About this column
Katya [not her real name] is a prospective new client of The Voice Bureau.
During our exploratory phone conversation the other day, I asked her if she’d considered adding affiliate marketing to her lifestyle brand’s site, since she already has a nicely built-out resources page sharing her favorite picks from perfume to bedside table reading to organic cotton t-shirts. “No,” she told me. “I’d considered it, but my web guy won’t have anything to do with it. He told me he doesn’t believe in affiliate marketing. He doesn’t like that stuff.”It’s time to take another look at affiliate marketing as a viable income stream for integrity-filled, values-based microbusinesses who market on the web.
First, what is affiliate marketing?
In brief, affiliate marketing is an agreement to promote the work of another business in exchange for a commission when a customer purchases the offer through your ‘affiliate link.’ The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires affiliate sellers to clearly disclose each and every time they’re sharing an affiliate link, so that the buyer is aware the seller is receiving income from the sale. This is why you’ll usually see people sharing an affiliate link on social media with the word ‘aff’ following it.
In this corner of the online business webiverse, affiliate commissions are generally 30-50% of the product sold. The creator of the offer sets the percentage according to what he or she feels is fair.
Affiliate marketing is one of The Voice Bureau’s ongoing income streams, albeit a modest one in comparison to our service-based revenue.
The same was true pre-Voice Bureau, when I was a freelancer doing business as Abby Kerr Ink.
Since Fall of 2012 alone, The Voice Bureau has endorsed a video-making course from Monica McCarthy at Show & Tell Stories, Paul Jarvis’ digital book Be Awesome at Online Business, a high level mentorship for writers called Your Captivating Book from Jeffrey Davis, and an intensive coaching program for women called Playing Big from Tara Mohr. (Note: none of these are affiliate links, though there are affiliate links in the posts they link to.)
I also frequently promote other creative professionals’ work just because it’s great stuff, with no thank-you monies on the line at all. Sharing other people’s good stuff — no strings attached — is part of doing business in the community of values-based business owners.
Now, it’s important to note that affiliate marketing is a complete business model for some people. Some people set up sites specifically designed to drive traffic to an offer that they’re an affiliate for. Businesses like this don’t create their own products or services, they just hype other people’s. This brand of affiliate marketing understandably gets a bad rap; we mentally associate it with sales pages with cheesy graphics and lots of yellow highlighter. Also, videos in which people gesticulate wildly and use lots of hyberbole (“Within 6 months, you can tell your boss to SHOVE IT and join me on the beach in Bali!”).
Obviously, this is NOT the kind of affiliate marketing I’d advise any client or colleague of mine to get involved in. This isn’t values-based marketing, it’s marketing done with the intent to drive traffic toward cashola, regardless of whether the seller believes in the product or not.
But affiliate marketing can be done with integrity. Here’s my rationale behind affiliate marketing as a small, solo-owned business:
Here are 6 questions you can ask yourself when evaluating whether an affiliate marketing opportunity is right for your business and brand:
- Do you know, like, and trust the offer creator — to a degree that you feel ‘safe’ sharing his or her work with your readership?
- Would you help promote the offer anyway — via a tweet or a Facebook share — simply because it’s speaking to a need your Right People have?
- Does the offer creator share some of your Voice Values? For example, if your Top 3 Voice Values are Love, Community, and Innovation, partnering with a brand whose top Voice Values are Audacity, Power, and Security wouldn’t be the best fit. The style and tone wouldn’t be in sync, and your readership would feel on-edge just watching the promo play out. (Same goes for a joint venture or collaboration, by the way.)
- Is it good timing for you? Or will promoting this offer in a more-prominent-than-average way (i.e. more than a tweet or two) be confusing or distracting for your readership, especially if you’ve just “launched” something of your own, or are about to?
- Is this offer complementary to or different enough from what you offer through your business? For example, if you’re a candle maker, it might make sense for you to be an affiliate for adorable matchbooks handmade by another maker. But it doesn’t make sense for you to affiliate for another candle line.
Here are 3 things affiliate marketing is NOT:
- A substitute for a thoughtful business solution of your own, at least not here in the values-based microbusiness community. It’s hard to get behind the value of someone else’s offer when you haven’t any practice making offers of your own.
