Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Affiliate Marketing for Podcasters: The #1 Mistake and the 7 Strategies You Should Use

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Let’s talk about money. Specifically, making money with your podcast.   In previous episodes of Podcasting Step by Step, I’ve talked about how the traditional podcast sponsorship model — where you get paid per 1,000 downloads per episode — is a pretty bad deal for most podcasters. You’re much better off negotiating your own sponsorship with a brand that’s perfect for your audience.   Or, you can try becoming an affiliate for the products and services that you love. As an affiliate, you’re sort of an advertiser / brand ambassador.    Alexis Teichmiller, the Affiliate Manager at ConvertKit, joins me on Podcasting Step by Step to talk about how podcasters like you can get started with affiliate marketing.   We answer your burning question, including: What is affiliate marketing and how does it work? Where do you find products that have affiliate programs? What are the top mistakes affiliate marketers make? What strategies are the most successful affiliates using? And more.   If Podcasting Step by Step has helped you with your podcast, you can support the show by signing up for services you need — like email so you can connect to your listeners — through my recommended affiliate links, including signing up for a free trial of ConvertKit (yup, that’s an affiliate link!) *** Hello. I’m Sarah, your host and founder of Podcast Launch Academy. Are you ready to launch a podcast that builds your brand and business, connects you to your global community, and grows your influence? Visit sarahmikutel.com to see how we can work together. Here’s a special treat for you: Use my Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift certificate. I’ve gotten to know the Buzzsprout team over this last year and love their customer service so much, I moved my shows over there.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

When people want to get into affiliate marketing, you first need to have some sort of audience centered around a specific topic and know that either that entire community or a subset of the community needs these specific products to be successful. Have you been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, but something's holding you back? Maybe it's fear of putting yourself out there or confusion about the technology. I'm Sarah Mikital and on podcasting step by step, I'll break down how to podcast with a little loving motivation. to give you the skills and the confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Let's get started. Let's talk about money, specifically making money with your podcast. In previous episodes of podcasting step by step, I have talked about how the traditional sponsorship model for podcasts, that's where you get like a small amount of money for every 1,000 downloads generally.

That is a pretty bad deal for most podcasters. You are much better off negotiating your own sponsorship deal. with a brand that's perfect for your audience. Or you can try becoming an affiliate for the products and services that you love. And as an affiliate, you are kind of like an advertiser slash brand ambassador. And today, I wanted to talk about how podcasters like you can get started with affiliate marketing. So I am honored to be joined by Alexis Tyke Miller. She is the affiliate manager at ConvertKit. And she is here to answer your burning questions, including, first of all, what is? affiliate marketing. Let's get more into what that is and how does it work. Where do you find products that have affiliate programs? What are the top mistakes affiliate marketers make? What are the

strategies that the most successful affiliates make? That's probably the most important question. And more. Now into my conversation with Alexis. Welcome Alexis. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. You are affiliate manager at ConvertKit. What does this mean exactly. That's a great question. So an affiliate manager, I manage affiliates. So ConvertKit is an email marketing tool for creators. And our affiliates are basically our third party sales team. They are a group of people that are passionate about online business and email marketing, which is our product. We are an email marketing solution for creators, helping you with all the tools to build your list, maintain your list, and all the

funnels that it takes to sell online products and things like that. So if you're an affiliate, think about, like, to be affiliated with means you're connected or in relationship with someone in some way. And so it's just that connection that we have with other creators who either use convert kit or love our tool and know that it's a good fit for their community. And that's how I manage the program is I work with anyone from our top affiliates who make, five figures a month from our program to beginner affiliates who are just starting out and giving them the tools. So all the training and the onboarding of like, what is affiliate marketing, how to sell ConvertKit, giving them all the resources and the tools and the training to

sell ConvertKit and then helping our intermediate to top affiliates of, okay, you're already you're already sharing ConvertKit with your community. You're already making a great affiliate income. How can we blow this up? Like, what could we do that's different? How can we, how can we do that's different. How could we serve your audience in a way that's really meaningful for them, teach them more about ConvertKit, more about email marketing, and how it can impact their business? So there's lots of different layers to what I do. That's just, that's like a little bit of a little bit of glimpse into what I do. Well, to get very meta, this is a podcast about podcasting. And now we're talking about affiliates and I am now an affiliate of ConvertKit. So just getting super meta. So meta.

