiliate product with your own product
Justine:
Bundle an affiliate product with your own product. This one you will need a product for sale, it could be a physical. It obviously works very well with digital as well. What you'll do is bundle your product with another sellers product and you'll each be each other's affiliates. I'm sure if anyone's attended certain types of webinars in the past you'll see this quite a bit. Both of the people will actually invite you to the webinar and then at the end they're like, "We got this awesome product bundle. You can get my course and my course for a huge discount." Then they each get 50% of sales. It's also a really good way to increase your product sales because even though discounting you're not going to have made those sells because you're getting in front of other people's audiences.
Lauren:
Right. You would probably say that those two products need to be somewhat related.
Justine:
Absolutely. You want to have complimentary ... Yes.
Same audience and definitely not competing. Pinterest courses. I would not work out well.
Lauren:
That would be really confusing. That's a great idea. It's silly to say not never thought of it was affiliate marketing.
Justine:
It's considered a joint venture thing. It's all very similar.
Lauren:
That's awesome. You could even do something like that outside of a webinar in a blog post or social media or whatever that looks like.
8 | Offer a bonus or coupon code
Justine:
Number eight, offer a bonus or coupon code. If you're in a competitive niche where many of your peers are promoting similar products you can definitely try to use either a product of your own or some sort of cool offering as a bonus. You actually don't even need a product for sale. I listened to a podcast interview with Rachel Luna where she was talking about how she was promoting a course and she didn't have a product for sale so she gave away a Facebook group as her bonus where she would coach people in the Facebook group. She gave away her time and I was like, "That's awesome," because some people just don't have a product for sale, I don't have one and so it's like, "This is great." You don't have to have a product to give away a bonus, you can really get creative but give away a bonus.
One thing, just my disclaimer from the merchant side, not a lot of big brands are going to be okay with us. It's usually product sellers who are doing courses and info products and certain niches. There are definitely some brands in the physical product space that are okay with it as well, but I know from my perspective say in software, it's not necessarily a great thing to do and we don't necessarily allow it so just check with your affiliate manager to make sure it's okay. They'll work with you too. I've done it where I'm like, "Let's just do it as a test. One time, let me see what you got," because I'm just curious myself. I want to learn. There's no harm in asking. Even if you see it's against their terms, just write them an e-mail and find out.
Lauren:
That's so interesting, but I would think too, I've had people reach out to me and ask for that. Be a part of this launch and we'll get more people to sign up for this but could I ... As a smaller business, I appreciate that if it's something that aligns.
Justine:
Then the other part, the coupon code, Lauren you had the Crowdcast coupon code, right? That's a good example. Most affiliate programs will give you one, but going out to your affiliate manager and saying, "Can I have a unique coupon code? Can I have a coupon code with my name on it?" I personally want to get a coupon code with my name on it. You can ask for it.
Lauren:
It makes you more legit if it has your name on it.
Justine:
It's an easier way to sell a product and also say, "Hey go through my link," because now ... You usually don't want to say, "Go through my link," but if they have to go through your link for a coupon code or a bonus this is a really easy way to say that without feeling weird.
Lauren:
Right. When I did Crowdcast, I did a post on Crowdcast and I just reached out to them and said, "Hey, I'm doing this," they're happy that I'm promoting it. I use it anyway, I love it. I definitely recommend it regardless of whether you follow my affiliate link or not but they gave me ‘ellechat20’ for 20% off the first 2 months for me to add to that post.
Justine:
Yes, I went through your link.
Lauren:
Awesome. Sweet, thank you. I appreciate that.
Justine:
It was partially because of the coupon, I won't lie. That's why they work.
Lauren:
It's just proof of the point you just made.
9 | Use video to showcase the products
Justine:
Number nine, use video to showcase the products. Webinars is one example. You can do a demo, a tutorial type thing on a webinar. I always think of five cool recipes you can make with Vitamix, and then you try to sell Vitamix at the end. We could do this obviously with lots of digital products as well. Webinars is one way to incorporate a video type thing into your pitch. Not a lot of people are doing video or affiliate in certain niches at least, definitely in certain ones like beauty, there's tons, but everything else not so much. It's a good way to differentiate yourself and show that you're really creating some unique things for your audience. Another video type thing would be screen cast, recording yourself walking through a product. My favorite ones are the unboxing videos.
Lauren:
Yes, I was just about to say that.
Justine:
My favorite and not my favorite because it's my favorite for myself but my kids watch unboxing videos and then they constantly come up to me with toy requests so I'm like, "Get out of here. These videos are terrible."
Lauren:
I have never seen one for a kid until one day at our apartment complex in the media center, I saw this kid watching it and I was thinking, "That poor mom." She's going to get so many questions. That's hilarious. It's effective.
