The Proffitt Podcast
Are you thinking about starting a podcast? Launching a YouTube channel? Repurposing your old blog content into something fresh? Hi, I'm Krystal - host of "The Proffitt Podcast." And I'm happy to say you've come to the right place!
Business owners and content creators dream of building a platform where they can connect deeply with their audience, and marketing feels easy. But I also know what it's like to feel confused and overwhelmed.
Join us weekly as we strip down those processes and remove all the overwhelm with new tips, simple strategies, and great conversations with creators like you. Tune in to hear how I help creators start, launch, and market their content confidently. The motto here is, "We all have to start somewhere."
The Proffitt Podcast
Affiliate Marketing for Content Creators: 5 Proven Strategies to Maximize Your Revenue
"How do you share links for affiliate products?" Let's explore the strategies for successful affiliate marketing and transform your content into a revenue-generating powerhouse.
We'll discuss the nuances of placing affiliate links across platforms like YouTube, podcasts, emails, and websites without sacrificing your brand's integrity. Drawing from my personal journey, including lessons learned from my early Amazon affiliate days, discover how to recommend products that truly resonate with your audience and enhance your content's value.
Transparency is key in affiliate marketing, and we are here to guide you through the essential steps to ensure compliance with FTC guidelines. Learn how clear and conspicuous disclosures can strengthen your audience's trust rather than obscure fine print. We emphasize the importance of upfront communication about your affiliate relationships, allowing you to confidently promote products you believe in and that genuinely benefit your listeners or readers.
Lastly, explore strategies for aligning affiliate partnerships with your audience's needs and maintaining authenticity and integrity. Hear my criteria for selecting affiliate partners, focusing on value and trust in my recommended products and services.
Plus, get the inside scoop on our new membership, Podcasters Connect, designed to bring podcasters and content creators together for networking and collaboration. Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity to enhance your affiliate marketing strategy and engage more meaningfully with your community.
Join the Podcasters Connect™ waitlist here: https://krystalproffitt.com/podcasters-connect-waitlist/
Click the "Send Krystal a Text Message" link above to send us your questions, comments, and feedback on the show! (Pssst...we'll do giveaways in upcoming episodes so make sure you leave your name & podcast title.)
KitMy go-to email service provider that I use to email my list and grow my audience.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
We are here today to talk about affiliate marketing. Now, affiliate marketing is something that we have covered multiple times on the podcast, on the YouTube channel, but today, specifically, we are going to cover how to share your affiliate promotional links in your content, because I see this done really well and really bad all over the place. So we're going to go get into the do's and don'ts of how you can share your affiliate links as a creator on your YouTube channel, your podcast, in your emails, on your website, like all the places where you would share your affiliate links. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Profit Podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, crystal Profit, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time-saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Podcast. I am Crystal Profit, your podcast coach and content strategist, and we're talking all about affiliate marketing in today's episode.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to affiliate marketing, I get questions all the time, but I got this really specific question recently. That said, do you put your affiliate links in your podcast description so that they don't have to go to your show notes to get them? And that really kind of sparked for me like, oh, I don't think we've talked about like just the simplicity of where you put your affiliate links. What are the rules and regulations? Because, if you didn't know, there are lots of rules and regulations around affiliate marketing and how does this look like for me in my content and in my business? So I thought, high level, that I would share a few quick personal stories throughout today's episode, just really walking you through what affiliate marketing has meant for me and my business. But also we're going to talk about why affiliate marketing is important and it's a very lucrative business opportunity for you as a creator, as you're creating your podcast content or your YouTube content, and so I want you to capitalize on those opportunities. So let's just dive right in. We're going to get started with what I'm calling segment number one, and this is understanding affiliate marketing in your content.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, what is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is you endorsing other products or services that you love, and I highly recommend that you only endorse products and services that one you've used, two you know as a trusted brand and three you're already recommending to your friends, your family, your customers, like your audience. Like, don't just really buy into the hype of something because it's viral or it's trending or they have a really great affiliate payment structure. All of these things that don't have a full brand alignment can absolutely come back to backfire on you. So I want to make sure that when you're looking at opportunities to go about doing affiliate marketing, you're looking at it very smartly, in a way that isn't going to get you in trouble. It's not going to make your audience just roll their eyes and say, oh well, they've clearly sold out and all they're doing now is promoting this thing. That doesn't align with their business model anyway.