Yes. I recently actually moved over to ConvertKit for my. email and I'm still in the transition, but very happy with what I've seen so far. It's been super easy to set up like landing pages and stuff like that. So I'm loving it so far. Good. I'm happy to hear that. Okay. I want to take a step back for people who are brand new to affiliate marketing and just talk a little bit more about what it is and how it works. And so you mentioned that affiliates are kind of like advertisers. So like I would consider an affiliate somebody who like, let's take me for an example. I like ConvertKit.

I want to recommend it to people because I think it's great. And so my recommendations to my audience, like it's like a win-win-win situation. So ConvertKit, if like they get a new customer through me, I could get, I would get a commission for that. Convert Kit gets a new customer. and then the person who I told this about now has a great new email platform that they can try out. Yeah, you nailed it. You nailed it. So I think some of the aspects that are involved in affiliate marketing is you first have to, if you're looking at it as a potential revenue stream, you first have to have an audience.

It doesn't have to be a big audience, but you have to have a community that's centered around a certain topic. So if you're a food blogger, you have a food blogging community and maybe a portion of that food blogging community, they want to know how to start a food blog. And so you recognize, okay, I know who my community is. I know what tools they need to be successful. And that's a big piece of it is when people want to get into affiliate marketing, you first need to have some sort of audience centered around a specific topic and know that either that entire community or a subset of the community needs these specific products to be successful. And successful is relative. So if you are, you know, teaching a workout class online and you want to recommend a yoga mat, some kettlebells or some resistance bands, it's complementary to the topic that you're already

teaching and you are providing products that you know and love to your community. And those just happen to be affiliate links. And so you're getting a cut of a commission. So if, you know, that you sell them $100 worth of kettlebells, then great. They're able to buy that and use those. And you also look to them as, hey, I got this. I'm using convert kit because of Sarah now. So you also not only have a relationship with the company or the tool, but you also have

relationship with that affiliate because they recommended something that you need. So it gives you that reciprocity of I'm going to help you. and give you the tools you need to be successful. And so you have the tool, but you also build this trust with the person that you signed up through. Yeah, I think trust is the number one thing, because I personally used to think affiliate marketing was kind of gross. Totally get that. Because I would only seeing, like I would stumble upon these articles and somebody would say, would maybe recommend something and then have like an affiliate disclaimer. But I didn't know who this person was.

So for me, I was like, should I trust you? But if you already have the audience for your blog or your podcast or whatever, then your recommendations are actually legit and carry a lot more weight. And so now when I see affiliate marketing for people who I know and trust, I go out of my way to purchase through them to support them because it doesn't cost any more. And if anything you'll get, could get a bonus discount or an extra long trial. something by purchasing through their link. And you're supporting someone that you really enjoy and that's brought you a lot of value. You know, like thinking about it in that terms of

some of our top affiliates aren't just promoting convert kit. They have courses and membership sites and a lot of content that's very, very, very helpful on how to start an online business. And so we are a compliment to that content. They're not just throwing out their link and hoping that they're able to

get someone to sign up. They are putting the link where it's relevant. And they're building content and courses and even membership communities and modules around why email marketing is important for your business and talking through all the layers of email marketing. And so we just happen to be the solution about what they're already discussing. So I think that's another way that you can make it feel really organic because it is organic. You're like, I'm talking about something I'm already passionate about that's solved this

problem for me and I know could solve the same problem for you. Here's the tool I use and here's how I use it. And then it becomes a lot more of an organic conversation and not this, you know, cheesy sales pitch of, you need this product. It's going to help you make all this money or it's going to get you these quick results. It's selling it in a way that is really natural. And it just, it feels like it's honest. It feels like, oh, yeah.

