Great referral marketing a.k.a. affiliate marketing is at its best an almost casual process. A good example of this happened to me last night when I bought a drone online after watching a video.
Drones were not actually the point of the video and certainly weren’t being promoted in it. If they had been then I would have certainly bought mine through an affiliate link. The point is that their use in the video – which was about music composition – was so great that I just had to have one.
The video in question was by a music composer I’ve recently started following. Like a lot of Youtubers he sells his own products but is also a superb referral marketer for other people’s. He simply demonstrates products brilliantly by using them himself. He off handedly mentions that there are links to them if you are interested and moves on.
In this case he was talking about writing music for film. In an imaginary brief for a TV mystery based on the English coast he used the drone to shoot some scenes for an intro. He then edited them into a 1 minute piece and began to compose the music. The drone footage was amazing. I opened another browser tab and searched “best drones”. As he began to create a wonderful musical backdrop I reached for the credit card…
Telling Not Selling Rules
And there you have it. Great referral marketing. I actually bought a smartphone gimbal a while back after seeing it used brilliantly in a video advertising a rental holiday home. They weren’t selling the product either. But they showed exactly what it could do so well that I bought one.
Ok so in neither of these examples products are being marketed directly. No one made any commission from my purchases. In both cases though they easily could have. It would have taken no extra work on their part. You could say they missed a trick there…
If you take that sort of approach to referral or affiliate marketing rather than making a pitch out of it you’ll have a lot more success. It works best if you are actually in the same niche as the products you promote. Drone man is a music guy. He sells courses on music composition. He’s also an affiliate for music library and software companies on the side. He uses all their stuff so why not? If you are his target audience you will likely buy one of his courses. Its equally likely that you’ll buy something else he recommends along the way.
It amazing how many product sales can be generated in a given niche just by staying focussed on the main objective and casually referring to them en route. If you gain people’s trust and come across well they’ll buy things you endorse.
Great Referral Marketing As A Lifestyle Business
Taken to its logical end, great referral marketing could encompass pretty much everything you do. A while ago I wrote about an “off grid” couple whose Youtube cannel I loved. I also mentioned another by a local woman who has a great channel about cooking traditional Scottish fare. I love these channels because they are about people just doing what they love.
They do it so well that hey not only earn ad income form Youtube but sell boatloads of affiliate products along the way without making a big deal about it. “By the way I got these pie tins from Amazon – (affiliate) link in the description if you’re interested”. You get the idea.
While these brilliant people are naturally great referral marketers there is a process behind the whole thing that is worth learning. It includes: Setting up and monetising a Youtube channel, creating videos, setting up affiliate links, websites and follow up marketing.
In his brilliant new free video series Mentors and Launch You co-founder Stuart Ross takes you through it all. He demonstrates various online income streams including affiliate marketing, and explains the power of online marketing. Hit the link below to subscribe to my mailing list and I’ll send you it.