Speaker 1:So affiliate marketing I got started with Amazon affiliates. I love to tell the story that I made pennies. When I first got started, I was blogging. This was like way before I started podcasting and I was recommending books that I was reading. I was on a tear just reading a ton of personal development books. One of my favorites is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you have not checked out that book, I highly recommend it. But I would mention this book or books by Brene Brown or by other people that were super insightful and helpful in my own personal development journey and I would add those to my website and I would put my Amazon affiliate link. Now, what's cool about the Amazon affiliate program is you don't just make money from that one book, like if someone goes to Amazon and they add that book plus they add in like curtains for their podcast studio or brand new lighting. These are some of the things that, if you're not watching the video, like these, are things that I recently bought on Amazon. But if I were to use someone's affiliate link and I purchased that book that someone recommended to me plus, let's say, $500 worth of other things, well I, as the affiliate, would make a commission on that whole purchase. Now Amazon may make changes to their affiliate program. I don't even know. I don't stay up to date on all of those because that's not my main source of income.
Speaker 1:But for you as a creator, you do have that opportunity. So if you're a fitness podcast creator and you're recommending yoga, opportunity, so if you're you know a fitness podcast creator and you're recommending yoga mats, weights, water bottles, all these things that people are probably going to go to Amazon and purchase, then why not put that out there and let them go through your affiliate link? But before you do that, let's go through the rest of these do's and don'ts so to make sure that you are sharing your links properly. But that is at a very high level of what affiliate marketing is and how you can use it in your business. But the role of affiliate links in your content I really want to talk about how you can strategically place these through different pieces of your content, through different pieces of your content. So, for example, I endorse Buzzsprout and Kits and Riverside, like. These are different platforms.
Speaker 1:These are services that I use in my creator business, that I talk about all the time and by doing that, I will mention it here on the podcast. I will say go to crystalprofitcom forward slash, insert the brand name right, insert Buzzsprout, crystalprofitcom forward slash, kit like dash, riverside. Like those are the links that I've created. That are my affiliate links. Do you see how I've said these are my affiliate links multiple times? And other times I'll say I'm a proud partner with, or. You know, I want to highlight this tool and let you know that I'm'll say I'm a proud partner with or I want to highlight this tool and let you know that I love and endorse this brand. So don't ever go into promoting a product or service that you are an affiliate for without also disclosing these are affiliate links. I make a commission whenever you go and check this out. I think it's very important, but it's also the legal way to do it. We're gonna talk about FTC guidelines here in a second, but again, that is at a high level, how I kind of share my affiliate links. I'll say I'm on the podcast. I'll say I'm on my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:If you go to the show notes for today's episode, you're gonna see it listed there. If you go to the show notes for today's episode, you're going to see it listed. There is an affiliate disclaimer on every single one of our blog posts, because it is important to have a disclaimer anywhere on your website or where you're doing promotions. If you are a Buzzsprout user, you can actually go into the monetization portal the section in your Buzzsprout account and if you add in your affiliates there and you add it to a specific episode, then they will actually put the disclaimer on your episodes for you. So if someone's listening to the audio version, they'll see the affiliate disclaimer there. So, fun fact, another reason that you should use Buzzsprout you can go to crystalprofitcom forward, slash Buzzsprout. I am a proud partner and affiliate with Buzzsprout. You see, super easy. I know it's going to get annoying, I'm going to do it many times throughout today's episode, but I just want to keep giving you examples of how you can tell people that you are an affiliate for the brand or service that you're endorsing.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's segment number one understanding affiliate marketing in your content. Now segment number two we're going to talk about where to put your affiliate links, the do's and the don'ts. So, like I said earlier, we had this question from the community that was like, do you just put them in your podcast descriptions? Do you go to your show notes? And if you are unclear what podcast, show notes and podcast descriptions are, the way that I define them is a podcast description is what you are seeing in Apple Podcasts, spotify, wherever you're listening to, the audio only version. That is the podcast description, or same if you're on YouTube and it is the text right below the video. That is the episode description.
