Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers. Listen up as I explore the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends and give you the insider scoop on what's occurring in affiliate marketing. Join us as we explore affiliate strategies, host expert interviews with leading affiliates and tech entrepreneurs, and discuss the latest affiliates and digital marketing trends. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, you're in the right place. Join me for this week's episode and let's get started.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to episode 10 of season 6 of the Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, your host, Leanne Johnston. Wow, that was a bit of a mouthful. But if you're new to the podcast, welcome, welcome. If you've been here before and tune in regularly, thanks for listening. I very much appreciate you. If you haven't met me yet or you haven't heard me yet, I hope that we one day do get. But you can also link in with me on LinkedIn and find out more about me, my history and experience in affiliate marketing. But if you feel brave enough and don't just want to lurk on social media like we tend to do, reach out and DM me there too, because I'll always answer all of my own messages. And I like to know who my audience is, so please don't be shy. Wow, can you believe we've already reached nearly the end of our first podcast season of 2022? I'm actually taking a little break this week from where hot for a bit of R. So this podcast episode has been pre-recorded, but I want you to know that it's gonna be a goodie. So tune in and listen up close, because I'm dropping all kinds of value bombs in this episode to make up for being away. It's been a busy three years or so as we relaunched a navigated affiliate inside of Forward through a pretty winding road of changes, from lockdowns to changing our business to work full-time and remote, and all of the complexities that come with it. And we started this year with a bang and helped more than 1,500 of you amplify your affiliate performance and grow your affiliate program since January. So I think it's pretty bad to say that it's a great time to take a little break. But if you missed out on getting a ticket to join us at our Amplify Virtual Summit, you don't want to miss out on what we've got in store for you at Elevate, which is coming to your screen live on the 14th and 15th of June. You can still register your interest to get one of the tickets when we release them to the world and tell you more about the spectacular agenda that we'll be sharing with you shortly. So no matter where you are or what you're doing, get on over to affiliateinsigner.com and register now before all of our seats are gone. Okay, back to business into this episode. I wanted to give you something great to listen to whilst I'm away and to ponder on and think about. So I thought I'd dedicate this episode in keeping with our Amplify theme to how to get more affiliates and amplify your program growth. If I scan my emails in a day, it's probably one of the most common questions that I'm asked. Where do I find new affiliates? How can I get affiliates to love me and join my new affiliate program? How can I pitch my program to them so that they'll join it? If you're listening to the show, this is something that you're gonna find useful. So go and give me a five-star review when I've done, either on Apple or Spotify, because my friend, I'm going to download some key facts in your ears right now that will help you to get started in the right direction. And I'm going to share a few swipes and tools that you can use to save time and get more effective in your partner discovery. So are you ready? Great, because today's lesson is all about following the facts. In case you haven't picked up on that yet, that's an acronym, by the way, for the things that you need to know and do to ensure you amplify your partner discovery and start winning more partners to work with and who can drive consistent sales. Let's start with F. F is for finding your focus. So often I speak to affiliate managers, and the first thing they say is, where can I find affiliates? But before you can find affiliates, you need to figure out what affiliates you're looking for. So I wanted to share a couple of stats with you first. Statistics reveal more than 80% of brands have affiliate programs now. And that was from a source from Media Kicks that I read not too long ago. What that means is that pretty much everybody's on the bandwagon now, not just you. The competition is fiercer than it's ever been in affiliate marketing. And you're gonna have to kiss a lot of frogs and grow a thick skin if you want to continue being a successful affiliate manager. But the first thing I want you to think about is what are you doing to really stand out? If 80% of brands now have affiliate programs, how are you standing out from all the other affiliate managers around you? I want you to take a moment now and actually think on that point. How are you standing out? 90% of publishers rely on two or more networks. And that was taken from a source by Racketon Marketing and Efe. Your network or affiliate team needs to be working with you to build brand presence, keeping your program front of mind with potential partners and publishers. If you're not working with a network, same thing applies. How are you getting a share of that publisher's time and reach? How are you building your affiliate program's brand affinity? I've spoken about this before, but before you start looking for affiliates, what kinds of affiliates do you really need or want to work with? You need to get focused on finding the partners that will really help drive sales to your program. This isn't a numbers game anymore. It's not about how many emails you can send out and hope for the best possible outcomes or answers. You're literally blowing air into the wind if you think that doing this is going to work. Look at your data. One of the most important things that I can tell affiliate managers is to go back and look at some of their direct traffic sources and discover where their customers are coming to them from. Then look at who is seeing them and where they are before they eventually get to your website. Those pieces of information give you valuable clues. You need to follow the buyer awareness funnel. If you don't know what that is, go and have a look at it on Google. It's a concept that tells you that customers will be in various stages of consideration before they purchase or before they come to your website to deposit, depending on what industry you're working in. Understanding where and what publishers you need to be working with, the types of publishers that need to be helping you to drive those customers forward, that's very, very important for your recruitment strategy. You need to also look at the PASO model. Now, if you've never heard of that, I encourage you to go and have a look at