Justine:
Very effective.
Lauren:
Do you not think that ... I think too, I did a lot of research for my visual marketing course and just got effective videos are because even reading something feels like work, whereas sitting down and watching something does not feel like work, it's more entertainment.
Justine:
I can lie down a watch a video but I can't lie down and read blog post. It's getting people when they're in a different frame of mind where they still want to learn but they don't want to sit to learn.
Lauren:
Right. Exactly. Whereas if you're working a regular 9 to 5 though you can't really watch a video while you're at work but you can read a blog post. It's good to have both but helpful to have the videos.
Justine:
Actually I have blog post where I'll put video in as well as text. That way you can hit two different types of learners. Incorporating video into your written blog post is totally good.
Lauren:
Yes, having both because then you have two version. I have been doing this with Elle Chats, I've been blogging them because they are searchable for SEO keywords. If you use it in a blog post you can repurpose content.
10 | Use a vanity URL
Justine:
Number 10, use a vanity URL for podcasts or in real life promotions. If you find yourself recommending products in life or on your web cast, let's say you're at a conference, even you have a physical book, you can definitely promote affiliate products, you're just going to want to use a vanity URL to do it. What that is, is just a pretty link, mywebiste.com/theproduct, something like that. I actually don't have examples but I have two pretty links to give you. If you go to justinegrey.com/megan it will take you to this Squarespace tutorial that Megan Minns created that shows you how to create branded links on Squarespace. If you want to know how to do this for Squarespace, use justinegrey.com/megan.
Lauren:
I love Megan. She's great. She joined me on an Elle Chat about ConvertKit.
Justine:
She has a great post that you can follow if you're on Squarespace to make them and then I have one on my site about WordPress. It's called pretty link. If you go to justinegrey.com/pretty it will take you to that tutorial. They're really handy and it just makes it easy. Nobody's going to remember that weird wacky link you have, and you can even do this. I really like the idea of doing it for your resources page. Go to justinegrey.com/resources, it forwards to a bigger guide or like an opt in. It's something where it's going to get people on your list. There's a lot of cool things you can do.
Lauren:
That's awesome. Are we on number eleven already?
Justine:
I know. Number eleven.
Lauren:
This is flying by. I'm learning so much.
11 | Create a digital product starring the affiliate product
Justine:
Number eleven, create a digital product starring the affiliate product. If you get asked about a particular tool a lot why not create a product about it. You can just do a little mini course. Megan Minns actually, she has that Squarespace course. I don't think Squarespace as an affiliate program but if they did she's created an awesome source now she's going to get affiliate income from Squarespace. That's just one good example. If you don't have time to make a full-blown product starring an affiliate product, you can also just incorporate affiliate links into your existing products. You might have one tutorial in a course, say it's a Lead Pages tutorial but you don't necessarily link to that just go and do that because your customer/students are already showing you that they're buyers. Why not make a little extra money on top of the course price that way. You can also give away the course for free and then make back the time you spent through the affiliate commissions.
Lauren:
That's great. That can be a simple opt-in. Somebody's sign up a free course and then it can turn into a sale later. That's really smart.
Justine:
You get e-mails and affiliate.
Lauren:
Yes. I've done this through my Adobe illustrator course. I'm an Adobe affiliate. That works out well too for Creative Cloud, and I realized in my course with Freelance Academy I mentioned CovertKit and that was when someone asked me, "Do you have an affiliate link for that because I love it," and I was like, "Actually I do and I have a coupon code." I need to go share it in the Facebook group, but now I know in the future too.
Justine:
Exactly. That's a great example of you combining these tactics. Every link tactic they are, you can just combine them. You can try three together, a coupon code inside a digital product. Just get creative and figure out the best mix for you and it's definitely going to work, it just takes time.
Lauren:
I feel like if it's products that you use regularly anyway and you're talking about often you'll probably come up with a ton of different ways like I just mentioned. Mention ConvertKit, here's the code. That's so helpful.
Lauren:
Are we ready for some quick questions?
Justine:
Yes.
Lauren:
We'll try to get through as many of them as we can. "How can you use affiliate links to monetize even if you don't have a list or much of a social media following?"
Justine:
I would start with content. Create a high-quality content that's going to rank on Google, and it won't be overnight or if you already have content then start incorporating affiliate links into that content now. That's the best way to get started, then as your e-mail list your social media following grows you can incorporate that in later. I would say that from a merchant perspective social media doesn't necessarily convert all that well. I like to use it in the affiliate world as a reminder for people. When somebody sees a product like 16 times eventually they're going to be like, "Okay, what's this product?" You can use it to help with repetition but it's actually not going to be a huge thing in terms of conversion. It's totally okay not to incorporate social at the beginning.