Speaker 1:But show notes are a very different monster. I say monster because this is actually something that is like the reoccurring theme around here is people will come to me podcasters that are like I'm so sick of doing my podcast show notes. Do I have to do them? No, you don't. If that is the reason you are this close to burning out on your podcast, you don't have to do show notes. But you are missing out on opportunities to grow your email list, promote affiliate products, do your own sales and promotions. So I digress, but that's just like the definition of show notes versus descriptions.
Speaker 1:But for me, I typically will have everything listed in the show notes. That's where I really want people to go. I want them to go to my website. I want traffic to my website so I can take advantage of offering really cool lead magnets, offering promotions, having other opportunities for people to engage with me on my website, because you're pretty limited if you're only on the podcasting app or on YouTube.
Speaker 1:So that's really like the main differences between the descriptions and the show notes. So I do think that it's really important. So we're going to get into kind of the do's and don'ts here. So the do is putting a simple CTA in the podcast description if that's the route you're going, or listening to the show notes so that you can really avoid cluttering up the description. So if you are going to put it in the description, make sure it's clean, make sure it's very like it's learn more about brand name here and then put the link in there. And then you can do a little asterisk that says affiliate link, or you can put whatever your disclaimer is included in the podcast description or the YouTube description, but I would prefer you putting it in your show notes where people can learn more about the brand if you want to go into more detail.
Speaker 1:But the big don't is do not overwhelm your descriptions with a ton of links. Okay, I see this happen all the time and it drives me bonkers. I will go to a podcast or a YouTube and I will go to the description and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh my gosh, there's like 40 links here because they've put every affiliate program they've ever been a part of in this one description and it's overwhelmed, it's way too much. I'm like which one do I go to? Which one's relevant for me? I don't even know what some of these brands are Like. Do I need to click on all these? There's no description of what the actual links are. It's just a ton of links and you can tell they're all affiliate links. They're like here's my affiliate links, so good on them. Like they put the description out there that these are affiliate links and they'll make a commission or whatever. But it's just very overwhelming and people are going to typically not take action when they have way too many choices. So do make sure that you have your affiliate links properly displayed in your descriptions or your show notes, and the big don't is don't overwhelm your audience with way, way, way too many links. You're not going to get the results that you're after if you do that.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next one is other really effective placement strategies. So the big do for this is do place affiliate links in your dedicated show notes page, blog post or on a resources page. I love a resources page, so I have crystalprofitcom, forward slash tools and on this page. Like it just says it right there as soon as you get there. It's like all of these, most of the links that you're going to find here, these are my affiliate links and there's a big fat disclaimer that says I'll make a small commission if you click on one of these links and make a purchase through there. So it's kind of like the catch, all of you know.
Speaker 1:If someone's like, hey, what mic do you use, what episodes or what episodes, what software do you use to record your episodes? Or you know, I could just keep going on what email service provider do you use? What you know course platform do you endorse, like? I could go on and on. But that's where I put everything in one place. That way, if someone asks me what are your favorite tools and resources, I'm like, oh, I have a tools page, go check it out so you could create that very simply on your website. Just have one place, put all of your links there, but make them look nice. Again, don't just put all the links. It's too overwhelming. Categorize them by maybe products or services or the type of problem that they saw for your business or for your customers. But I definitely think having them, you know, put the logos on there, put some images, make it look fun, right, like fun and designed a little bit, can go a long way, as opposed to just a whole bunch of links. So that is the do.
Speaker 1:The don't is don't hide your affiliate links under these misleading languages. It's like click here for free stuff and it's actually a sales page Because, again, that's not legal. Right, that's not legal to just say, well, click here for more info. You need to have a disclaimer that that is an affiliate link, which is why, again, almost on every single page of my website, you're going to see a disclaimer. There are affiliate links on this webpage, so I cover all my bases. I'm pretty risk averse so I'll throw that out there, but that's how I like to do it. Those are my do's and don'ts. Is put a disclaimer on every page. Don't be slimy and creepy with the way that you're sharing your affiliate links, because it's going to backfire on you.
Speaker 1:All right, segment three best practices for affiliate disclosures. Now, I've mentioned this a few times, but the FTC has guidelines. Now, this is the Federal Trade Commission. This is for the US. I don't know how this spans globally, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be the same wherever you are in the world. You need to follow these rules for how you disclose about affiliate partnerships. If you're making commissions on whatever it is that you're promoting and this is not restricted to brands that you know, like a Buzzsprout or a kit, like.
