Business is down and you’re feeling the pressure to diversify your revenue streams. Instead of adding another service or building a digital product, consider dipping your feet into affiliate marketing.
Whether you’re an affiliate for your favorite digital software or you offer an affiliate program to your current and past clients (or maybe even some business BFFs), this is a great way to find new potential clients and customers, build on relationships that you already have, and generate some income that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
This week on the podcast, affiliate guru Angela Markham is sharing her tips to becoming an affiliate and creating a successful program for your own business. If you’re feeling the itch to diversify, this is the episode you need.
Mentioned in This Episode Podcast
- Angela Joy Markham
- Follow Angela on Instagram or Facebook
- Subscribe to Angela’s YouTube channel
- Get your affiliate workbook here
- Launch your own affiliate program
- Schedule a call with me
- Connect with me on LinkedIn
- Follow me on Instagram
About Angela Markham
Angela Markham has been in the marketing and design space since 2011, helping businesses brand themselves and ultimately scale their income. Angela is currently running her full-time business, Angela Joy Markham, LLC, where she helps aspiring affiliate marketers and small businesses use affiliate marketing to skyrocket their revenue. She loves working with clients one-on-one, creating organized business systems, designing unified brands, defining client target markets, and ultimately helping her clients scale their business income.
Transcript
Abby Herman 0:08
Hey there, and welcome to episode 239 of The Content Experiment Podcast, a podcast for service driven business owners who know that content is important, but that there is so much more to marketing and business growth. Here we talk about showing up for your audience in a way that they want to hear and in a way that’s sustainable for you. This might mean publishing a weekly podcast or blog, but it also means paying attention to your email list, leveraging other people’s audiences, building relationships, and getting over the limiting mindsets that often hit when we’re reaching for the next level in our business.
Abby Herman 0:44
I’m Abby Herman, content strategist and podcast manager for business owners who want to make their marketing field easier and more streamlined so they can get back to serving their clients and making those sales. I’ll show you how, or I’ll do it for you while you do business in a way that works for you. I can help by supporting you through building a content and marketing strategy, taking care of the podcast management for you or giving you the tools and resources to take this on yourself. Now, I don’t know a single business owner who hasn’t struggled with the revenue at some point in the last 12 months. I have also thought I need to diversify my business offer something other than straight one to one services. And I’ve tried out a few things but really nothing that aligns with how I want to run my business.
Abby Herman 1:33
Well, today, I have a treat for you. I’m talking with affiliate program guru Angela Markham, about ways to diversify your income with affiliates. If you have products or services courses, or one to one service providers who you’ve worked with, or have experience with, you could potentially become an affiliate for those organizations, and earn some revenue by doing very little work on your end. Or if you have a course or service, you could create an affiliate program to help others refer new customers to you. Now, I don’t think being an affiliate or offering an affiliate program is the answer. But it is a way to diversify, so you don’t feel so dependent on one revenue stream. And if you’re looking for sustainability and security, that’s really the ticket. Before I share my conversation with Angela, let me tell you a little bit about her.
Abby Herman 2:28
Angela Markham has been in the marketing and design space since 2011. helping businesses brand themselves and ultimately scale their income. Angela is currently running her full time business Angela Joy Markham LLC, where she helps aspiring affiliate marketers and small businesses use affiliate marketing to skyrocket their revenue. She loves working with clients one on one, creating organized business systems, designing unified brands defining client target markets, and ultimately helping her clients scale their business income. Here is our conversation. Angela, thank you so much for joining me. I am super excited to chat about affiliate marketing with you.
Angela Markham 3:12
I am so excited to be here. Abby. Thank you. Yeah.
Abby Herman 3:16
So before we get into all the goodies can you share with listeners what you do and who you do it for?
Angela Markham 3:22
Yes, yes, I an affiliate marketing, let’s just say guru. I’m passionate about affiliate marketing, in all ways, shapes and forms. And I absolutely love helping female founders use affiliate marketing, to grow their businesses and ultimately increase their bottom line. And there’s multiple ways to do that. So I’m so excited to dive in and kind of go through all the ways that that’s possible for for female founders.
Abby Herman 3:48
Yeah. And can you share a little bit about how you work with clients like what that looks like? And how does the way you work with clients help you to live the lifestyle that you want?