And then even some of our affiliates say, here are some things that Convercuit doesn't do. Like, they'll do reviews of here's why I love it and here are a few things that they don't do. And it's just this honest take on our tool. And same for you listening. Find things that you like and say, here's what I love about it. Here's maybe something that, you know, I wish was different or because then it comes off even more honest. You know, it's this really honest testimonial or review of a product. If you're trying to decide which email service provider to use to communicate with your podcast listeners and you should be emailing them, I use and recommend ConvertKit.

I find them much easier to use them my previous. email service provider to do things like tag people on the back end so you can make sure the right content is going to the right people. It can be a crazy mess back there. And I just find ConvertKit to be so much easier to use because it's much more visual and I can actually see what I want to do in different email flows. Email can get more complicated than you think. But Convercant makes it super easy. And if you sign up for a free ConvertKit trial using my affiliate link, then you'll be supporting this podcast at no extra cost to you. And you can sign up for your free trial at sarahmicotel.com slash convert kit. See what I did there? Yeah. And going back to what you said before about

yoga balls and whatever, like those products, you know, what advice would you give to somebody just starting out affiliate marketing as to trying to decide which products and services they should be promoting what you say to just look at what they're already using and see if there's programs? Yeah, the best way it is to take inventory or do an audit on all the tools that you already love. So for podcasting, I love using Simplecast to host my podcast. I love using Zencastr to record my podcast. I love my Blue Yeti Mike, link to Amazon. So even just thinking through the products that you're already using, now you wouldn't necessarily show those with your audience if you weren't teaching about podcasting. But I'm just using that as an example of what products and

services, what online tools, what physical products, courses that you're using that's enriching your life and making your life easy and wonderful, that makes it really organic to share. And so a lot of people will have resource pages on their websites. And that's a great place to easily put affiliate links is here's all the tools I use and all the things I recommend. Every single one of those recommendations can be an affiliate link so that you can make a little bit of income from that. That's great. And then the same thing goes with on podcasting. you can use affiliate links like they're your own ad. So some of our top affiliates get about 75% of their affiliate income from podcasts.

And they're hosting their own show. And they create their own ad about why they love this product. And then they create a pretty link or some sort of smart URL and share convert kit. And it's like a 60 second ad where they're doing a testimonial. They're saying why they love it. They'll even pull in somewhere. that they've recommended it to and have like a testimonial reading of how much someone else loved it. And so then it becomes this really organic experience. And it's not necessarily a traditional ad,

but they're plugging their own affiliate link in their own episode. And I've seen that work really, really well too. That's great. Could you talk a little bit more about what other strategies your top affiliates are doing? It's more than just set it and forget it. And if there's one thing I could drive home, it's when you're building your brand, you're building your social media community, you don't just post something one time and hope that it sticks. And all of a sudden you've got all these followers and all these likes and all this affiliate income. So you can't just post it on your resources page and be done with it. Now, if that's a nice roundup post for you to list out all the products you use, great.

Keep that there. I know that those toolkits can be great for traffic and SEO. but our top affiliates really spread it out. I explain it as planting seeds. So you're putting seedlings all over your brand in relation to the products that you use. So it's not just on your resources page. It might be inside of your blog. So you wrote a post on email marketing

and you naturally promote ConvertKit there. And again, I'm just using the example ConvertKit because that's where I work and it's just so prevalent to you, a lot of the examples I give. But you can really take this and apply it to any different product that you're promoting. So blogs and websites is a huge one, whether you're writing a review, you're writing a testimonial, or you're writing about the five things that you didn't know about email marketing. And so then you're listing out what you've learned, still helpful content, and then inside of it, you're promoting organically the product that you're using.