Lauren:
I found that it's hard because the links are hard, maybe on Facebook but Instagram especially it's really hard because of that one link and then if somebody comes across that old post later they can't find the link.
Justine:
Exactly.
Lauren:
Yes, that's helpful to hear. Great advice. Rachel asks, "Is there an ideal number of page views a month before using affiliate links?" This goes along with it but just to clarify.
Justine:
I would say no. Just get started right away. When I restarted by business this year my very first post had affiliate stuff in it because I thought to myself, like we talked about, if something goes viral or something takes off while I'm not paying attention to analytics for a week, it's going to be money left on the table. Always incorporate it if you can. It really won't take as much time as you think. You can start off just creating content that's really more about your topics. Doesn't have to do with affiliate stuff. It's sort of like, "I'm going to create this awesome post and then I'm going to figure out a way to incorporate affiliate in," so it doesn't feel like it's so much work at the beginning when you're not making anything from it yet.
Lauren:
I would agree with you too that when you focus on high-quality content everything else follows. Your audience will organically grow and exponentially grow, you'll get more traffic to those links. You focus on content first and then monetizing afterward, but add them in. Go ahead.
Casey asks, "If I have a design business should I only be using affiliate links for products that relate to my business or industry? Would including personal taste affiliate links jeopardize my brand or business?" What do you suggest?
Justine:
I would say that if you talk about things related to your personal taste as part of your brand, like there's some bloggers out there who talk about business but they're super fun and they incorporate wacky things in there. I talk about TV a lot so if Netflix's had an affiliate program I'd probably throw it in every once in a while because people would be use to me ... It's like, "She's talking about TV again." It wouldn't be weird but I would say if you're not talking about those personal tastes things in general then it might be a little off. If you really feel passionate about wanting to corporate that in then I would say start incorporating a personal taste conversations and quirkiness into your content and then slowly, once in a while incorporate things like that in.
Lauren:
Where it makes sense. Jenna Kutcher is one of those that I follow along with, she's a photographer and she is always eating macaroni and cheese, it's kind of what she's known for. It would make sense or I'm mad that Starbucks doesn't have an affiliate program because that would be natural for me.
Justine:
People wouldn't feel weird about it because it's like, "She doesn't shut up about Starbucks."
Lauren:
There was one of my coaching clients who was like, "I think I see a Starbuck's cup in 50% of your Instagram posts." Yep, that's just how it is. Great answer. All right, a couple more.
Dominique asks, "I'm curious about reaching out to affiliates to partner with. Is there a tried and true process?"
Justine:
Yes. I think there's a lot of ways you can do it. I guess you're interested in being a merchant. I have a blog post you can check out on my site, it's about how to do affiliate outreach and I have resources for merchants as well so feel free to take a look at those but I would say there is a tried and true process and then there's not. You want to experiment with that just the same as you want to experiment as an affiliate. When I was on affiliate recruitment I just do it the old fashioned way. I build my list. I create a very customizable template and then I send it off. I actually have templates you guys can use as well for e-mails, but you want to keep it short. You want to show them you know who they are and that your product really would fit with theirs and just make it very casual almost like, "If you're interested let me know. We can give you a custom commission rate." Give them a little bonus or something to entice them to check it out. With an affiliate recruitment just know that for every 100 people you e-mail you're not going to get a lot. It's a few. It can be one of those things that's frustrating at first.
I would say treat it like maybe spend 30 minutes a week to start and then as your affiliate program grows then you can incorporate more time into it.
Lauren:
Awesome. Was that post did it incorporate Ninja Outreach?
Justine:
Yes. It's about Ninja Outreach. That's right.
Lauren:
I wasn't sure if it was the right one.
Justine:
Thank you. Basically this post, you can figure out ... It will walk you through how to use this tool called Ninja Outreach to do your outreach and it just makes it a little bit faster. There's also something called birgsonganalyitics.com. It's really cool. You can buy Twitter followers of certain brands. It gives you the websites of those followers and then you can just do this really cool hack to get all their e-mails. I spend a lot of time doing outreach at Shopify and so I found a lot of ways to make it faster because it's super boring otherwise.
Lauren:
That's really helpful. I love that.
This was really fun, and for those of you who this was your first Elle Chat, I would love to see you back. The next couple weeks are a little crazy, I'll be out of own. Although this is a weekly webinar we're taking a short 2-week break and then we're going to be back with Brit Chandler talking about branding your photography. That one will be really exciting too and really helpful. But thank you again! Justine and thank you all for tuning in and I hope that you took a lot away from this and I would love to see you in another Elle Chat soon. See you guys later.
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