it. It's basically a concept that was designed that explains how PR works. So you can have four different types of content models: paid, earned, shared, and owned. And understanding those different content models can also help you to create a strategy for your affiliate program that will help you to drive the right partners into the program and give you exactly what you need. You want to find publishers that are going to help you in every stage of both buyer awareness funnel and also the content marketing stages. Make sure that the publishers and affiliates and partners you're trying to engage with and start working with will plug in and cover every single gap in the customer journey and the content modeling. If direct approaches fail, use LinkedIn. Or better yet, try other social media channels. But be compelling in your sales pitch. I talk a lot about perfecting your program sales pitch in my AMP. And by the way, that's another acronym for affiliate manager performance program. So we teach affiliate marketers the frameworks that they need to scale and grow their affiliate programs. If you're struggling to find affiliates, get to events, whether they be in-person or virtual. If affiliates are hanging out there, go and network the old-fashioned way. Go and build relationships because relationships still really matter in this process. Use tools like Breezy or Partner Discovery or Grovia. Go and look at Facebook, Telegram groups, and network digitally by socially selling your program and building interest and engagement versus cultural pitches. Now let's move on to the letter A, which stands for Ask and Listen. The truth is that if you want to get in front of affiliates and pitch your proposition, you have to earn their attention and you have to ask intelligent questions and listen for clues in their answers. So let's talk a little bit about ask and listen. What does that actually mean? It means having a conversation because a conversation is a two-way street. And often, even to this day, I get emails from people that A haven't looked at my website, B, haven't figured out what it is that I can do to help them promote, and C have sent me a stock standard email that doesn't actually engage me in any way, shape, or form. And it saddens me to see this in the industry because we've moved past this point. We've moved past this cult core templated selling strategies, which clearly do not work. So how do you earn their attention? We're dealing with a whole new generation of partners and publishers. Gen Z is the new digital generation. Your partners and content and content creators and streamers and bloggers and influencers. I mean, there are just so many different types of publishers that you should and can be working with in your program, no matter what industry you're working in. Do you really understand these partners? Are you giving them what they really need of what? Are you treating them as individuals? And that means having an intelligent conversation. How are you actually portraying your company's brand values at that sales pitch? Hopefully you're doing that with purpose. The second thing about ask and listen is that you have to tell the truth. You need to speak plainly about your terms and conditions, what your program offers, why it's important that that publisher considers working with you, and how they can actually make money from your customer promotions. Often when I receive emails that, you know, are from inexperienced affiliate managers, they don't dictate the key things that I need to know as an affiliate. So I want you to put yourself in your affiliate shoes. Go and think about what would make you say yes to your program and then try and pitch it to them, you know, whether it's on email or Skype or however you're reaching out to their messenger. Just be honest and tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you'll be able to onboard affiliates quicker, you'll cut through any sales jargons faster, and the affiliate will build trust with you faster because you're practicing what you preach. So I want you to think about instead of having a sales conversation, start having an ask and listen conversation. Listen to the clues that come back from the questions that you're asking and then tailor your pitch accordingly. Next, I'm gonna share some of the swipe files that I've used in my 20-year career of reaching out and building relationships with affiliates. So I hope that these are gonna help you. If you're listening into the podcast, make sure that you download the swipe files that are gonna be attached to the show notes after this episode. Moving on back to the facts, the original acronym that I wanted to work through with you guys today, the C is for communicate. Now that actually means communicating after the initial sales pitch. So often I find affiliate managers could be a little bit wary about over-communicating or under-communicating. And the truth is that as long as you've got something relevant to say, your communication is always going to be valid. And an affiliate is always gonna want to know what's happening and how they can optimize their performance and earn more revenue with your program. So as long as you're not wasting time, you know, sending information that isn't relevant or even, you know, both emailing your database regularly or spamming them with things that aren't relevant, then nobody's ever gonna say no to being overcommunicated to. So be conscious of what you're sending, you know, be clear on the communications that you're having. You know, a weekly email just to keep people up to date with what's happening with, you know, it could be stock, it could be new promotions, it could be discount offers, it could be, you know, new games or new products that are coming to market. It really doesn't matter what is in the communication, but the point is how it is communicated. So keeping a frequent open channel of communication with partners, even if they haven't signed up yet, is still a good way to build relationships. You know, the timing could perhaps be off when you originally send your sales promotion, email communication or text message or however you are trying to get in touch with your partners, even get on a phone call. You know, it's it's incredibly important that you also choose the medium that you're communicating with affiliates because it's going to make a difference as to whether they respond. The last thing I wanted to talk about is T, which is for talk. So if you think about the acronym FACT, it's the last stage in the communication. And the one thing I did want to say is you need to talk like a human. Don't approach affiliates with a sales pitch. That sounds methodical. Talk to the affiliate about why you think their traffic sources or website or you know, marketing campaign is gonna be important for your business and how you can help monetize their traffic for them, as well as also convert their traffic for them. Those two things