Speaker 1:I have affiliates for my products and I make sure that all of my affiliates know like, hey, you got to tell people that you're an affiliate for this. You can't just share the links and say, oh, this is a great program, no, you gotta talk about that. You are an affiliate for this program. So, very important, I do my due diligence with my affiliates and I send them the link to the FTC guidelines and anytime there's an update, I'm like hey, did you see this update? Because you need to know, because you're associated with my brand and I want to make sure that you're following the rules, that I'm following the rules, because it's very, very important.
Speaker 1:So the do for the FTC guidelines is make sure disclosures are clear and conspicuous. I can't say that word. I was looking at my notes. I'm like wait, hang on, hang on, I'm not going to say this. Right, make sure they're clear. Okay, I don't know why I'm trying to throw in fancy pants words around here. Make sure that your disclaimers are clear, meaning they should be really hard to miss. It should be front and center, not this teeny tiny font that's like kind of grayed out and you can't really see it. Like, no, no, use plain language. And this one, this example, says this is an affiliate link, which means I earn a commission at no additional cost to you. This is almost like verbatim what it says on my website.
Speaker 1:Don't try to get cutesy and, you know, say something that's like really like what, what, what, what does this even mean? And so that is the don't is don't bury disclosures I'm just having issues talking now in your show notes or hide them in a wall of text. Your audience and the FTC won't appreciate it. So don't have like this, like here's the fine print and like let's put everything in there and then, like hope nobody actually reads it and knows that I'm making commission on everything that they're doing.
Speaker 1:Like don't be slimy, don't be those people. We're not going to be those people. Like, if you're listening to this podcast, you're watching on YouTube. Like don't be that person. Okay. Like you're uninvited to the party if you end up being the person that's slimy and salesy and like just really gross with how you are promoting things to your audience, so we will uninvite you. You can't sit with us, right? Like I feel like mean girl day, like just happened recently. So I'm like you can't sit with us if you don't follow the FTC guidelines. Okay, I feel like I should turn that into a meme. Maybe we'll turn that into like a video clip, because that one's worthy of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next part of best practices is when and how to mention disclosures. Again, having issues talking the do is mention it up front in your podcast, especially if it's a heavily promotional episode, and in your show notes. Now, what this means is don't just say it once and then you talk about like your episode. So let me give you an example. If I were recording this today and I was talking about Buzzsprout, buzzsprout, buzzsprout, buzzsprout, buzzsprout, and I was sharing my link and I was saying all these things, I was not saying I was a partner, I was just like, oh, no, no, no, like I'm just, I'm endorsing this, I'm endorsing this, and then at the very end I say, by the way, I'm a Buzzsprout affiliate. It's like, wait, what did she say? What, huh? What it's like?
Speaker 1:Do you ever listen or watch those commercials where it's like, okay, they're saying the prescription drug and then all of a sudden they say all the things afterwards that could go wrong? It's like possible side effects are, and then they're just like mumbling, like jargon, and you're like wait, what just happened? Like you can't understand what they are saying. So make sure that you are very clear, you are very concise, like there's no, there's no questioning that what you are endorsing is an affiliate partnership. Don't be ashamed of it. Okay, this isn't even part of my don'ts, but I'm gonna tell you this right now. Don't be ashamed of it. Okay, this isn't even part of my don'ts, but I'm gonna tell you this right now.
Speaker 1:Don't be ashamed of promoting other products and services that you love, cause I see people get sheepish about it. They're like I don't know if I should mention this, or should I mention this? Or have I talked about it too many times? Like I talked about this one episode 20 episodes ago, then it's too much. It's too much for my audience and I'm like no, actually it's not. I promise it's okay, I promise your audience has probably forgotten, especially if you only mentioned it once, 20 episodes ago, you can talk about it again. Just mention that you're an affiliate, okay.
