Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers in the iGaming industry. 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 affiliate 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.
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SPEAKER_01Welcome to Affiliate Insider's Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston, and today I'm absolutely thrilled to have a very, very experienced digital sales and marketing professional with us, Miss Sarah Sangster, who is the founder of the Digital Marketing Playbook. I have known Sarah for many years and I highly rate her as a digital marketing expert here in the UK. She has kindly given us some of her time today to talk about our subject, which is Clubhouse. And you really couldn't be listening to somebody with more experience. So without any further ado, let me welcome you on board to this podcast, Sarah.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, and thanks so much for the invite. I absolutely, you know, feel the absolute same way about you. So great to be okay, great.
SPEAKER_01So this is going to be a really interesting chat. But to before we kick off on the subject, the hot subject of the season, which is Clubhouse, I want you just to tell everybody a little bit about yourself, your background, what you've been doing, and then we can kind of get into the nitty gritty of Clubhouse.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no problem. So uh left school really early, went straight into sales, went straight uh and had a career through sales and marketing for the last 20, you know, 24 years. Uh sounds horrible when you say it like that. But uh what I haven't done in sales and marketing uh isn't really worth talking about. So what I've done is over time I've sort of collected all the experience, all the results, and as we've moved into the digital space, you know, back in the late 2000s, uh I've moved with that. So seen the opportunity and helped my clients to be able to make sense of digital, and that's really what I do. Actually, give people the real how-to and step-by-step you know things to be able to move forward, and that is what makes me unique in the world because I've been there, done it, and then explain to people how they can get the best from it, empowering them to get the results that they need from digital.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the f the quick thing that I want to talk about first is you know, there's been a difference between building a social following and having a community of fans, and we talk about that quite often when it comes to social media. So, can you talk to us through the differences and why it's so important to ensure that you're building and investing in a latter, especially if you're in the affiliate business, um and you know, as as it relates to Clubhouse now, too, because there's obviously multiple different social platforms that you can build a community on. But today we're going to focus purely on Clubhouse. So, what's the difference between a community and and a bunch of followers?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for years people have got so het up with numbers. I've got this amount of followers, this amount of you know space, and they think that that is the thing. And actually, you can have as many followers as you want, you can buy them, you can do whatever you need to, but if they're not engaging with you, if they're not bought into what you do, they don't come with you on the journey, which is the difference between someone that's following you and someone that is part of your community, they're your tribe, they listen to everything you say, whether they agree with or not, but they are willing to listen to what you've got to say. They don't have to be customers of yours, but they do have to be people that want to follow your journey, and that you have as much interest in what they're doing, and vice versa. It's a two-way street.
SPEAKER_01Now we've we've kind of built that quite successfully on my personal LinkedIn channel. I mean, I've got thousands of people that are following me on LinkedIn now, especially about affiliate marketing. Not all of them are my customers, but guaranteed, whenever I post something, they'll share it, they'll like it, and all of that stuff helps with our sort of algorithm juice on the platform that we've chosen, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And we know that when someone else tells someone else about us, it's such an amazing that's the best type of marketing we can ever have. So if you've got you know a good amount of people that are in your community that are following you, that know like and trust you, actually, I'd love loads of those to not be my customers because they're actually doing the work, they're my like community army that are going out there and talking about me, and then I get phone calls like all the time where I say someone's told me to give you a call, you're the person I have to talk to, and I'll take that every day of the week. Um, so I want a nice community that know like and trust me, and I like and trust them too, and therefore it's gonna help my business all the way around.
SPEAKER_01So, social really does take a little bit of time to build because you don't build that trust overnight, right? You have to be giving a lot of your time, a lot of your expertise, and we've seen this in in sort of clubhouse, and I'm just gonna deviate from some of the stuff that we spoke about because recently there was a bit of a hoo-haw on Clubhouse um where somebody actually got um like declined, they got kicked out of Clubhouse because there was a bit of a mess with moderations, and and it's you know it it was quite a big story. I I don't think that any new social channels ever had that kind of PR around it. Um and we've seen that a lot of people have jumped on and are basically ignoring other channels in their business in order to go grow grow a clubhouse channel. Why are they doing this? Like what what is the big attraction with this new channel and why why do you think that everybody's jumping on the bandwagon so quick?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's it the the the thing that people forget about is that social media needs to be social to work. So if you just post stuff and you you know what we call ghosting people, so you don't want to somebody, then you're you're like standing on stage and you're delivering this stuff, but you're not open for anything coming back your way. So social channels work only really well and they get good coverage and they give you good return if actually you communicate with your audience. And what Clubhouse does so beautifully is that there's no direct messaging, there's no behind no nothing going on behind the scenes, it's just you talking to somebody else and having a really authentic and credible conversation. And actually, if you don't know what you're talking about, you get found out real quick. If you're on stage and someone asks you a question, and actually you're saying that you're this type of person and you can't answer the question, then you it you just will get found out. But you what you can do is you can speak in your authentic voice, and not everybody's a great copywriter, not everybody's great on graphics, not everybody's great on video. So all of a sudden, if you strip all of that back, which is what Clubhouse have done, all you're doing is talking, just like me and you are talking here, having a really awesome conversation, and that is the power of Clubhouse, the conversations that people have, the fact that they're being social, and and people are getting the results.
