Episode 44
The Affiliate Show
July 8, 2016 · Mike Murphy
Ep44: THE AFFILIATE SHOW Affiliate Marketing 101 Episode Summary: What is affiliate marketing? What are the advantages for podcasters and content creators? How do you get started?
Episode Summary: What affiliate marketing actually is, why it’s a genuine win-win-win for podcasters, their audience, and the vendor, and 5 concrete strategies for promoting affiliate products authentically.
What You’ll Learn
- What affiliate marketing actually is, in plain terms
- The legal disclosure obligation every affiliate marketer has to honor
- 4 real advantages of affiliate marketing for podcasters and creators
- 5 concrete strategies for promoting affiliate products
Ask Mike Anything: A Lightweight Travel Tripod
Question: Any recommendation for a multi-purpose lightweight tripod good for traveling?
Answer: 1. MeFoto DayTrip ($99) 2. MeFoto BackPacker ($149).
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Per Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income: affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or a company’s) products. Find a product worth using, promote it, earn a piece of the profit on each resulting sale.
Simple version: like a product, sign up as an affiliate partner, promote it to listeners, earn a commission on every sale that results.
Legal: disclosure of any affiliate relationship is a hard requirement, not optional — always honor it.
Disclosure statement used on this site: “Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase. I only recommend products I use and love and if I think will be useful for you or your brand.”
Why Affiliate Marketing Is a Win-Win-Win
Someone else’s product gets promoted, so the vendor wins when a sale happens. A product that’s genuinely used and loved gets recommended, so the audience wins by discovering something useful. A small commission (or occasionally free product) comes back, which helps fund making more content — so the creator wins too.
Stay authentic: only promote products genuinely used or believed in, ones sincerely expected to help the audience. It’s never really about the money — it’s about the value of what’s being recommended, and staying anchored to that keeps affiliate marketing a genuinely good practice.
Advantages of affiliate marketing:
- Making money
- Promoting other people’s products rather than having to build everything from scratch
- Introducing an audience to products and services worth trusting
- Establishing authority while earning enough to keep making content
Affiliate programs joined (partial list): Amazon, Bluehost.com, Elegant Themes (Divi), Screenflow, Camtasia, Udemy.
Which programs to apply to: look at every product genuinely used and loved, and check for an affiliate program — usually linked in the footer of a company’s website as “Affiliate” or “Partners.”
5 Strategies to Promote Affiliate Products
- Tutorials. Make tutorials about products you’re an affiliate of.
- Lead magnets & PDF resources. Give away free guides in exchange for a newsletter signup, and fill them with recommended affiliate products.
- Podcasts. Provide affiliate links to mentioned products and services directly in the show notes.
- Gear reviews & video. A great way to establish authority, with the affiliate link placed in the video description.
- Live streaming & behind-the-scenes. Snapchat, Periscope, Instagram, and Facebook Live are great platforms for introducing followers to tools in real time — Pretty Links make sharing affiliate links with live viewers easy.