Speaker 1:So the actual don't for this one is don't wait until the end of the episode and make it seem like an afterthought. So anytime I say Buzzsprout or Kit or Riverside, I'll say you know, and I'm going to partner with Riverside, go to crystalprofitcom forward, slash Riverside and check it out. Or, if I don't say it that direct way, I do make sure that it is in the episode description in the show notes for that episode. Cause I want to make sure like it is in the episode description in the show notes for that episode, because I want to make sure like it is a very clear disclaimer. Like I'm an affiliate for this. So I'll say I'm a partner, I'm an affiliate, I partner with this. You know company or I collaborate with this company. But whatever the verbiage is that you want to use, make sure it's very clear. You're going to get paid, you're going to get a commission if someone buys through that link that you're sharing. Okay, are we good? Are you still with me? Like, tell me in the comments if you're watching on YouTube that you're following along, because I know the FTC isn't sexy. Like, don't tell them that, right, because they'll probably get really offended. But I'm just saying like all of this is really important stuff for you to know, especially if you want to keep really promoting affiliate products, which I do. Did I tell you I've said this in multiple episodes, I may not have said it in this one that over half of my revenue in my business comes from affiliate revenue and partnerships. So I take this very seriously and I'm very intentional and strategic with how I do partner promotions, and I think that you should too, because there is a lot of opportunity, especially as your audience grows and continues to compound over time. There's so much opportunity for affiliate marketing. So do it right. Do it right from the beginning. Even if your channel is small, even if you have two listeners of your podcast, make sure that you're getting it right today so that, as your show continues to grow and get bigger, then you're going to have more opportunities to really, really get it right and really do big things with affiliate marketing.
Speaker 1:All right, let's move on Segment number four. We're talking about how to ethically promote affiliate products. These are the do's and don'ts. So the first one is do provide real value to your audience. Now we kind of talked about this earlier, but if you have a fitness podcast and you're an affiliate for McDonald's, it might not be right. It might not be a great fit, right, like no shade on McDonald's, but I mean, last time I went there, they don't have the healthiest options. There are some, there are a few healthy options, but it's one of those things that your audience is probably like wait, what? Like what's actually happening right now? Like I thought we were here for health goals or fitness goals and now, like this, this doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1:So my like filter or kind of what I think about when I'm considering an affiliate partnership is is this adding value to my audience? Will they appreciate this? Will they be excited about this? Because when the people come to me, like podcasters and content creators, they're like I just don't know about affiliate marketing. I'm like well, what is your audience already buying? Not what is something that you're making them, you're pushing on them. What are they already buying that they need options for? So for me, content creators are looking for editing software, recording software recording equipment, lighting, email service providers. They're looking for course creation tools. They're looking for programs that can help them level up Like. All of these are examples of what my audience is already looking for. So why would I not, as the expert that they're coming to for advice, share with them the resources that I love or the products that I've actually gotten results with? So that is my like.
Speaker 1:Add real value to my audience is using my own personal examples, personal experiences, and not just like oh, this one pays a really good commission. I guess I'm going to endorse that. I don't. I don't. I don't ever go down that road. I just go down the road of. These are ones that will actually provide value to my audience and I've used them personally, or I know that they will get results for my audience. So that is the do right. Make sure that it's providing real value to your people.
Speaker 1:The big don't here is don't promote products that you haven't used or don't like. Now I got to be honest Products that you haven't used or don't like. Now I gotta be honest. I have absolutely endorsed products that I haven't used personally. But the reason why is because it comes recommended to me from another friend, peer, expert in my industry. So I'm not gonna sit here and say that I've never done that, because I've recommended the Samsung Q2U microphone. I don't even know how many times. I can tell you I've never picked up this microphone. I've never even held one of these in my hand. But you bet your bottom dollar. I have recommended this on Amazon countless times because this is one that I know other people in my industry have gotten really good results for it's within their budget. They like the fact that it's either USB or an XLR cable, like it just worked really well for them. So I've endorsed that.
Speaker 1:But if it's something I don't like, like I'm not going to again throw a bunch of shade at companies that I don't like here. We're not going to do this publicly. We're not going to do a public bashing of companies. But there are many okay, like many many products and services that I've used that I will never publicly endorse. Okay, they have incredible affiliate programs. They get people results I'm not even saying that they won't get you results but I will not endorse because I don't agree with the other companies either at the leadership level or some of the things that they've said publicly that I'm like ugh, I don't want my brand associated with that. So you can absolutely have that kind of filter of what do I want, who do I want to partnership with. I love the folks over at Buzzsprout, I love the people at Kit and the people at Riverside are so incredible for helping creators. So these are the people that I really have aligned my brand with and I stand behind those actions and I really endorse them. So I encourage you to do the same. Find the brands, find the products that you absolutely love, the ones that you're already using or the ones that you've had recommended to you over and over and over again. So you're like this has to be a fantastic product and see what happens, right, see what happens with your affiliate marketing strategies, all right.
