Hey, welcome back to another bonus episode of cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful entrepreneurs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. And in this week's episode with Molly Keyser, she shares how she was able to turn her students into affiliates for her program that increased her yearly revenue for her core sales by 10%. And while 10% may seem like a small number in context for her case study that amounted to multiple six figures, because her course makes $2 million a year.
Now, as a complement to that interview, I thought it would be interesting to talk about the flip side of the coin. So what it's like actually being the affiliate for someone else's course or online offer, whether that's a live challenge, a bundle launch or anything like that. I have had the privilege and the pleasure of affiliating for many of my friends before. And although these days we don't typically do affiliate only offers anymore because we pivoted our company to a media business. And that is the primary way that we now monetize, I've still been able to apply a lot of the skills and strategies that I use to become a top affiliate for many of the launches that I did participate in, and translate that into the paid partnerships and sponsored content that we do now as a media company.
So to give you a little bit of context, I am going to share with you today, three of my favorite ways that we have landed ourselves on the top of the leaderboard for the different launches that we've participated in as an affiliate. And particularly, I'll be pulling from my experiences affiliating for my friend Selena Soo's impacting millions launch in 2022, as well as the Be On TV bootcamp hosted by Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield, which I affiliated for, I believe, twice, actually. And for both of these launches, I landed in the top three for their respective affiliate leaderboards. And this was oftentimes in a pool of dozens, if not more than 100 affiliates, some with list sizes two to five times the size of our own list. So these were big players in the industry that we were collaborating alongside of. And it was really cool to be able to still land in that top three, because we were able to implement some of these strategies. So let me share with you the three things that worked really well for us in case any of you are inspired to become an affiliate for other people's courses, or for the courses that you've participated in, in the past as a student, after listening to Molly's case study this week on the podcast.
Alright, So strategy number one is to create your own bonus incentives for anyone that you refer to a program. So typically, when you are participating in a live launch, the program creator will have their own bonuses that they're providing to any students who enroll in the course or program. But as an affiliate, you often will also have the opportunity to create your own bonuses alongside of anything that's already being offered, that you only gift to people who join the program through your link. So it's like an extra thank you for the people who choose to support your business by joining through your affiliate link. So this works really well, especially if you're able to create bonuses that complement the main product that's being sold the main course the main program, and thinking about what types of tools, templates, resources, or additional trainings would help someone that I'm referring to this course would help them actually implement what they learn in that course, faster, more efficiently, more easily. Right.
So to give you a concrete example of this, when we were an affiliate for Selena Soo's impacting millions launch in 2022, that program was a publicity program, teaching students how to land press features, right how to get into the media, whether that was through newspapers, online articles, magazines, podcasts, interviews, you name it. And so when we're thinking about the end goal for the students that are joining the program, they're wanting to get more visible. They're wanting to use the media as a way to get in front of new eyeballs, new audiences. We were thinking, what if we could help them fast track their path to their first media win? So that basically, upon joining the program, they're already guaranteed to have at least one media win under their belt? Because we all know it's easier to build momentum when there's already something created right? it like when you think about a snowball rolling down the hill, that small snowball starts the avalanche. But as it continues to roll down the hill, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So it's always easier to go get the next media win than the first media went.
And so to help the people that we were referring into the program from our community, to get over that first obstacle of okay, I need to land my first media win, right to build that confidence to build that credibility. We actually hired a writer, a journalist who used to be the editor of South Africa's Cosmo magazine. So very prestigious, right? Media publication, background, and we actually hired them to write an article on the catalysts that made people make the leap from employee to entrepreneur. First of all, we thought this was pretty in line with our brand cubicle, the CEO, right. And if you're a loyal listener of our show that, you know, we always ask our guests for their 32nd version of how they ultimately made that leap from working for someone else to working for themselves. And what that catalyst was that led to that decision. So we thought we could create an article around that kind of a roundup feature.