SPEAKER_01So, um, everybody says you have to be on social, but do you in today's day and age? I mean, is social media the channel, you know, is are these different channels, TikTok, whatever it is that you're doing, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn? I mean, is that really a route to market compared to other types of digital marketing that you can do? And for anybody listening to this podcast, as a second part to that question, what advice would you give about building a really engaged social channel around your business or your brand or your service?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cool. So you need coverage, so you need to be able to for people to be able to find you because we live in an age where people Google everything that they'll you know ask Alexa questions, and so we need coverage if we want people to find us and we want to make use of really good SEO, but you know, keywords but also searchable SEO, then we need to be able to be found. Where you choose to be social is where your avatar is going to be hanging out, okay? Now you can't be everywhere if you are, you've got a team of people doing everything in the background. So you need to make sure that you are social in the places where your avatar is hanging out.
SPEAKER_01So just talk a little bit about avatar for people that might be listening and they don't really know what that is.
SPEAKER_02So this is your key, this is your perfect customer. This is the person that you absolutely love to work with, that you can add massive value, and also they can afford if they you know if they if they are going to be a customer of yours, they can actually afford to to work with you. And that's the key thing. They're not just everybody or anyone, which is most people's approach that oh, I'll take anybody and everybody to be my customer because actually you'll get nobody. So really you know, do the work on your avatar, find out who they are, how they where they hang out, what you know, really what makes them tick, what their problems are, what you're trying to solve with the product that you have. It's really, really key. And actually, part of my program, you know, week two is all about avatar. Because if you do it at like as early as that, then you get down, people just want to go straight into copy, but if you don't know who you're talking to, then you're gonna waste a huge amount of time. So, you know, know your avatar and be where they hang out, and also people use social media as a strategy, and it's not, it's a vehicle.
SPEAKER_01Okay, talk to us about that. Let's dive a little bit deeper because that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02People say that you know, like, oh, I've got a clubhouse, you know, like clubhouse is my is my current strategy. Well, it no the clubhouse is the vehicle, that's where you're gonna go on, and you're gonna be able to be in front of people. But what's the work behind that? What does your funnel look like? Within your funnel, what are the multiple strategies that you have? What tactics are you gonna use to make that happen? What tools are gonna make that work for you?
SPEAKER_01So I'm just gonna like dig a little bit deeper in that because in our industry, not many people understand what what you're talking about in terms of a funnel. So talk about like so if Clubhouse or Facebook or Insta or wherever you are is the kind of plumbing around your marketing, what kinds of strategies do you need and what is this funnel that you're referring to?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so a funnel is uh is a is one of those words that just gets banded around. Yeah, and I use it a lot because I understand what it is. Yeah, but so you know we're gonna chuck all these people in the top end of a a funnel that you'd use in a kitchen, and actually that's not really what it's about. And and funnily enough, I use the plum analogy in in when I talk about funnels. So you you are taking somebody from, and I think about like a piece of paper, A4 piece of paper, where you are taking somebody in through the left-hand side, and then you're taking them through this journey. So a funnel is a user journey, it's your customer journey, it's how somebody goes from not knowing you to being your best customer and referring all of their people to you. And the journey that happens is like a huge series of pipes, they're gonna come in. Sometimes there's a there's a huge flood of uh liquid or customers that come in, and there is nowhere for them to go, and it just gets wasted, and there's a big you know over overflow of of people, and they're not captured. So you need to make sure that you've got all of your pipes laid out, that you know exactly what journey you want your customers to go on, from not knowing you to knowing you to liking what you're doing to wanting to know more to getting on a phone call with you, whatever it is, whatever your um conversion tools are through that route, but really knowing that your customers are gonna be going on a journey, just like going into a car showroom and buying a car. You want a new car, there's a problem, you know. You either it's a desire, or that you think actually my car's broken. But you make this decision to go into a car showroom, and there are things that are gonna happen through that sales process that happens all the time. You need to know what your customer journey looks like from someone not knowing you to being your absolute best customer, and that doesn't that actually doesn't end with the the moment that they buy something from you, it's the repetitive buy-in, it's how they're gonna refer to you, what the the lifetime value of that customer is, uh, and mapping that all out and really, really understanding what your customer journey looks like. Uh, and then you then start thinking about well, how am I gonna get them in? How am I gonna convert them? How am I gonna nurture them? How am I gonna convert them into a customer? How am I then gonna re-nurture them to be an ongoing customer of mine? And that