Speaker 1:Last and final segment is additional tips for successful affiliate marketing. There we go. I can finally speak, maybe here at the end We'll see how long that lasts. So, using custom short links I cannot stress this enough. This is one of those things.
Speaker 1:You've heard me mention multiple links in today's episode. That is only possible because I use a tool called Pretty Links. No, I'm actually not an affiliate for Pretty Links. I probably should. I'm going to throw this out there Pretty Links, if you're listening and you want to come sponsor us awesome, incredible, we would love to have you. But I'm actually on the free version of pretty links. I've used them for years and years and years and I love this tool so much. But I can go and create. I'll take those affiliate links.
Speaker 1:So if you've been an affiliate, you know that you have a dashboard or you have a link, right, like someone emailed you a link and said here's this specific link that you need to share with your audience. Well, I take that and I put it in my pretty links and then I create like a vanity URL at the end. So for Buzzsprout, my actual Buzzsprout affiliate link is ugly Sorry, buzzsprout, like I mean, y'all know this, it's a bunch of other random letters and numbers and I wouldn't be able to say that all the time and I wouldn't be able to remember that and put it in all of my emails or put it in the show notes or put it wherever I'm actually promoting the thing. So I use Pretty Links to use my custom domain right, this is my domain of my website and then I can put whatever I want at the end. So crystalprofitcom forward slash buzzsprout will take you to my affiliate link. Crystalprofitcom forward slash kit K-I-T will take you to my kit affiliate link, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:So I use that same formula for all of my affiliates because it's easy for me to remember. That's the main reason. And then the secondary part is it's easy for me to say to you because whenever I'm in conversation with someone or I'm creating a piece of content and I bring up right, naturally, the thing, the product, the service, the tool that I want to talk about, it's easy for me to say like oh yeah, that's crystalprofitcom forward slash kit. Go check it out for an email service provider I'm a proud partner and affiliate and then I continue on. So it's not this big like oh yeah, I use this tool and it's called kit. Let me go find the affiliate information and send it to you. That's clunky. It's not a good experience. Your audience is probably never going to follow up and actually do the thing because you made it really weird and awkward.
Speaker 1:So make it very simple. You can use Pretty Links. You could also use Bitly. There's like tiny URL. There's so many of these different like URL shortening tools that you can absolutely use, but make sure that it's something that you can create where you will remember it easily and be able to reference it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:All right, last two tips I want to share with you Monitor your links and update them when necessary. So I've talked about Kit here a few times. We all know that this was formerly ConvertKit. That was my previous URL. It was crystalprofitcom forward slash ConvertKit. I had to update it to Kit. So what I did is I went into my pretty links and my other URL is still out there, if anyone you know clicks on an old ConvertKit link, it will be, you know, the right updated information. But that's how easy it is. Whenever you have one of these URL management tools like Pretty Links, I could just go in and update it to what the new version needs to be. That way, if there's something old that's out there, it's simple to go in and update it.
Speaker 1:But the other one is tracking it. So track your performance and your metrics. If you have dashboards that come with your affiliate programs that you're a part of, check in on them. You don't have to do this like every single week or once a month, even if it's just once a quarter. Go poke around in there and see like, well, how many sales have you made, how many people are clicking on these things, and then you can go back and see, well, where did I share those? Did I share those in my free Facebook group? Did I share them on the podcast? Did I share them here? And then you can kind of monitor how your campaigns are going. But highly, highly, highly recommend experimenting with affiliate marketing and just keep doing it until you find out what works well for your audience and these are also seasonal, like I have found that some affiliate promotions do really really well certain times of the year. So look at what your audience is like, what stage are they in a certain time of year, and see what can you offer them to help them on their journey.