And basically, we shared with our students, hey, if you join this program, through our link, as an extra, thank you, we're going to help you secure your first media win. And you're going to be featured in our roundup article written by this former Cosmopolitan magazine editor. And your business will be featured, we're going to be interviewing you on how you made that leap from employee to entrepreneur will include backlinks to your website to your socials, etc, right. And so it was a really juicy offer, because again, the whole point of the program they were joining was to get more media. So automatically, they already know they're going to get that first media feature through us. And so that was a really juicy bonus.
We also included our perfect podcast pitch template, which is a standalone $27 template that we still sell today, that helps people quickly get out podcast pitches that are actually going to get read and more important responded to. So this is our line by line word for word exactly what we would say, if we were pitching ourselves for a show, we tell you how to pitch people who to pitch what to say. And this was a really great template and resource that had worked well for the people who had already bought it. And so we wanted to also gift that to our students that we referred to this program to again, help them accelerate their end goal, write their results, and hopefully helping them land even more interviews, this time through podcasts to help push them toward that ultimate goal. So those two bonuses worked really, really well for us in incentivizing people to want to join the program through our links specifically.
Because especially if you're affiliating for a program that is quite established and has a lot of different people who are affiliates, you really have to figure out how are you going to stand apart from all of the other affiliates, who are also probably sharing some of the same people in their audiences that you have in your audience, right? What makes someone want to specifically support you and use your link? So just thinking about what bonuses can I offer that helps someone more quickly, more easily or more efficiently achieve the end outcome that they want? What are the things that I could provide there. So those are a few examples.
Now, strategy number two is to create a more intimate experience or container for your people that you're referring to a course or program. So for this example, I'll tell you about when we were to affiliate for the be on TV bootcamp, which was a live challenge, and again, in the media space, but this time, specifically helping people land TV interviews, right. And this, this challenge was a very popular challenge. So typically, each cohort would have anywhere from minimum 500 people to if I remember correctly, there was a cohort that had a few 1000 people in it. So it was a really amazing challenge. But as you can imagine, being inside a challenge with that many people 1000s of peers going through it, it can be hard sometimes to develop the same level of connection, when there's so many people in a group, or to really feel like you have the individualized attention when you may have a question, or you know, something you want to share.
So, to help with that, we decided that our bonus for people who would join through our affiliate link is that we wanted to create our own separate group. So there was the main Facebook group that everybody was part of who was in the challenge, but for the people who joined through our affiliate link, we created a separate Voxer channel. And if you've never used Voxer it's a free app. It's a walkie talkie style app where you can voice note people, it's awesome. I absolutely love it. So if you're a verbal processor, I highly recommend you check it out. But basically, within this app, we were able to create a group chat thread. And every single day, as we were going through the challenge, I would pop in. And it was a great way for us to keep each other accountable for me to ask guiding questions to the people who are going through the challenge live asking them, you know, what were their favorite takeaways? Did they have any additional questions that they wanted to ask the group, do they have any wins, they wanted to celebrate with our group.
And that group was a small, private, intimate container. So we really felt like every single person in our thread could be heard could be seen and appreciated, and helped if they needed any additional support outside of what was offered in the challenge. And so that's another really great way that you can show up and serve your people is to think about how can I create a more intimate space for them to go through the course or go through the challenge and build bonds between the people in your community, as well as get the chance to take an active role in what happens after you've invited them to join this program, you get to actually see the delivery side of things as well and be part of that.
Now, strategy number three is, it seems obvious when I say this, but you would be surprised how really shifting your mindset around, this can really change the results that you get as far as your performance as an affiliate. And that's simply to treat every affiliate launch that you choose to participate in, like it was your own launch. So even though the product offer course program, whatever it is that you're promoting, is not your own that you created, and that you're delivering on the back end, as the coach or educator or host of you are still introducing this offer to your audience and endorsing it, right, you're saying, Hey, I believe in the value of this offer, and I wanted to share it with you. Because I think that some of you in this community could really benefit from whatever this course or offer is.