Angela Markham 4:00
Yes, I love that. I work with clients in a few different capacities. So all the way from done for you affiliate management for people who want to be more hands off, I can take care of the the implementation and utilize my team of experts to make sure that you are the most hands off with this as you possibly can be all the way to done Excuse me, do it yourself course. So in everything in between really like there’s a lot of hand holding going on. But we established that within our relationship right away. Which way works best for you? Which way do you learn best and which way will help you achieve the best results? And this is super important to develop with my clients right away for the flexibility of both of us. I think one of the incentives of affiliate marketing is that it does end up being passive income when you look at it from an affiliate perspective. It does end up being passive income down the road. Right away. You want to develop which method It’s going to help you get there the fastest in achieve kind of that long term, passive income. And this really helps both myself and my clients achieve results with the lifestyle that we want to achieve. So I have, I just had my third baby. And so it’s super important for me to kind of have that boundary between work life and family life, I have to be there, as a mom, I have to be there as a wife, and be there, obviously, for myself into my business. So the way that I kind of work with this clients is we set up weekly meetings, working around both of our schedules. And there’s a little bit of homework in between each meeting generally. And in between each meeting, you can go through course material, if that’s your, if that’s your cup of tea to do that, do it, do it yourself. Otherwise, there’s a little bit more hand holding, there’s some Voxer in between there, if you wanted to do more done with you. And the done for you. affiliate management is completely hands off for you. So we just touch base every week or two, or sometimes once a month with clients just to get a general overview of goals, and that sort of thing. And you don’t really have to do much in between there on that relationship.
Abby Herman 6:12
I love that. Yeah, it’s so important to have boundaries so that you have your home life, you have your work life, even though your work happens to probably be able to look like you’re in your home right now. So I am as well, it’s nice to still have a boundary in there. I want to talk a little bit about what affiliate marketing is because there’s two sides to it. And I really want to talk about both sides. So can you share with listeners who aren’t sure what it is, like define affiliate marketing for us?
Angela Markham 6:44
Absolutely. Affiliate marketing is a relationship between a business so it can be some people think it needs to be a big business, sometimes it’s just an entrepreneur like me, are you. So someone who owns a business, and an advertiser or an affiliate someone who wants to advertise for that business, and it it is, excuse me a revenue share model. So essentially, that business owner is paying the advertiser, the affiliate, generally, it’s a commission or an amount of money in exchange for that affiliate to advertise their products and refer their products to their audiences. And so this is this is beneficial to know, because a lot of times people think affiliate marketing, oh, I’m the advertiser, I’m the affiliate, I’m posting an affiliate link. And that’s really my only option here. Whereas I kind of want to flip the script and talk to your listeners about using affiliate marketing in the sense of being the merchant, or the business that is acquiring a network of affiliates to promote their own offer in order to increase their own increase their own revenue.
Abby Herman 7:51
Yes. So can we can we talk about the other side first, the actual affiliate, like the person who is so and the reason I want to talk about that is because I’ve heard from so many people in online, the online business world, how much of a struggle, the last, like 12 months have been, where businesses down and we’re not seeing as many one on one clients, and people seem to be afraid to purchase a pray, afraid to commit, and being an affiliate for someone else, could be a really good way to diversify your revenue so that you can, you know, maybe not rely so much on the one on one clients and bring in some revenue from other places. What what does that look like? How does someone go about becoming an affiliate for something and, and I’ll be honest, like, I have zero fashion sense, but I follow all these fashion people on like Amazon affiliates on Instagram, like, I think that maybe someday they’ll rub off on me, and I’ll acquire some sort of fashion. But really, what I’m doing is I’m buying things through their affiliate links, and probably not wearing them correctly. But I mean, so for me, I see like affiliate marketing is what they’re doing. Is that, is that right? And, and how does someone get into not necessarily fashion but how does someone in the online business world get into becoming an affiliate for organizations that they support and that they use all the time?