Another one is inside email. selling your own products via email is great, but also selling affiliate products via email is great as well. And so whether that's through a newsletter or you're telling a story about how this product changed your life or really improved your life in some way, naturally putting it inside of email is a great place too. And what I like about this strategy is it's not as distracting as promoting it on your website. Because inside of an email, it's just you've got a few links inside of that email versus

on your website. There's a lot of different ways that they could get distracted and click away to different articles. So I like the email strategy for less distractions. The third one was podcast. We kind of already discussed that one. Another one is videos. So video tutorials, whether you are a YouTuber or not, putting them on YouTube is great. But even if you record a video to add to some of your more popular blog articles or on your website, so it's not just here the five things that, you know, I didn't know about email, but maybe you're doing a quick screen share of convert kit for four or five minutes about the three things that you didn't know it could do that you love. And so it's, you're doing a tutorial. It's in your own words, in your own voice,

and people love visual. They just do. So if you can show a little bit of a video of why you love the product or, you know, you see bloggers and creators doing unboxings on their Instagram, sharing the products that they love, I love watching those because I'm like, it's visual. I can see if the product is for me or not. And sometimes I get stuck. into those things and end up buying something because of a visual experience that the creator did. So that's been a big one. The fifth one is within your own products. So let's say I have a course on how to launch a blog. So that's very multifaceted. There are many layers to launching an online business or a blog. But maybe one of the modules is all about email marketing.

Okay. So I'm going to talk to you about my email marketing strategies. I'm going to talk to you about the things I've learned, how I use it, how I sell through it. And obviously, I'm going to promote ConvertKit inside of that module. And the great thing about that is you have a very captive audience for that affiliate link. So it's inside of content that you've already created. And someone's most likely purchased that content. And so they are going through your course and they're like, okay, I obviously they trust you already. And then the products that you're promoting inside of that course organically,

of like, yeah, this is what I use and this is how exactly I use it. And a lot of our top affiliates literally do tutorial videos of how exactly they use ConvertKit. And so it's not just a, you need email. It's here's exactly how I am. I am using it. Another one would be free courses. So if you aren't at the place in your business where you are creating paid products yet, that is 100% okay. I would highly suggest creating a free course. And a free course, you can do this on teachable, Podia. You can also just do a free email course, which I am a huge fan of. You can use ConvertKit for this or in any other email tool. And it's just a string of automated emails that go out. And inside of that written email course, you might suggest a few tools that are related to that

course. So some of our top affiliates have email courses, free email courses that are also lead magnets. So they're getting on your email list. It's a great way to grow your email list. but there'll be five ways to grow your email list. Okay, great. I want to know five ways that I can grow my email list. And then inside that content, they're teaching you, but then they're also promoting convert inside of that free tool. So that's been a big one I've seen to work.

And it's also easy and user-friendly for a beginner affiliate to create free content and then add that affiliate link in versus building out a paid course if you aren't quite there yet. And then the seventh is ads. So we have relationships with a few affiliates that we give them the rights to run ads. We don't give all affiliates, you know, free game of running ads because there's a lot of competition in terms of pay-per-click and we run our own ads. And so we don't want to compete with affiliates for running ads.

But you could run ads to that free course and that inside that free course includes all those affiliate links. So getting creative with ads. And if you can't run ads directly to your affiliate link, which sometimes different tools don't allow you to do, I know Facebook does not allow you to run ads directly to an affiliate link. It has to usually be through some sort of like content piece. So you would run ads to a free course or a free digital download. And then inside of that, you could have affiliate links. So, who, there you go.

Gold. All of that is gold. All of that is gold. I especially like the email course. Because as you said, you can do that for anything if you are doing, if you're a video expert and there's some sort of like camera tool that you love that has an affiliate program, you could do a five-day video course or camera course or whatever. So it works for everything. What mistakes are you seeing affiliates make? The biggest one is when I kind of already mentioned about the set it and forget it.

You really have to think about creating a content audit of what content do I already have. have, where could this affiliate link belong aside from just my resources page? And so that's one of the biggest ones I see is them not promoting it in a wide enough. Like you have passive and active affiliate promotion. So passive is you have your affiliate links on your resources page inside of a blog article or a review. It's passive. People are just passively interacting with it as they, you know, it comes up on their search

or they're on your website. And then there's active. And that's you are emailing them. You are running some sort of promotion. You're running some sort of, we have affiliates that run their own trainings on email marketing and how to use ConvertKit. And we're not even co-hosting it with them. They're just running an active live training.