is where you plot in things like Clubhouse, you is obviously the attention side, but can also be at the nurture side because I I go onto Clubhouse to get new customers, but I also go on there to nurture people that have been in my database for a long time and I can have real conversations with. So it's about understanding what that customer journey looks like and then putting in the vehicles as you and you need to, and that could be social, that could be um PBC, that could be SEO, all of those things that make up what marketing is. You have a selection, you put them in. You don't you're not trying to fit yourself into other people's things, you are using them to boost your business, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_01Now I just want to like stop here because you know, this is a great conversation for anybody that's working in digital marketing, whether you're on the customer or player side, whether you're on the affiliate side. The same strategies apply, and I talk about this often. Um, in fact, I've just done a webinar where we talked about failure to launch, and failure to launch is often related back to this problem. There is no funnel. You you know you've launched an affiliate program, and now you send him back and nothing's happening. You haven't thought about how do you actually get those affiliates in, and once they're in, what are you going to do to continue to nurture them? Because you don't have enough affiliate managers like humans in your marketing team to go and you know really nurture every single you know hundreds of affiliates that come into your program. So understanding this piece of digital is incredibly important, and um and I think people in our industry at least haven't really kind of embraced that yet in terms of their kind of marketing strategy. They're very good at using vehicles like understanding Instagram, understanding Facebook, understanding Twitter, but they're not very good at building the kind of activation piece that happens after that. So, my next question to you about creating social content that engages versus sales, because people also forget, and and I've heard this from you actually, social media is not about pushing sales messages, it's not a channel there that's there for you to push promotions, it's actually a channel that's there to go and have conversations. So, talk to us a little bit about how brands can curate their content, their visual elements, even the experiences to make these followers into fans.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it really comes back to down to that avatar piece, that that bit that is you know, who is your ideal customer? Because people think that they want to talk about themselves. So we talk about primary and secondary content. Primary is all about the customer, the you know, getting into your customer's shoes and going, what's going on for them? What are they feeling? What do they want to experience? How do they want to receive my content and really understanding you push out primary content that is all focused purely on the customer? So lots of times we talk about the the pain-promise solution method, where you talk about their pain, you talk to them about how they could be in that promise situation, and the solution is that you could do this, this, and this, and that's where you weave in the product or solution that you offer.
SPEAKER_01So let's just explore that a little bit because you talked about pains, possibilities, and solutions in terms of the content, and I just want to correlate that back to affiliate programs for for a minute. What have you seen has worked well during the pandemic, and where are you seeing brands typically fail to use and utilize social media channels like Clubhouse effectively?
SPEAKER_02I think that lots of people have gone radio silent, and that is the worst thing you can possibly do. You know, they've thought, oh well, my customers aren't buying anymore, I don't need to show up. Even if you've got no sales coming through and you can you can't offer your customers a solution, just make sure you're there for them, engage in conversations, make sure that you are continuing to help them any way you can, and that is the difference. That brands that really, really soared through this period have you know diversified, they have but they've always kept in contact with their customers, so they know that when things are gonna change, they've got this community, they've got this following, they've got these people that really buying into their brand that are now really going, I've stayed with you, you've been loyal to me, I'm gonna be loyal to you, and they do it, and it's been working like a treat, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, this could also work for because you know, whilst we talk predominantly to the eye gaming industry, we also service uh clients outside of this industry, and you know, things like travel insurance, those companies have been really hard-hit during this pandemic. So utilizing their social media channels and utilizing you know influencers and affiliate partners that have that social chat that social footprint is obviously a really good idea right now because even though it's not directly correlating into sales because nobody's traveling at the moment and they don't need travel insurance per se, they can still keep their brand front of mind with customers so that when things do open up in the regions that you know they're they're promoting in, they can then you know benefit from that um conversion because they've stayed front of mind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, even more so because you've got to now re-educate people that actually you know people could have lost money on travel, lots of people did, but now the people that are offering really good services that they are really rising now, that you know the the cream is really rising to the top. Because if you are being able to safeguard people, if you're gonna be able to educate people why you're different from everybody else, you will you know you'll just get the return tenfold. So it's about education, it's about doing primary content where the avatar is front of mind always, okay, and the authority piece is the bit that backs everything up.