Angela Markham 9:23
Yeah, I think in this day and age, the lines have become a little bit fuzzy, right between what is an affiliate and what is an influencer? And what is acid or there’s all these terms being thrown around and people are like, are all of those affiliates or is affiliate marketing something completely separate? And I think they’re all valid questions. So what I like to say is an affiliate marketer is working off an affiliate relationship, which is what I was saying earlier, a revenue share model, versus a lot of paid sponsorships or brand ambassadors are working off of maybe a monthly fee. The monthly stipend ties type of thing. Okay, I think this is important to note, because affiliate marketers really have to be in it for the long game. Yes, if you have an audience and you start to promote a product that immediately aligns with your audience and resonates with them, you can receive money right away, that is completely possible. However, you really want to look at like a six month to a year timeline, and work in that high level overview of affiliate partnerships. So the first step that I like to say is in getting your affiliate relationship started, is looking at your day, or your week and the things that you’re using in your business, or the things that your clients are using. No, you don’t have to be an active user of a product or service. But I think you should be that is my personal preference is that you should be using this or the only really exception in my mind is your clients are using it and you have firsthand, firsthand notes on how your clients are utilizing it and loving it, or not loving it. So maybe you don’t want to become an affiliate for that product or service. But so look at your day, or your week from a high level. And I want you to brainstorm everything you can think of that you use, specifically things you pay for. And we’re gonna write those down. It’s a huge kind of brain dump style list. And then you’re going to narrow that down to products or services that you’re, you’re thinking will really resonate with your audience. So and then after that, I want you to look at those things that will resonate with your audience and do some research. So get on Google, wherever you need, whatever search engine, you need to get on and start researching that company, see if they have an affiliate program, if they don’t have an affiliate program, and it’s something you’re super passionate about. I don’t think that’s an end all be all, I think I tell a lot of clients, just reach out to them, send them a note, maybe they would be willing to develop an affiliate program, a one on one type of model with you. That is completely possible. In 2023. Most people know what affiliate marketing is, but I still run into some people who who don’t haven’t heard of it before. So you might have to do a little bit explaining, this is a revenue share model. Here’s what I’m thinking as far as compensation, and kind of do a little bit of tweaking there with that relationship. But essentially, that is my best way to quickly find products or services that really could work well for you and to make you some money.
Abby Herman 12:35
Yeah, yeah, I’ve done that with a couple of products, thrive cart, Active Campaign Libsyn. But they all had their they already had affiliate programs. So it made it really easy to just you fill I filled out, you know, a couple things on a form and sent it in. And I make a little bit of income each month from specifically from Active Campaign, but what the other ones as well. So what about for people who want to be affiliates, but they have a really small following. So they think, Oh, well, what’s the point? I don’t have any place to promote this. People aren’t going to listen, how do you? How do you work around that?
Angela Markham 13:16
Well, I think you have to start somewhere. So I don’t think there’s any set number for the size of audience you have to have. A lot of clients who I work with, who have smaller audiences utilize affiliate marketing directly with their one on one clients. A lot of times I run into affiliate marketers or affiliate people who want to be affiliate marketers, that their audience is small, because they’re kind of just getting started in business, which is totally okay. Well, a lot of times you’re working with clients in a more intimate basis. And so you can utilize affiliate relationships in that matter. For example, I help my clients work to develop affiliate marketing relationships, and make money with affiliate marketing. And one kind of requirement is people who want to get started with affiliate marketing and want to work with me, they have to have an established business, I’m not saying you have to have been in business for 20 years, but a couple years where you have, you know, an established brand, and you’ve started to build some of that audience up. And so, one affiliate relationship that’s done really well for me is something that I think my clients need, almost simultaneously or before working with me. So it’s a business building membership that I’m actually a part of, and I love it, it’s helped me build my business. So one on one, when I’m working with clients, if they don’t maybe have some of these brand elements, or marketing or messaging quite in place yet, I can promote that affiliate membership to them. And that’s done really well a lot of times they’ll utilize that membership simultaneously while working with me to develop affiliate relationships. So I think just presenting some of those affiliate links a little more intimately, rather than posting it on your blog or your podcast or your YouTube channel. Sometimes it’s a little harder to gain traction if you don’t have a huge audience there. And I’m not saying not to do that as well, but simultaneously kind of getting a little bit more a little bit more in the nitty gritty with your affiliate links.
Abby Herman 15:14
I love that. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I wanted to talk about that side of things. Because I know that it is a way to build being an affiliate for organizations and services and products that you use on a regular basis, I agree with you that I feel like you really need to, I’m only going to promote something and only talk about things that I’ve used and that I like, and that I think are really useful for my audience, I’m not going to promote something that I don’t agree with, or I don’t like the business practices, or maybe it doesn’t have a great user experience. So I do agree with you, it is important to have some experience with the products and services that you’re an affiliate for.