And so that's great to see because they are getting people signed up and excited about email and then all their screenshots and what they're walking through is ConvertKit. So just not seeing enough affiliates really embrace the passive and active. It's hard to grow and exponentially grow your affiliate income if you're only doing passive. And then if it's active, great, you're doing these one-off promotions. But when they're on your website, they don't see you promoted in the testimonials. They're not seeing you promoted in reviews. So those two things really need a couple together.

I know that you've talked about goal setting before. Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about what are these goals that we should be setting? So first recognize what products you want to sell and what their commission structures are because you can't necessarily, you can, but I don't recommend setting a goal that's like, I want to make $1,000 a month out of the gate from affiliate marketing without doing the math of like, okay, how much would you actually need to sell of that product to make $1,000? So backing into that.

So first, like, understand the commission structure. and how much you would need to necessarily sell of that product to be able to make that. But I really encourage my affiliates to set goals of my end goal is to make $500 a month. And then I encourage them to set their why for why they want to make that amount of money. So I have one affiliate where her goal is to make $1,000 a month, and that goes towards paying off her car payment and a loan for something else. And so I know that about my affiliates. I know they're monetary goals.

I know why they need that. And so for one of my affiliates, it's to help his wife go back to school. And so getting connected with that money, it's not just $500. It's what is that $500 really going to for your life. And that's a big piece of it is having the appropriate expectations and goals of when you start down affiliate marketing. It's not just you post something and you're going to be a millionaire. Even though sometimes on the internet, that's how it's marketed, is you can just make all this money with affiliate marketing.

You have to really be realistic and have a good dollar amount in mind of what your end goal is. So let's say you start promoting and you're like, you know, by six months in, I want to be making this. And by 12 months in, I like to be making this and then just steadily be making, you know, $100 a month. Great. Now that you've set that goal, you can then back your way into how much you need to promote what the commission structure is and recognizing what products have a higher commission structure that you might push more, and then recognizing where you're going to spend that money. That motivation helps us actually come up with the plan, because I think you're exactly right what you said about the resources page. A lot of people will just create a

resources page with like some affiliate links and think that's it. But nothing's going to, not much it's going to happen. You have to like back up as you said and think, all right, how much web traffic do I need to get here to this spot. And what did you say the average conversion rate was? I think you've mentioned this before. The average conversion rate, just in affiliate marketing in general, is around 5%. Okay. Yeah.

So if you are expecting out of the gate to be making a 10% conversion, you know, it's not going to, it's not necessarily going to happen. And so sometimes I'll have affiliates email in and they're like, well, I sent 200 clicks to my link, 200 unique clicks. but only 15 people signed up. I'm like, that's pretty good. Like, you just started promoting ConvertKit. So, I mean, 5% is higher than I thought it was going to be actually. So when we're talking about conversions, we're saying, like, people who are actually clicking on the link and then purchasing. Right.

But those are the people clicking on the link. I mean, most people, well, actually, I really don't know how this works. And maybe you can tell me. but as far as numbers-wise goes. Say like people are going onto my resources page. What are the ads that people are going to click? Because the numbers go down for each step through this funnel. That's very true.

Yeah, I think it depends on how, again, it goes back to how often you're posting your affiliate link and where. Now, I don't know specific stats on a resources page. I just know that it can be, conversion can be anywhere from, to 15%. We have affiliates that do 10 to 15% conversion because their audience is so warmed up to convert it that when they click that link, their probability of signing up is much higher. Whereas if your audience is as colder to convert it, they're not as familiar with it. Those affiliates, those new affiliates are going to have a lower conversion rate just because

they haven't built up that relationship yet. Yeah. And to your point before, if you are doing an email course on email, I'm sure you're conversions are quite high, where if you have a actual course on how to email or grow your list, I'm sure you're, yeah, I'm sure the conversion is much higher. Yeah. And again, I know that a lot of my examples were for email marketing and for convert kit, but I really want to encourage you to think about how my examples could directly apply to your business and to the examples and the products that you would sell, because these are universal.