Speaker 1:So, quick recap, all right, we're going to go through the main takeaways for today's episode. The first one is just understanding affiliate marketing and then where to put your links. Quick recap all right, we're gonna go through the main takeaways for today's episode. The first one is just understanding affiliate marketing and then where to put your links. The do's and the don'ts. We talked about the best practices, so go check out, go read the FTC guidelines. If you have not done that. That's the number one takeaway from today's video. Make sure you go do that. The next one is how to ethically promote products the do's and don'ts, and then tips for successful affiliate marketing. But at the end of the day, make sure that you are providing value to your audience. That's the only way to be successful with affiliate marketing. But I can tell you like if I can do this, you can do this too. It may just take a little bit to figure out what works well with your audience and what to promote and when, but you can absolutely be successful with affiliate marketing. So that's all I have for the regular part of the episode.
Speaker 1:Now we're getting into our fan mail shout out, and I'm so excited about this. Okay, fan mail shout out Again. I don't know what your name is oh wait, it's listed here. Naomi, right, naomi, from Fulton, missouri, enjoying your conversation with Albin about promoting podcasts. Would love to hear your ideas for promoting niche podcasts offline as well. Naomi, listening in Dubuque, iowa and co-host of Uncovered Life Beyond. Okay, this is so fun. And, again, I love that it says Fulton Missouri because of the phone number that we got, but you're in Dubuque, iowa. Thank you so much for writing in, naomi, and if you wanna send us a fan mail, shout out, go to the audio version where you're listening, click, send Crystal a text message and you could be featured on the show. But again, uncovered Life Beyond is Naomi's podcast. So, promoting podcasts. Love to hear ideas for niche podcasts offline as well. Okay, this is so important because I have seen this done so well. So when you're out and beyond right, out and beyond I'm looking at life beyond. When you're out and about beyond your house right, you're no longer in the confines of wherever you're living and you're out on the streets. You're in public. Pay attention to how other people are doing this.
Speaker 1:Well, because you asked about offline, I have seen QR codes work really well. We actually have Melissa Kitchens she's a podcaster here in the community. Have Melissa Kitchens, who is she's a podcaster here in the community. She reached out to me right before she launched her podcast about telling family stories and she was like I'm going to this conference and it's all. It's like a historical society. I'm going to this event. Like I want to have something to share, but I don't know how to really do that. And I was like QR code, absolutely. Get a QR code that you can put on a piece of paper or you could do like the digital wallet QR codes those are really fun too and then have something where you can say oh look, I have a podcast. Like that's really fun, that's easy to do If you have money for billboards.
Speaker 1:I've seen this done really cool. I wanted to do this in Times Square when we were in New York earlier this year. I did not do it, but I plan to do it if I go back to New York anytime soon. But you can actually buy a billboard space in New York City and it's not that expensive. It was like $150, which, you know, I don't know what your budget is, but that is a really fun thing. And then, if you're actually in New York, if you're listening to this and you're in New York or you can get to the city, then you can go take a picture in front of it and, man, talk about the freaking authority building that you can do with having a billboard in Times Square, like how cool is that? But, naomi, for you, I would just really encourage you to network.
Speaker 1:So you're talking about a niche podcast. How can you network with other people in your industry? Like, does that look like in-person meetups? Does that look like getting on online forums? Like there's just so many other ways that you can do. I know you said offline, but networking is really the place. And having maybe physical locations where you can drop your QR code or business cards for other people that are interested in your niche, then that could really work for you. But that's all I have for y'all. Okay, but the last thing I guess that's all I have.
Speaker 1:We're launching a membership. Okay, this is what I had to end on, because all the things that we're talking about here today like all the affiliate marketing stuff and just the different ways that you can get into the nitty gritty and the examples of affiliate marketing you could do so much by joining us in our membership. So it's called Podcasters Connect. We are launching soon and I want you to get on the waitlist. So where you're watching this, where you're listening to this, you're going to have a link to join our waitlist and I want to hear from you, I want to hear what you want to like really see in a monthly membership for podcasters, because we are going to feature people and have special promotions, we're going to have guest experts, we're going to have content audits and feedback like so much fun stuff, and I have not been so excited about something in the business that is just.
Speaker 1:I know it's going to be so big for this community for you to network and partner with other podcasters and content creators and I am just so stinking excited. So, like I said, it's called Podcasters Connect. Where you're watching this, listening to this, you're gonna find a link to the wait list and I cannot wait to tell you more about it. But that's all I have for you today. So make sure you hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you are watching and listening to this today and, as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.