Angela Markham 15:55
I mean, we all want to be authentic, right? And you’re can see through that I feel like so, yeah, I want to be able to talk about this in a positive light talk about this affiliate relationship in a positive light. And if I’ve used it and had a great experience with it, it makes it so much easier for me to promote it. And it does better as an affiliate affiliate relationship for me, if I like it. So I think it’s super important.
Abby Herman 16:22
Yes. And to piggyback on that, too, I am an affiliate for Active Campaign, that’s an email service provider that I use, and that a lot of my clients use. And I tried to steer clients away from certain email service providers that I don’t think do a good job. But I always offer additional options aside from I say, I’m an affiliate for Active Campaign. I love it. Here’s why. Here’s some other options as well, that works similarly to Active Campaign. And this is why I don’t think that, you know, what they’re using is the right product for them to use. So I always offer different options, because I wanted, like, I don’t want somebody to start using this email service provider that I’m an affiliate for it simply because I recommend it. I want them to do their research and find what works best for them.
Speaker 2 17:13
So I think that’s a great tactic, look at the competitors and say, you know why you prefer the one that you’re an affiliate for? Versus editor’s giving them a broad spectrum? Like, Hey, I’ve done my due diligence, and my research, and I’ve used this, and here’s why I think you should use it, too.
Abby Herman 17:28
That’s amazing. Yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about the other side of business. So the other side of affiliate marketing, the business owner who wants to leverage affiliates to grow their business to grow their revenue base? Can you share a little bit? Now, the first thing that I have heard from people, and I’m sure that you’ve heard it, too is, why am I going to give away my part of my sales? Why should I give away part of my sales and eat into my own profits? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Angela Markham 17:58
I would love to Yeah, I would suggest it is, you know, as you’re starting out, you want to you want to benefit the most from your hard work, even if it’s some sort of passive, like a course, I’m a course creator myself. So and I work with a lot of course creators. It’s something that you put blood sweat and tears into. So it is really hard to think about putting a certain percentage toward an affiliate. But I truly think that it is it is worth it. In the long run, you’re essentially when you’re are starting an affiliate program for your offer, you are essentially utilizing other people’s audiences right away. And so this is amazing, because we all know how long it takes to actually build up a network and build up an audience and build up that know, like trust factor with your audience. And so when you’re utilizing affiliates, the right affiliates, sometimes they are your clients, current clients, past clients, people who have used your product or service, they’re your best brand ambassadors, and they’re going to be your best best affiliates, because you’re utilizing their audiences right away that they’ve worked hard for. And so the strength is really a numbers here when it comes to affiliates. And yes, you’re, you’re giving away potentially percentage of your offer, but you ultimately get to choose that. And it has to be something that you’re comfortable with. And it’s a little bit of trial and error. So testing out what percentage is going to be incentivizing for your affiliates, and what percentage you’re comfortable with and what percentage is going to get them motivated to actually promote it to their audiences and make sales for you.
Abby Herman 19:38
So yes, and I look at it as this is not a sale I would have made otherwise. This is I would not have made the sale without this other person’s audience or without this other person offering a testimonial to their audience. And so in that case, and and I guess it didn’t I want to get into this a little bit too, but I guess it depends on know what kind of product or service you’re offering, you know, how much of an affiliate incentive you’re offering. So I was trying to think of the right word. Yeah. So how did you find people to? Well, actually, first, let’s take a step back, what are some things that you can sell through affiliates?
Angela Markham 20:21
Um, as far as your own offers as a business owner? Yeah. Well, I mentioned just a second ago courses, I think, are amazing, because it’s something that is fairly passive. For us. I know it’s not 100% passive, because a lot of times we’re answering questions or we’re doing, you know, weekly zoom calls or coaching sessions along with that. So I understand it’s not completely passive, but it is more passive than sometimes some other things like one, all or 100%, one on one services. And so, courses are great, I think. And then I even have just developed a landing page for one of my clients who she’s a coach, she doesn’t have any online courses at all. And someone can go to this landing page. So she wants complete control over who sees it. So it’s actually hidden, but she can send her clients, her current clients, past clients, or someone wanting to work with her in the future, even this landing page where they can go in, they can become affiliates for her coaching services. And she gives a very enticing percentage away for her coaching services. So it doesn’t even have to be necessarily an online product. But online products, I will say work a little bit better. So even if you have any, let’s see online, like even freebies can be great affiliate products, and you can give away, or give away a percentage of a freebie if you’re looking to increase your leads even. So if you’re willing to give away maybe whatever a lead is worth to you 50 cents or $1, a lead that can be great coaching services, online courses. And then I worked with affiliates who also don’t have online products. And it just makes the tracking a little tricky, but we’ve worked it out. Whereas someone can go through a like a Salesforce type of CRM, and that’s how their clients are tracked. That can even be an affiliate relationship that works really well for anyone wanting to start an affiliate program.