And I think sometimes when people decide to affiliate for different courses or products, they they kind of just jump at every opportunity and it kind of gets pushed down their priority list, right. So it's kind of like, Oh, I'll be an affiliate for this. But I gotta, you know, get my client work done, I gotta get my own stuff done first. And if I have time, I'll throw out a post or two. And then they don't see a lot of success with their affiliate experience. And so I think the most simple but the most profound thing you could do honestly, is if you are going to choose to be an affiliate, be more selective with who you affiliate for and what programs or offers you choose to affiliate for. But treat them seriously treat them like you would your own launch dedicate the time in your content calendar to actually reserved that space. As you know, these few days or these few weeks, our attention for our content is focused on promoting this program or this course, and building an entire launch plan around it right, just like you would if you were launching your own offer.
So when you do this, it makes sure that you actually show up to talk about the thing that you're promoting more than a few times. As we all know, if you've ever done your own launch, it takes many, many, many exposures for people to highly consider joining something. So just mentioning something once or twice, is typically not enough to move someone to action, it may work well to increase brand awareness around something. But to really move someone into that consideration phase and ultimately into the Enrollment phase, there has to be multiple interactions, multiple opportunities for you to talk about something from different angles. So treat it like your own launch, dedicate the time and attention and space in your content calendar.
And you can even, you know, ask the person that you're affiliating for whoever the actual program host is, or educator is. Ask them if they would be willing to come on your podcast as a guest, right? If you have a podcast if you don't think about what other content medium you spend the most time on and that your audience is most engaged on. So maybe that's asking them to co-host a quick Instagram live with you. Right? The point is you want to introduce this person to your audience, at least one time before you start promoting so that they have some sort of recognition of this person or some sort of maybe existing relationship with this person.
Also, oftentimes as an affiliate, you will be provided swipe copy. So Molly talks about this in Episode 198. Right How she provides her affiliates. Plug and Play email Copy social media templates that they can just utilize to promote the offer. And I love swipe copy. I love it both as someone who provides them for our own affiliates, but I also love it as an affiliate, I like being provided that base template of here's some words that you can say about, you know, whatever it is that you're promoting. That said, I think this is true of every top affiliate I've ever talked to. And it's true of our own experience, getting to the top of the leaderboard for any sort of affiliate promotion. And that's not just literally copy pasting what is given to you in the swipe, copy. Because I mean, like I said before, if if there are dozens, or potentially even hundreds of affiliates, who are promoting the same thing as you, if all of you say the exact same thing, there's really no room for differentiation, right. And so you really want to look at the swipe copy that is given to you as the foundation that you can then iterate and improve upon.
So anytime I'm given swipe, copy as an affiliate back then or today, as a partner for the brands that we work with. I always kind of look at that as the first draft. And then I go in and think about what are the things I can tweak here to make sure the voice is really authentic to who we are, as a brand, to the way that I know our community likes to be brought into conversation. And I know you guys well enough, right after having worked with you and growing alongside you for so many years, I typically can understand, oh, this is something that our audience would resonate with, or our audience would not resonate with. And so you really want to think through the copy that you're given through the lens of the people that you are actually sharing it with knowing what questions perhaps to anticipate, right? Those are all things that you can then seed into the copy and make sure that you are adding your own spin on it.
I've also seen that what really, really converts when it comes to this copy is to infuse your own stories into the copy. So thinking about, okay, if someone from my audience joins this course or program, what is the impact of them learning this new thing, doing this new thing? Or experiencing this thing that I'm promoting, right? What is the impact going to be? And what has that impact been like in my own life, or if you're a b2b business, in my own business, right? Being able to showcase how the thing that you are recommending someone else learn do or experience has actually had a positive impact in your own life or on your own business. And being able to weave stories into that I think really showcases the possibility for people in a way that facts and figures are in a way that bullet pointed, here's what you'll get when you join can never quite accomplish. Nothing is as powerful as selling through story, so make sure you're really looking at the copy with that kind of perspective and asking yourself is there any story infused into this email or into this social media post? And if not, how can I bring my own story or even your community story into that copy?
Alright, so those are three quick tips for how you can become a better affiliate for someone else's course or program if you choose to affiliate for people and how you can go the extra mile take the extra few steps to reach the top of the leaderboard just like we did. I hope this was helpful if you choose to implement any of these strategies. Please DM me @MissEllenYin, DM our team @cubicletoCEO and let us know how it goes for you. We love celebrating your wins. I will catch you guys in the next episode Have a great week.
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