Like, there isn't one magic that just works for promoting an email tool. The majority of the strategies that I shared that some of our top affiliates do, that those are really universal to you too. So pick a few that feel the best to you and try to, you know, practice those and refine them over time. Yeah. And let us know what you choose. I'm so curious because you can get so creative with these programs. So yeah, I would love to hear what people decide to become affiliates for. Yeah. Final question. Could you give us some wording to put on our website when we want to disclose that we have an affiliate relationship, but we don't want to sound like wonky or weird.

I think that at this point in the world, I'm pretty used to going on people's websites and affiliate cookies, and they always pop up of, you know, we do cookie tracking. Is this okay? And you accept or not accept. So I do feel like there is a bit of desensitation to that. I mean, it doesn't bother me recognizing that something's an affiliate link.

But if that is something that you're struggling with, some of the more honest ways I've seen people disclose that, hey, these are affiliate links, is saying, hey, I'm a creator, and this is how I make income. This is, you know, this makes up 15% of my monthly income to support my family or to pay my bills. And I resonate with that. I'm like, yeah, you know what? I totally feel that you are a creator and you need to make money. You know, there's nothing wrong with saying that. And so I respect people that take that approach. There's like the very clinical approach of like, you might, you know, affiliate disclosure. I am affiliated with these, you know, companies and some of the links that are in this

message might contain affiliate links. And that's fine too if you want to do something that's, you know, just more standard. But also if you're like, hey, I'm a creator or I'm a freelancer or I'm a side hustler and this is how I make, you know, X percentage of my monthly income or how I support my family, I'm like, great. I want to support even more now, recognizing that. You're just being honest about the fact that this is how you make money. Great. Great. All right.

Do you have anything else that you want to add, Alexis? I would recommend having realistic expectations with affiliate marketing and know that you can earn a living from affiliate marketing in conjunction with something else. It might be hard to make all of your income from affiliate marketing, but it is a great secondary income. So maybe your primary income is freelancing or courses or your service performance. provider of some kind. And then a great secondary is affiliate marketing, just like ads. Just like ads on your podcast is a great secondary income. But it might not be enough to cover it, but it's great

icing on the cake. So just kind of having that realistic expectation when you jump into a new revenue stream, recognizing what you desire to get out of it, and then how much effort you're willing to put in to get that desired outcome. Yes, great. Diversify your revenue streams. Yes, absolutely. Where can we find out more about you. You can follow me on Instagram at Alexis Teichmiller or if you have any additional questions about email marketing or ConvertKit or affiliate marketing. You can just email me at Alexis at ConvertKit.com and we can continue the conversation there too. Thank you very much. This has been such a fun conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Sarah. To sum all of this up, take inventory of the products and services that you use and love. Would your

audience like this stuff as well. And do these products and services have affiliate programs? If yes, then apply to be an affiliate. You can promote your affiliate link in multiple places. Remember what Alexis says. Don't just put it on your resource page, which is what a lot of us do. Speaking for a friend. And as you heard, Alexis says that she has seen massive success when podcasters create their own podcast ads to promote affiliate products and services. And if you need help on how to create a podcast ad back inverts, go. back and listen to my episode titled How to Create Podcast Ads that motivate listeners to buy. Okay, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. And if podcasting step by step has helped you with your

podcast, you can support the show by purchasing the products and services you need through my recommended affiliate links, including signing up for a free trial of ConvertKit when you go to sarahigatel.com slash convertkit. All right, that's all for now. Alexis will be back with me in the next episode to talk about vulnerability and her podcast, Deeper Life. Thank you for listening to Podcasting Step by Step. You are now one step closer to launching that podcast you've been dreaming about, but I want to get you even closer. I created a free guidebook for you with actionable worksheets called Eight Mistakes New Podcasters Make and How How to Fix Them. To find that, head on over to sarahicatel.com slash fix. Do you ever

go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot. I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.