Affiliate Marketing for Podcasters: The #1 Mistake and 7 Strategies You Should Use Now
Let’s talk about money. Specifically, making money with your podcast.
In previous episodes of Podcasting Step by Step, I’ve talked about how the traditional podcast sponsorship model — where you get paid per 1,000 downloads per episode — is a pretty bad deal for most podcasters. You’re much better off negotiating your own sponsorship with a brand that’s perfect for your audience.
Or, you can try becoming an affiliate for the products and services that you love. As an affiliate, you’re sort of an advertiser / brand ambassador.
Alexis Teichmiller, the Affiliate Manager at ConvertKit, joined me on Podcasting Step by Step to talk about how podcasters like you can get started with affiliate marketing.
We answer your burning question, including:
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Where do you find products that have affiliate programs?
What are the top mistakes affiliate marketers make?
What strategies are the most successful affiliates using?
And more.
If Podcasting Step by Step has helped you with your podcast, you can support the show by signing up for services you need — like email so you can connect to your listeners — through my recommended affiliate links, including signing up for a free trial of ConvertKit (yup, that’s an affiliate link!)
Subscribe to Podcasting Step by Step for free (click a button below)
“When people want to get into affiliate marketing,” Alexis says, “you first need to have some sort of audience centered around a specific topic and know that either that entire community or a subset of the community needs these specific products to be successful.” Photo courtesy of Alexis.
The biggest mistake affiliate marketers make
Go to any popular blog, and chances are you’ll find a resources page with products and services the writer uses/recommends, and that also earns them an affiliate commission if someone purchases an item after clicking through from the affiliate link.
Here’s where affiliates mess up — they only promote their affiliate partnerships on the resources page of their website. There are many other places you should promote these links.
7 ways to promote as an affiliate marketer
Here are seven strategies Alexis recommends podcasters use to successfully earn money as an affiliate.
Podcasts
“Some of our top affiliates get about 75% of their affiliate income from podcasts. They're hosting their own show and they create their own ad about why they love this product.” (Learn how to create ads that get listeners to buy).
Buzzsprout, my favorite podcast media host, makes getting started with affiliate marketing incredibly easy. They have something called the Affiliate Marketplace, where you, as a Buzzsprout subscriber, can choose to work with affiliate partners right away. You can try out Buzzsprout for free, and get a $20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan, by joining via my partner link sarahmikutel.com/buzzsprout
Blog posts
“Whether you're running a review, you're running a testimonial, or you're writing about ‘the five things that you didn't know about email marketing,’ you're listing out what you've learned, helpful content, and then inside of it you're promoting organically the the product that you're using.”
“Selling your own products via email is great, but also selling affiliate products via email is great, as well. You're telling a story about how this product changed your life or really improved your life in some way. What I like about this strategy is it's not as distracting as promoting on your website because inside of an email, you've got a few links versus on your website.”
Videos
Alexis says video tutorials do really well, sharing on YouTube or embedding them in a blog post.
“Maybe you're doing a quick screen share of ConvertKit for four or five minutes about the three things that you didn't know it could do that you love. And so you're doing a tutorial. It's in your own words and your own voice. And people love visual.”
Courses
“Let's say I have a course on how to launch a blog. There are many layers to launching an online business or a blog, but maybe one of the modules is all about email marketing. Okay, so I'm going to talk to you about my email marketing strategies. I'm going to talk to you about the things I've learned, how I use it, how I sell through it, and obviously I'm going to promote ConvertKit inside of that module. And the great thing about that is you have a very captive audience for that affiliate link.”
Ads
“Facebook does not allow you to run ads directly to an affiliate link. It has to usually be through some sort of content piece. So you would run ads to a free course or a free digital download. And then inside of that, you could have affiliate links.”
Resource page
I mentioned earlier that it’s a mistake to ONLY put your affiliate links on your resource page, but it’s still an important page to create.
“A lot of people will have resource pages on their websites and that's a great place to easily put affiliate links. ‘All the tools I use and all the things that I recommend.’ Every single one of those recommendations can be an affiliate link so that you can make a little bit of income.”