are key points that affiliates will want to know before they even go and have a look at your program terms. So talk to your affiliate partners like a human. Don't talk to them like a robot with a templated sales page because they're gonna see straight through it. And honestly, they're getting hundreds of those emails every day. So going back to my very first point, how are you gonna stand out and who are you gonna go after is really, really important when you're thinking about growing your affiliate program and trying to amplify your performance. As an affiliate manager, you have such a complex role to complete, and nobody understands this better than me. It's incredibly busy, and you're also expected now to know a little bit about everything, about how SEO runs, how media planning works, how tracking and technology sit alongside one another to optimize campaigns. There really is such a broad spectrum of things that an affiliate manager needs to know, and selling authentically is also one of them. So invest some time in understanding different sales processes, perfecting your sales pitch, and being human and authentic with the partners and publishers that you're trying to recruit. It's really going to be that simple. Okay, so I know I said it really is that simple. And sometimes we can overthink things. So I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts and just make sure that you're still with me. So I'm going to do a quick recap. To amplify your affiliate program growth, you're going to have to stand out from the crowd. You might have to grow a slightly thicker skin. You're going to have to do some hard graft. Go and research groups in Facebook. Go and attend virtual events. Go and use your network to get introductions to partners that you think would be helpful to your business. Use social media and search engines like YouTube and Facebook and Pinterest and, you know, Google even. Use those keywords to find partners and publishers that have got the right content and the right traffic that matches your buyer awareness journey, that matches your content funnel. Make sure that you are plugging lots of different traffic sources into your program so that you are finding those customers in the places where they are hanging out before they eventually get to your website. Use your data. Build and invest in your program brand. What does your program stand for? Are you communicating that to potential partners in the very first touch point that you have? Treat your partners like humans. Don't do cold call sales pitches. They do not work. Get ready for a marathon and not a sprint. Sometimes you're going to have to reach out to partners two or three times before they will give you a response. Be patient, be kind, be helpful. Just because you don't get a response on the first email that you send doesn't mean that you can't drop something of value or interest that could be useful to that partner on a second or third time. There is no too much communication in the world that we're living in today. Understanding Gen Z better, looking into new sales tactics, all of these things can help you as an affiliate manager to amplify your performance, to find those partnerships and to scale your growth. I'll also be attaching a link to a social selling blueprint that we created that gives you three key steps that you need to take and some advice on how to leverage your social media channels to engage and find new partners. You're going to have to get social and learn to network just a little bit harder, whilst also taking care of looking at consumer and online trends. We are working in a very fast-paced industry, and that isn't going to change. I want to leave you with one last point, which was the source of a comment that I found reading a report by Exxon. More than half of the global population are now actively social media users. People everywhere, more and more, are connected and increasingly have the ability to make online commercial transactions worldwide. The world is now connected. People are connected. Use your connections to grow your affiliate program authentically and find ways to stand out in the crowd. It's really that simple. Start thinking outside of the box. Start thinking about what you can do differently to gain your partners and publishers' attention. Be at those virtual events. Go and network online. Use Instant Messenger or WhatsApp groups or Facebook groups to connect and talk to other publishers about what they find difficult, what they find interesting. And answer those questions. Talk and listen and answer. That's one of the key things that I want you to remember, along with the acronym of fact. The fact is that you're going to have to work hard in order to gain relationships. And you also need to stop working harder trying to build relationships that don't really count. So be considerate about your approach, be considerate about your strategy. And I guarantee that you will have successful results. I hope that you found this episode insightful and that it will give you some food for thought. Make use of the swipe files that we're going to be attaching to this podcast episode. And tune in next week as we come to the end of season one for 2022 of the Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast and look ahead at how we're going to help you to elevate and amplify your performance as the year plays out. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast this week, listening in to my monologue episode, which is rare and usually, you know, I've got interesting guests on with me, but I'm really looking forward to taking you forward into seasons seven and eight, which we've planned with some spectacular guests. So join us next week and thanks so much for tuning in and listening, and we will see you again soon.
SPEAKER_00And that's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast. If you're loving what we're putting down in this series, head on over to Apple iTunes and give it a five-star rating and subscribe to our podcast channel so you never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving tips, tricks, and strategies to keep your digital marketing fresh and your affiliate program driving consistent sales. Making a high-quality podcast like this takes a lot of work. That's a fact. But not when you hire COPAs. With our White Glove experience, we handle everything for you. From guest outreach all the way through to publishing and promotion. We handle it all. You show up to hold great interviews and build relationships with your guests, and we take care of everything else. Podcasting is not just about the audience. Every podcast interview is the start of a new relationship. With a weekly podcast, you would build relationships with 52 ideal partners or prospects through your podcast interviews over the next 12 months. Do you believe that 52 new relationships would grow your business? We do. Contact Jason at CopusKOPUS.com and let's talk.