BBP 130: Ethical Affiliate Marketing with Alex Okell

Shownotes:

In this episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, Alex Okell explores the often-misunderstood realm of affiliate marketing. They discuss ethical strategies for finding aligned affiliate opportunities that genuinely add value to your content rather than feeling like a sales pitch. Listeners will discover a thoughtful approach to selecting products that resonate with their audience and enhance their business, shifting the focus from commissions to meaningful recommendations. This episode offers actionable insights for anyone looking to refine their affiliate marketing strategy while maintaining authenticity.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

In the evolving world of affiliate marketing, it’s essential to find opportunities that align with your values and provide genuine value to your audience. Alex emphasizes that successful affiliate marketing can be fun and rewarding when done ethically.

Step 1: Lead with Value

One of the critical aspects of affiliate marketing is to always lead with value. Alex suggests that rather than focusing solely on affiliate links, content creators should ensure their primary goal is to deliver value to their audience. Google and other platforms reward quality content that is informative, entertaining, or educational.

By prioritizing valuable content, affiliate links naturally become a secondary consideration, seamlessly integrating into the user’s experience.

Identifying Affiliate Opportunities

Alex outlines a straightforward approach to finding affiliate opportunities:

• Reflect on Recommendations: Consider the products or services you already recommend. For instance, if you help people create courses, check if platforms like Teachable and Kajabi have affiliate programs.
• Listen to Your Audience: Pay attention to the questions and requests from your audience. What products do they inquire about? This could be as simple as a grooming tool suggestion in the case of a dog groomer.
• Complement Your Services: Look for products that enhance or complement your existing services. For example, personal trainers can collaborate with physiotherapists or recommend massage tools like foam rollers.
• Focus on Client Needs: Ultimately, think about what products or services will help your ideal client save time, save money, or achieve their goals.

Bottom Line

Finding aligned affiliate opportunities doesn’t have to be a sleazy affair. By leading with value and being mindful of your client’s needs, you can create a trustworthy affiliate marketing strategy.

Related Content

• 9 Tools that Make Affiliate Marketing Easier and More Lucrative
• BBP 081: Increase Your Affiliate Income with Content Clusters (feat. Leanne Scott)
• BBP 044 How to Step Up Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy with Chelsea Clarke

Transcript

[00:00:00].17] – Liz Stapleton

Welcome back to the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, where we share snippets from the annual Blogger Breakthrough Summit that help you take your blogging game to the next level. I’m your host, Liz Stapleton, and today we’re diving into the exciting world of finding those perfectly aligned affiliate opportunities with help from Alex. Trust me, we’re about to make affiliate marketing feel a whole lot less sleazy and a lot more fun. Ready? Let’s get into it.

[00:00:28].10] – Alex Okell

So how do you actually find these aligned affiliate opportunities? This is our step one in our three-step framework. So affiliate marketing can be sleazy like anything in business. So like I’ve said, always recommend products you’ve used yourself or would use, do your research, and disclose. When we lead with value, Our affiliate links should be secondary. So it’s not necessarily like we’re going in and we’re just thinking, Okay, how can I get this affiliate link in? And I will shoehorn it into anywhere, even if it doesn’t fit. All of our content should be leading with value. If you are someone who creates articles for your website, you will already know that if you lead with value, Google rewards you. They want to put the people who are creating the absolute best content online at the top of their Google search. Instagram. It’s exactly the same thing. Tiktok What is leading with value? What is entertaining? What is educational? What’s informative for your audience? Lead with that and then affiliate links can come secondary. Always lead with value, and never just because you like the look of the commission. There’s one way to think about this is to start by thinking, what products or services are you already recommending?

[00:01:36].02] – Alex Okell

If you’re someone who helps people create courses, you might be thinking, Well, I recommend Teachable and Kajabi, so I’m going to go in and see if they have an affiliate program. Hint, they both do. What recommendations do people ask from you? Someone might be saying, if you’re a dog groomer, what brush are you using? Because I could do this in between sessions. There you go. There’s one thing that you can already do. What products or services would complement the work you already do? This is similar to the example I was using before. Let me do a different one. Say, for example, you are a personal trainer and you know that people come in and you are not qualified to do sports massage. We know some people come in complaining that they’ve got some niggles. Could you join up with a physiotherapist or a sports masseuse and promote their products. These are all ways we can go about this. Could you look at foam rollers? Could you look at those massage guns? There’s so many different ways that we can think It’s just taking some time and maybe getting a big piece of paper or getting a notion board going and just brainstorming all of those different things that you already recommend in your business, what people ask from you and what would complement your work.

[00:02:42].11] – Alex Okell

The really overarching thing here is what products or services would help your ideal client save time, save money, and/or achieve their goals. You can cross out what’s not relevant here to you and your business.

[00:02:54].16] – Liz Stapleton

All right, that’s a wrap on today’s episode for the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. I hope you’re feeling pumped and ready to find those aligned affiliate opportunities that make sense for you and your audience. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share the podcast with your fellow bloggers. Until next time, keep blogging and keep thriving.