Abby Herman 22:23
Okay, so let’s talk about the the one on one services. I offer one on one services, I have a few like really low price, low ticket offer courses and things but primarily, it’s one to one services. And it would be really difficult for me to think about what a referral relate or I’m sorry, what an affiliate relationship would look like, in a case like that, since it is very, you know, time intensive for me and my team to to create what we’re creating for clients. How would something like because you mentioned you have a client who’s doing that, how would something like that work? Would it be maybe a finder’s fee as an affiliate? Or a percentage of the monthly revenue from that? How do you how do you typically work something like that?
Speaker 2 23:15
Yes, so she this particular client, you can do it either way. But this particular client has a flat fee. I mean, technically, it is a percentage of her coaching, she only offers probably one coaching package. So I think it’s like $300, or something like that of her coaching package. And it is essentially a finder’s fee, like you said. So what happens is, and this can be much easier than you think I think a lot of people get tripped up by the tech of affiliate marketing. And it does not have to be super techie. When you’re starting out. Eventually, it’s probably smart to think about automatic tracking and that sort of thing. So you’re not me and manually going in and paying people all the time. But as entrepreneurs are just starting out, it totally makes sense to just make it super easy. And so what she does is she has someone connect her with a potential client. So this can be a Facebook like three way chat, like, Hey, Abby, like I think you’d be a great fit for coaching with so and so. And I’m gonna let you guys take it from here, I just wanted you to connect you to etc. That can be done in an email. Or another really easy manual way to do this is as someone signs up for your services, and in the payment portal, there can be a little text box that said, did anyone refer you and someone can just manually type in Abby? And so I would know that I need to go pay out my $300 ABBY for referring this client. So it doesn’t so much answer your question of trying to get over that like mental hurdle of being comfortable with giving away a certain percentage but you know, I always think 50% of something or 25% of something is better than 0% have nothing. Again, this is a client that you probably wouldn’t get. Unless you’re having someone that connects you with that client and you’re utilizing someone else’s audience.
Abby Herman 25:12
Yes, I totally agree. What do you need to provide to affiliates or potential affiliates to help them with? Talking about your thing? Whatever it is your product or service or promoting it? Like, what are the expectations that the business owner should have? Around the affiliate? And then what do they need? And they know that that’s probably a lot. That’s probably a lot of questions. So feel free to break it up into bite sized pieces.
Speaker 2 25:43
No, I love that, though. Because it’s important for sure, I think one of the main misconceptions is that you can have an affiliate program and kind of just like set it and forget it, and it’ll work itself out. And that’s really not the case, I always suggest it’s being actively managed, whether that’s you help from a virtual assistant, or an affiliate program manager, which again, is something that part of one of my packages as well, which I can help take care of. But essentially, there’s two different sides to different things that I think you need to be educating your affiliates on. One of them is general affiliate marketing, and the way that your program works from an affiliate marketing standpoint. So what are they getting paid, if there’s a tracking link, they need an even like, generally how affiliate marketing works. So whether you want to start connecting them in like a threeway chat, like I was talking about, or whether they have a link that automatically tracks and then what their percentage is that you’re paying them or what the fee is that that you’ll pay them for referring clients and customers to you. And then on the flip side, education about your offers. So this is probably a little bit more work because it’s going to change. So what they can promote to receive commission, if you have any freebies like top of funnel freebies, that they can get someone into your funnel, and still receive a commission. If someone ends up buying one of your items, one of your high ticket items or one of your online courses, whatever the end goal may be, as well, as you know, throughout the year, if you offer promotions for Black Friday, or certain holidays, you want to keep your affiliates up to date on any sort of offers, that you’re running any promotions you’re running, because these are things that make it really easy for them to sell your product or service. So essentially, with both of those two elements, we are taking all of the work that we possibly can out of the affiliates hands, making it as easy as possible for them to promote your offer. And making sure that you’re top of mind, because how often have we, you know, been asked to be an affiliate or asked to have an affiliate part of our program. And then you don’t talk to them on a regular basis. So it’s kind of, you know, not top of mind. And that’s not really the way to succeed with affiliate marketing, you want to make sure that it’s kind of a constant, a constant effort on both people’s parts.