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so let's bring it back to Clubhouse again because obviously the strategy, the plumbing, the vehicle, we've discussed all of that as part of the marketing planning that needs to go around launching yourself into a new channel like Clubhouse. But is Clubhouse really going to be a game changer? I know it's it's easy to access, it's um very simplistic, cost-effective because you you know you don't need any specific tech, you literally just need a phone. But based on the strategy that you know brands need to consider and that you've mentioned previously, is this something that every digital marketer or affiliate marketer should be looking at right now, in your opinion? And if so, why?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the only thing you need is an iPhone and you need an invite, those are the two prerequisites to Clubhouse. Uh, they're easy to find. I know people have gone out and bought an iPhone just so they can get onto Clubhouse because they don't want to miss out. Um, so the key thing is on Clubhouse is to make sure that you do the groundwork first. So the avenues in which people can contact you is via Twitter and Instagram only. So make sure that you have a decent Twitter bio that people can connect with you, and also on Instagram, making sure that you've got good bios, good links through to how they can actually you know get in contact with you and purchase from you, or you know, be part of your list, you know, at the absolute least. Make sure that you've got a good coverage on Instagram in terms of people look at your account. It doesn't need to have big followers, but it does need to people need to land on your Instagram and understand who you are, what you stand for, what your brand is about, what you actually do for people, what are you fixing for people? If it if you're in a problem situation, if you're in the aspirational type side of things, then how are you making people's lives better? So it's really important that you do your groundwork first.
SPEAKER_01So I want to talk a little bit about that because you know you're talking about the profile, and people often forget their profile is actually a piece of real estate. So, what are some of the like really cool clubhouse profiles that you've seen that where people have used their that real estate quite um like innovatively, you know, from a marketing perspective? Is there anybody that's because you've been on Clubhouse like as an early adopter, so I'm sure you've met loads and loads of people. But what are some of the top tips that you can give people that are entering Clubhouse right now to really maximize that kind of real estate?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it has to be consistent across your brand. So don't go onto Clubhouse and try and completely reinvent yourself. And when they then go through to Instagram or Twitter or even Google you, that there isn't there isn't a disconnect. It's really, really important because you would lose trust with people really, really quickly. You need to have you need to make sure that you've got a really clear photo so people can see who you are. Because actually, that tiny little circle is the only scene that they do on Clubhouse. People will judge you if they can't see you, you're trying to hide up, or you've got filters, or anything like that. Just show you as you, um, making sure that in your profile that you are telling people what you do and how you do it, and if they are the right person, like call them out. Say if you're this person, then this is who I work with, and this is how you can work with me. What I'm seeing a lot of people do really badly is that they don't actually do any call to actions and they don't tell people how they can take the next step with them, and that is just disastrous because you can you know, do you know I've got this background, I've got that background. Yes, you want to sort of use it as a bit of a CV, a bit of I think it's probably the closest thing is like your profile on LinkedIn. So you want to give people the information, but you also want to take them through the emotion. So, you know, I use um the ELF technique, so we talk about the emotion, I then talk about the logic of like how people work with me, and then I add in a little bit of fear of like you know, this is you know, it's okay. You know, I've worked with people that made mistakes before, and you know, so I use the elf technique on a lot of my landing pages, and I use the same type of technique in my profile. Where I've seen people use stuff really well is that they use emojis. Emojis are searchable on most platforms now, but in particular, they are highly searchable on Clubhouse. So use emojis, try and get people to see in a visual way what you like and what you stand for, and then making sure you're using bullet points and also change of text. You can download all sorts of keyboards on your phone to make sure that you're not just using standard text throughout all your profile, really mix it up with but you know, bold and circled font and all of that sort of stuff, but use it like a landing page, don't use it like a profile, okay?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so if anybody's listening to this podcast, you can find me on Clubhouse, Leanne Johnston, and you can find Sarah on Clubhouse, and you can go and look and have a look at our profiles because both of us have set them up to be optimized. So, moving on to like more of the kind of nuts and bolts of Clubhouse. So, what are the key things that people need to know about running and managing managing rooms or inviting people in, especially after the kind of hoo-haw that's happened with you know mods fighting and you know what is the kind of etiquette with within the clubhouse channel at the moment?