- A 100% guaranteed-for-all-time character reference for the offer creator. You can’t control other people’s behavior in business or in their personal lives. You can do your due diligence and vet the offer to the best of your ability.
- A popularity contest. We see Big Name Brand affiliate pushes every year (i.e. “Buy Such-and-Such Program through MY affiliate link and I’ll also throw in A, B, C, D, E, F, and G!”) and we sometimes grow weary of them. If you are an affiliate for someone else’s offer, or if you’re going to be inviting people to be affiliates for your offer, be very aware of the campaign’s tone and style. Does it resonate with you as clean and in-integrity?
Considering that I’m currently an affiliate for Tara Mohr’s Playing Big, I reached out to her before writing this post to let her know what I had in mind.
In the comments, I’d love to know:
How about you? Have you participated on either side of an affiliate marketing campaign? Would you BUY an offer through someone’s affiliate link? Why or why not?
Hello, you.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I would totally buy through an affiliate link if the affiliate is offering me a bonus I would absolutely want. Why not?
I thought I was NOT going to be an affiliate for anyone until I realized that my clients, after working with me, wanted to learn more about Intuitive Coaching as a tool for creating a better life. I was sending (unknowingly) tones of my clients straight to my mentor’s website and not making a dime! Fortunately, I woke up from my silliness and I’m now getting set up to be a proper affiliate. This makes total sense to me (as a business opportunity) because I believe in the product & service.
I would not, however, sell a “hot” product or service if I did not experience it first AND believe in it 100%.
I’m grateful for your post Abby; i’Ts confirming I’m on the right track. Merci :)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Caroline.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the piling-on of affiliate bonuses (i.e. “Buy through my link and you’ll ALSO get X, Y, and Z!”) that give affiliate offers the feel of infomercials. That said, I *have* purchased through someone’s affiliate link before because of the additional incentive of their program for free, or a credit in their store. I myself, at this point, don’t do affiliate bonuses because I’m not sure how much I want to up the ante on the sale. Hard selling is not my style.
Glad to hear that there’s an affiliate opportunity for you where you’ve already been heavily promoting and sending business to someone else’s site. That’s a nice value-add for you!
Abbey, a really great post! I feel the whole affiliate thing gets muddied by people recommending others who they don’t know, whose products/services they’ve never tried and then people get wary of “real” affiliate links. I work on both sides of the fence, and I’d much rather be able to pay those who promote what I do (thank you emails, flowers and chocolates are lovely but time consuming and there’s only so much of that you can do!).
The next area I’d like to see a little more transparency on is when people are recommending their own clients’ services and products, for some reason I think that should be a little clearer.
Hi, Jo —
Yes, the issue of whether an affiliate has personally experienced the program does frequently come up. And also whether the affiliate has personally reaped the rewards the programs promise (i.e. a 6-figure business).
I sometimes have firsthand experience of the offers I affiliate for, and sometimes not. If it’s a digital product (like an e-book), I will have reviewed it in full before agreeing to affiliate. If it’s a program, however, I usually affiliate based solely on my knowledge of the creator and familiarity with his or her previous work.
I guess you could say that when I affiliate, I’m endorsing the OFFER, not guarantee that the buyer will experience the result. Of course, that’s true of any seller of anything anywhere. For instance, I can sell you a yoga mat and a great do-yoga-at-home DVD, but will you get beautiful yoga arms, gain more agility and core strength, and experience more peace and groundedness after 30 days? That’s up to you.
Very good point you make about people endorsing their client’s work. I once saw someone suggest on Twitter that when tweeting about a client’s offer, we should use #client. That’s not a bad idea. I personally don’t promise to promote my clients’ work, but I sometimes will *if* I know it would appeal greatly to many in my readership.
This is such a helpful article, and remarkably timely for me. I’m shifting from a brand that never really fit me or felt cohesive to something I want to feel solid and unified. And I’ve been thinking hard about whether affiliate marketing has a place in the new version.
This article has helped me decide that it does. I already have a short list of products and offers I adore that would be useful for my right people and that have affiliate programs, so I think that’s enough to start with. And yes, I’ve purchased using other people’s affiliate links before. When someone introduces me to something that’s just what I need, I have no problem saying “thanks” by using their link!
Thanks for sharing your perspective on this topic. It’s what I needed to hear to feel like I could make an informed decision for myself.