Abby Herman 28:08
Yeah. So you’ve mentioned a couple of times, some kind of back end techie type stuff, what kind of tech do you need for this, especially for the person who is utilizing the free offers? So if I’m, if I’m offering a potential affiliate, like, here’s a freebie that can help your people get through my funnel? What does that look like on the tech side on the back end?
Angela Markham 28:38
Yeah, I think that’s one example that does require some tracking, on tracking. So I offer three divided into three buckets for how you can get started with the tracking part of affiliate marketing, I kind of mentioned the manual, spend a little bit of time on that talking about, you know, connecting a threeway chat, or having a text box that says you are referred, that costs, you know, no money off of the affiliate merchant or the person wanting to start an affiliate program, plus no money for them, which is really nice. It’s more work. So it’s either going to take time, or it’s gonna take money. Yeah. When you’re talking about promoting a freebie and you want that tracking, your lowest cost option for tracking is probably use utilizing some sort of web tool. So there are just a ton of them out there. There’s I feel like a new one every single day, but you’re utilizing maybe it’s a WordPress plugin that you can that you can plug into your site. And you will have to pay something for this upfront, but it’s fairly minimal. If you’re using a web tool, or even something like Thrive cart has an affiliate option or I’m a user of Kajabi. And Kajabi has an affiliate tool now, almost every web kind of full fledged, you know, web course hosting platform is leaning that way where they’re starting to develop an affiliate tool. So I know for Kajabi for an exam for example, it is a An upgrade from the lowest tiered option, you can’t just have the lowest tiered option and utilize the affiliate tool, but it’s fairly inexpensive, comparatively, and then your top tier option that’s going to create the least amount of work for you. It almost does it all on its own is an affiliate network. So you may have heard of you know, Clickbank is a huge one, ShareASale, impact.com, commission junction.com, those are all examples of networks. And essentially, they take an extra percentage of your sale most of them do. And so I don’t ever recommend these until a program is established, or the company, you know, is, is making a really, really nice amount of revenue. And there’s a really good chance an affiliate program could take off pretty quickly. So kind of progressing up that ladder is generally my my first suggestion is starting with our manual and then progressing your way up.
Abby Herman 30:54
Yeah, that makes sense. I’m a big fan of not spending money until it makes sense to spend the money. What else do we need to know about having affiliates support? The, you know, the revenue, some of the revenue in our business? Is there anything else that I’m leaving out that I haven’t asked you about that would be important to share?
Angela Markham 31:19
You know, I think we’ve touched on a lot of it, most of the things that I think are super important. And most of all, just setting expectations within yourself or your team member that’s going to be helping you with this, and that you really want to look at it from a long game. And like I said, sometimes that money can come a lot quicker than you ever imagined. But really looking at the long term goals of the program. And as you’re starting an affiliate program and utilizing your network of affiliates, really establishing and maintaining that trust with them. And, you know, it really is someone that’s an extension of your team. They’re promoting your brand, and they’re out there talking about you. So putting in the due diligence to make sure that they’re they’re a good fit. And it goes both ways. So yeah,
Abby Herman 32:03
so important. What is your favorite thing about affiliate relationships versus some of the more traditional marketing and advertising efforts?