SPEAKER_02Uh right, so step one is go to the clubhouse rooms where they have the town halls. So, all the time, clubhouse run things called town halls, and they will tell you about the updated information that you really need to know as not just a user, but definitely as a mod and a club owner. So go to those on a regular basis, and you they give you all, you know, not like Facebook and Instagram or uh or LinkedIn where they're a bit reserved with how the recordings are going to run. Clubhouse actually give you all of the information they want you to feel as as much part of the club as there's the people at the top. So make sure you're doing that. Don't rush into running your own rooms, go in and hang out in other people's rooms and see what you like and what you don't like. You know, you might not like the way some people mod, and that's what moderation mods. Um, and you might think, well, actually, I don't want to do it like that, and I think people cut people off, and you'll get to know what you don't like and what you can build into your like non-negotiable mods list. Uh, so that's really important. Hang out and just see how things work first. Then when you start your room, always do it with someone else, always have backup, but have a mod that you can absolutely trust because there is no hierarchy in the mod world. So if you're in a room and you start a room and you're a mod, so you get a green star, and you've got another mod that's got a green star, they could quite quickly kick you out of the group and take over your room. So always make sure you've got mods with you that you absolutely trust, and they're there to back you up and be able to, you know, make you look good and you make them look good. It's really, really important.
SPEAKER_01So, Sarah, I'm inviting you now formally on this podcast to come and join us on the affiliate insider clubhouse um room, which we will be starting shortly. Um, and hopefully you can come in and mud with us one day soon because I definitely know and trust you, and I think everybody in our community will be able to benefit from the digital marketing expertise that you also have. Um so just to kind of round off our chat because we've spoken about so much, there's so much value in here. How do you see social media changing and how can digital and affiliate marketers use social better for their marketing tactics as we move forward out of this pandemic and as kind of our digital environment is changing and the way that people engage online is changing too in the months to come?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you're gonna find as people come out of lockdown and they have freedom to go and do more things, that there will naturally be a dip in the digital space. So you need to make sure that you really understand who your avatar is, who your customers are, and actually at what time they are gonna be online and really re-educate yourself about your key avatar times. Because at the moment it's a bit skew if because everybody's online all the time. But as we come out of lockdown, make sure you go back to your analytics, look at your figures, make sure you really understand the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, okay? And then what you want to do is make sure that you are starting to engage on those platforms if you're going to use them as social, so if you're socially going to engage with your people, that you are starting to do that before they come online. That's an absolute key thing right now because you want to be able to the algorithms need to kick in before your audience arrives. So when they arrive, your stuff is everywhere. Okay, you need to make sure that the stuff that you're doing is consumable really quickly because people are now going to not want to hang out on digital all the time, they're gonna want to come on, get the information, be educated, be excited, be entertained in a way that they can take it, consume it, and move forward with what they're doing. If it's really long form, it's too difficult, they just won't do it. And also don't forget that as people go back out into the world, things like audio, so podcasts, clubhouse, where people can plug their ears and go, is the way in which they'll start to re-consume the larger content pieces. So if you love blogs, turn it into a podcast. If you want to have a conversation with people, then move on to Clubhouse. But make it easy for people to consume your long form content in a way that is they can do other things at the same time, and that's where you'll be able to manage your short form and your long form content in a socially engaging way with your community.
SPEAKER_01Totally agree with that. I mean, one of the things that we've uh just released an affiliate drive time on, if you go to affiliateinsider.com, you'll be able to view these, just type in hashtag affiliate drive time. Um, is using tools like Loom to actually talk through your monthly newsletter with affiliates and just send them a personalized message about what's relevant for them. Saving people time, I think, is going to be incredibly important because we're all going to get busy being busy. Um, we've had like you know a bit of a quiet period, and as we do move out into the world again, we're gonna want to tackle new projects, look at new things, think about our businesses differently. So 100% agree with you there. I think that's incredible advice. I want to thank you so much for coming onto our podcast today, Sarah. I'm really looking forward to working with you on our Clubhouse um channel, which we'll be launching soon. And yeah, if anybody wants to get in touch with Sarah, how can they how can they do that? How can they talk to you about their avatars and and your digital marketing playbook program?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm on all the platforms. So if you just uh search Sarah Sanctster, I've got I was very, very lucky to be able to get my own handles as soon as all platforms got released. So you can find me Sarah Sangster on all platforms. Okay. And just drop me a message and yeah, always happy to have a chat.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for joining us on the affiliate marketing podcast today. You've shared an amazing amount of information with loads and loads of gold nuggets. So really looking forward to seeing you again soon when we can break out of our lockdown here in the UK. And it's been a pleasure to have you.
SPEAKER_02You're very welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01That's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast. If you've loved what we've been putting down in this podcast series, head on over to Apple iTunes and give us a five-star rating and subscribe to the podcast channel. That way you'll never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving trends.