The Affiliate Marketing Podcast - Erik Bergman (Great.com)

We talk with Erik Bergman, who is on a quest to build Great.com , an organisation that is changing the way people think about charity, development, and business organisations. As ex co-founder of Catena Media he shares his knowledge of affiliate entrepreneurship and building an engaging audience In this months edition of our "3 Questions" Podcast.

Learn more about affiliate marketing at :  Affiliateinsider.com 
Affiliate Marketing - Made Simple

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, welcome to the Three Questions podcast, where I'm asking industry experts about their advice, experience, and insight around the affiliate marketing and entrepreneurship in the iGaming industry. Today I'm really excited to have Eric Bergman, the founder of Great.com. Some of you may know him quite well, Liz. He's also founded one of the largest affiliate businesses in iGaming, which is called Katana Media as well. So welcome Eric. Thanks very much for joining me today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Thank you very much for having me. Today I'm feeling like a little puppy, like a very playful, kind of fun kind of puppy. I'm in a good mood today. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I'm very well, thank you. I think summer brings the best out of all of us.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

So we all turn into puppies.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

The park that I live at in England is um quite beautiful, and today the sun is shining, so it puts me in a good mood. I wanted to kick off our podcast today and ask you a little bit about your extraordinary journey in eye gaming so far.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

You already wasted one question though. You only have two questions left.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Sure. Okay, well, I've got to push my push my boundaries today and ask you for me. Thank you. I'm sure a lot of our listeners would be keen to hear your advice on how to build a successful affiliate business from scratch and what it really takes to make a business like that grow. So can you share your experience with us today?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

So I think what what's been the key of the success behind Katina and what I'm hoping to be the key behind a future success of Great is joy and passion. Yeah. It wasn't really built to be a super large corporation, it was built to satisfy a need for creating or a need for building, something that both me and IML, my co-founder, shared. So I think that the key is to find a way where you enjoy it. So it took us before we actually started doing it full time and before we started earning any whatsoever money worth mentioning, it took us three years. So we didn't put that much effort in it. Now you hear about these affiliate sites and they're up and running in three months and start making 50k or whatever quite quickly. Yeah. We made our our third year, I think we made about three, four thousand euros a month. That's what's where we took to. But it didn't feel like a long journey because we were enjoying the process. So I think that's the key here. Like don't it's easy to look at the Katina success and say, yeah, they got this far in this quick time, but yeah, but you don't hear about the first part of that story, which is the years before it actually even became Katina. So I'd say, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, I mean, I think I think that's such good advice because everybody wants everything fast nowadays, and nobody really wants to invest the time and effort to um, you know, take it slow and to actually let things grow organically. And I know I myself am one of those people because I want everything yesterday, and you know, my business is still new. Um, so I think that's a really, really important key piece of advice for any new entrepreneur that's getting into this space.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Um you can think you can look at it like this: like, would you rather have a really fast journey that you don't enjoy? Yeah, or a very long journey where you love every day.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

The long journey, I would say, is what matters. And it's easy to think, I want to get to that destination. And if you've ever been traveling anywhere, you know that it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

So if you can find a way of building an affiliate site or an affiliate uh news site where you really enjoy the journey and it's not so focused on the destination, I think that's the key to success because then you will be doing this on a regular basis, you will enjoy it, you will put your creativity into it because you're having fun. And if you're not having fun, you're screwed.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Well, that's the other thing. It takes that's determination and skill to build a new business, but it also requires a healthy mindset. Um, and when you're distracted, it's easy for your business and your authenticity to yourself and your brand to also falter. So, what are some of the things that you've learned about keeping your mindset strong as an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Keeping my mindset strong. I think this ties back into what I said before. It's very easy to stay focused if you're enjoying the ride. Yeah. And it's very hard to stay focused if you're not enjoying the ride. I can just go back to school and seeing how hard I have to keep focused on the classes in German, which I hated, but how easy it was to stay focused in the things that I really enjoyed.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