Angela Markham 32:14
Yes, I love, love, love the revenue share aspect of affiliate marketing. And I think, you know, pay per click, and when you’re paying for impressions, or you’re paying for visits with other marketing models, I think we we assume that that traffic is going to result in a sale, but we don’t know it is. So when you’re only paying as an affiliate marketing, you’re only paying when you receive a sale, I think that it is so much more enticing for both ends, and so much more beneficial for both the affiliate and the affiliate merchant, to have that that relationship because someone is really working towards a conversion, rather than just saying, Okay, I’ve got someone to your website, now kind of my work is done, I’ve been paid, that doesn’t necessarily mean that customer was a good fit and is going to result in a commission. So again, with kind of having to stomach that idea of I’m giving away maybe 20%, or maybe 40% of my coaching program or my course, you’re really looking at it, well, that rest of that money is money in my pocket. Whereas if I was paying per click or per impression, like I said, that might not result in a sale. So the lines get a little bit fuzzy there. I think with trying to pay for clicks, you know, you really have to have someone who, who is a professional knows what they’re doing in that sense as well. So,
Abby Herman 33:42
yeah, well, and going back to what I said earlier, too, I’m a big fan of not paying for things until you need to pay for them. And I feel like the you know, the whole online advertising pay per click Facebook, Instagram advertising, I feel like it’s just, there’s so much mystery around it because it changes all the time. And I feel like with affiliates, you know what you’re getting into, and like you said, you’re not paying until the sale is made. So I think I agree with you 100%. So before we wrap up, I always like to ask at the end, if listeners were to only take away two actionable things from what we talked about here today, what do you hope that they would take action on?
Angela Markham 34:31
I think the first thing I hope you take action on is the first step in going and finding your affiliate partnerships because it honestly is so much fun. And I want you to really utilize it as an unedited brain dump of everything you’re using in a day, everything you’re using in a week because sometimes I think we discount what we think would be a good affiliate partnership without giving it a try. So really, first and foremost, open up the gates of what affiliate relations clips already exist in your business life and your personal life that you really could monetize. The second thing, I think, is, don’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of times we want to try something brand new when it’s already been done. And we’ve already seen success. So affiliate marketing has been around a lot longer than people think. And there are proven tactics to get affiliate marketing to work, it is not this complex thing. We don’t need to make it harder than it is. It really is pretty simple. I think it just takes that due diligence and that consistency with working towards your affiliate relationships, and really focusing on what you want the outcome and the end goal to be down the road. Awesome.
Abby Herman 35:49
Angela, I know that you’ve got a couple of freebies that people can grab to help them get started with this. Can you share a little bit about those and where people can go to get them?
Angela Markham 36:00
Yes, definitely. So if you want to become an affiliate and earn some passive income, and help out with kind of the bottom line of your business, and that way, I have a workbook. And you can go to www dot Angela Joy Mark COMM And it’s spelled ma RK H A m.com/workbook. And that will help you get started. It’s my four simple steps to getting started with affiliate marketing, and super fun to just do digitally or printed off and actually worked through those action items. And if you want to get started with your own affiliate program, and curating your own network of affiliates, I have 25 ways for you to find affiliates. And that is www dot the affiliate ascent.com forward slash opt in. And that gives you all the places so when step number one, you’re getting ready to recruit affiliates. It walks you through 25 different ways where you can find affiliates today. So some of them social media, and that sort of thing walks you through how to do that in the best way to to get your network of affiliates started.
Abby Herman 37:10
Awesome. And where’s your favorite place to hang out online? What social media platform Do you like to use?
Speaker 2 37:16
You know, I’m just getting back into Instagram again, I I just came off on maternity leave. So I had some things scheduled out but I am so excited to get back into that so you can find me on Instagram. It’s my handle is affiliate.coach.Angela
Abby Herman 37:32
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Angela for being back here. And I’m honored to be one of your first calls back to back from maternity leave. So thank you for doing this.
Angela Markham 37:43
Yeah, this is an amazing start. Thank you so much. Thanks.
Abby Herman 37:48
This conversation with Angela. It reminded me of some of the great relationships I have with both services and service providers that I could turn into affiliate opportunities for me. It also got me to thinking about how I can create my own affiliate program so I can get in front of new people through current and former clients. Business can’t be passive. We can’t just sit back and let customers come to us. It’s up to us to create relationships, get in front of people and either even offer an incentive for the people who have bought from us before they talk us up some more. If you found value in what you learned here today, be sure to share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode and share it over on Instagram stories. You can tag me at the content experiment and Angela at affiliate.coach.Angela or head over to LinkedIn and connect with me there. Be sure to tell me that you found me on the podcast when you send to the connection invite. The more you share this podcast with others the more we can get it into the earbuds of more business owners just like you who need to hear the message that they are not alone. Until next time. Take care.