And that's also about you know making your business your passion project, which I think is something that I've discovered in my journey, is that affiliate marketing is and has always been my passion. I sort of tell people I've had a 20-year love affair with um, you know, performance marketing, and here I still am. And I think that that is a very valid point. And I would hope that anybody that's listening to this would kind of forget about the competition and forget about looking at what your peers are doing and just focus on what you really love because ultimately that is what's going to lead to your success. Um, speaking about success and coaching, I think that you know you've obviously got so much experience. What three pieces of advice would you give to new affiliates starting out in this competitive industry today? I mean, what are the things that they need to really hone in on and focus on in order to get their business successful?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Okay, so if we put the have fun part aside, which is my main advice anyway, I'll I'll start with the advice of just begin. I think pretty much everyone in the gaming industry, I believe, have thought the idea, oh, I should start an affiliate site. Sure. And still a lot of them have not done it, and a lot of them will not do it. And I think it's just begin. Start the first site, see what happens, play around with it. So when we started our very first uh affiliate site that became Katina Media, that was called prova uh, well, try bingo.se, approva bingo.se in Swedish. Yeah, and we worked really hard on that site for like three months, and we made zero zit nada, and we put it away and we started doing a lot of other things. And then a year later, we logged into these affiliate accounts and we had made a thousand euros, money that we had no idea where they came from or how that happened. And if that wouldn't have happened, Katina wouldn't exist. So that's kind of how it started. So it doesn't need to be quick money straight away, it doesn't need to be these things, just get started and see what happens. And that's like the by far main advice I would give to anyone, and that relates to affiliate business or business in general, or just start it doing anything. Take the first step, see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Step off that ledge and see where it takes you, I suppose. Um exactly. The last question I'm gonna plug into this um podcast with you today, even though I know it's more than three questions. I'm gonna sneak this one in here because um I've noticed that you've been very active on your social media channels. And I wanted to ask why you've been so direct and what you've discovered in using these channels, um, talking to your target audience and engaging with people that are following you in your community. What are the key learnings that you've had in terms of delving into the social space?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Okay, so one of the things that are also less known about the Katina journey is that social media was a very important part of that Katina exists.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Back in 2010 or so, I was very, very active on blogs, I was very active on Twitter, I was doing a lot of these things, and a lot of the amazing people within the Katina team came from me being active in social media, me reaching out to people in various ways. A lot of the links that came to our early sites came from my relationship with other people on social media. And if it wasn't for blogs, once again, Katina wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And I think this is also something that is being neglected at a large extent. Like using social media and networking to get different opportunities, to give to go on a podcast like this and be able to talk about what I'm passionate about, what I'm doing, and hopefully get a link and some attention my way, and it's very beneficial for me. So by sharing my point of view in social media, I'm reaching out to people. By setting up our own podcast, Becoming Great, we're talking about our vision, our mission, what we're doing. And people keep returning to great.com to see what it is that we're doing because of this, which is returning visitors, which to me is a sign that will that Google will appreciate and it kind of creates these kinds of things. And at the same time, it gives an opportunity to help and inspire whoever's out there and want to do these things. So yeah, I'd I'd love to be on as active as I am now, hoping I will have the time to say that way.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

I mean, I from my experience, I think social media has been grossly misunderstood, and you know, just being authentic and being there and showing up, which is really the theme of this podcast, I think it does improve your business. I mean, I you know, I went to an awards evening the other night and I was shocked because some stranger came up to me and oh my goodness, I watch your affiliate drive time every Wednesday. And I was like, what? Like I thought I was shouting into the void, you know, but people are actually listening to what I'm saying. And and I think it's because at the end of the day, when you're building your business, you've got to remember that relationships count and people by people at the end of the day. And putting yourself out there so publicly is actually, you know, it's really a good thing because people see the person behind the brand, they see the person behind the business, and they buy into your vision and your um excitement about what you're building and what you're delivering and what you're offering. So I just want to thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise with us today. You've been an amazing guest and a very um, you know, it's a privilege for me to meet you and and to have you on my podcast. Um and I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next with greatgrade.com.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Thank you.