💸Triple Dip Revenue with Affiliate Marketing 💰
Do you ever feel like you're spending too much time working in your business and not enough time making money from it? Alyece Smith, social media marketing expert and affiliate marketing pro, joins Adrienne Hill to reveal the secrets to "triple dipping" your revenue with marketing. Learn how to leverage the content you already create to generate income from multiple sources, and discover the difference between affiliate marketing and network marketing. Alyece even shares some creative ways to find affiliate opportunities and provides valuable tips for getting started. Don't miss out—your path to impact and income starts here!
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Don’t miss out on Alyece Smith’s Affiliate Marketing 101 Guide—a beginner’s guide to what is needed to start in Affiliate Marketing!
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💸Triple Dip Revenue with Affiliate Marketing 💰
I’m super excited about this masterclass style training because I am here with the one and only Alyece Smith. She's a mompreneur of three and the owner of Socially Ausome. She's a certified social media marketing expert with over five years of experience in digital marketing in Corporate America. Now she's passionate about empowering female entrepreneurs to implement simple social strategies into their businesses and build a life of freedom, which is exactly what this is all about. I love this.
She's currently active in network marketing and affiliate marketing and as a social media management and consulting agency owner. Alyece helps others elevate their online presence by making it simple, social, and awesome. She graduated from Southern Mississippi University and is a certified customer service experience officer. She's here to talk to us about how to triple-dip your revenue with affiliate marketing, which is such a great topic and a great thing to systematize into your business. Welcome Aleyce, we're so excited you're here.
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Triple Dip Revenue
I love it. Now, you have quite an interesting background and story. In case anyone in the audience is meeting you for the first time, can you tell us a little bit about your story of how did you find yourself kind of niching into this area and learning how to triple dip?
Of course. I came from a background in corporate, as you said. I did about five years in corporate in the space of digital marketing, so all things digital marketing, which included a large portion of social media marketing. I've always been intrigued by it, but I found myself needing to build that life of freedom that I talked about and needing more time for freedom. Of course, the income piece needed to be there.
I wanted to make more money, but I was really motivated by the time freedom because, if you notice, awesome is spelled uniquely in my branding, and that is because my middle child, Cadent, is on the autism spectrum. About a year ago, when I had to turn down some occupational therapy that he needed and was referred to, I had to turn it down because the only available time slots were in the middle of the day. I had a standing meeting with corporate that I couldn't miss.
That was the moment I knew that I needed to make a change. I decided then and there that I was going to look for a way to make more money using the skills that I had already learned because I could make money online doing a lot of different things, but I knew that I needed to take my expertise and share it with the world and help other women. That is where the business came from and formed, and it scaled, but needing to figure out ways to have multiple streams of income, and triple dip came from the scaling. I'm one person, and I do have three virtual assistants that work with me now. e, why would I not?” That's where affiliate marketing came in. I
In the beginning, I was like, “If I could take this one piece of content, this one offer, this one reel, this one blog post, and turn it into three different streams of incom teach my audience and my clients to do the same. I'll give an example of a reel's bonus. Making money on Instagram, you're not going to get rich off the reel's bonus. It's just not going to happen, but I make reels anyway for my network marketing business or to grow my audience. I'm already doing that activity.
If I make the reel about my training class, I can get paid from the training class, I can get paid from Instagram, and then I can get paid for many offers that my funnel shows them moving forward. You're able to triple-dip on that one video, the same thing moving forward with everything. When I go live and I'm doing training, all the tools that I use have affiliate opportunities, everything. Even the ring lights I use have affiliate opportunities.
When I'm going live teaching someone about, I did it, March Madness is all about network marketing in my group right now, because so many people are trying to just make 500 bucks a month right now, I teach about the five mistakes you make in prospecting online.
I'm letting them know these are the tools that I use. Drop me in the comments if you want to get more information on it. I'm able to share an affiliate link. I'm able to triple-dip on all of my content. I hope that answers the question. I could talk about it over and over, but I love it. It's helpful to my audience.
Whether you're starting in your solopreneur and you don't have any help yet and you're realizing, like, I cannot do everything. Like, I need to make the absolute most amount of revenue in the least amount of time, or whether you're scaling and you're trying to work yourself on your business and you're realizing, like, I need to maximize, because now I have a team to care for and a team to pay. The revenue needs to be higher to cover that overhead. One way or the other, more leverage is always a better thing.
A hundred percent. It helps the phrase some of my costs as well. I started using a new lead software here recently that's helping me with scaling my platforms and bringing new leads in business into my community. I'm able to share that, and my audience is appreciative of it because if a lease is used in the system, they know they can trust me. They're like, “We want to look at it too.” I'm able to connect my audience with a good resource, but I'm able to make an income if they do purchase it.
That helps defray the cost of what I'm paying for that software, plus make more. It provides value. I am providing a lot of value to my audience by doing the vetting of this tool, vetting the software, and teaching them how to use it. In return, I'm able to make an affiliate commission from it. It's all about, like you said, how can I maximize the time that I'm spending away from my family? Because ultimately, if I'm spending time away from my family, it needs to be a money-making activity.
Network Marketing Vs. Affiliate Marketing
Now I know tons of people, especially if they're newer in business, they confuse network marketing and affiliate marketing. They think they're the same thing. How do you define the difference between those two? Just for those who might be wondering, “Wait a minute, I think I'm already doing this, but I'm not sure.”
Typically, because there are companies that mislabel it as well. My opinion would be that network marketing has a team-building aspect. There's a residual income piece to it. Now, some affiliate marketing companies if it's subscription-based, then you can make a reoccurring commission as long as that subscription keeps renewing. Typically, an affiliate marketing link would be to think about, “I told my mom about my favorite eyelash serum.” I don't know, and she goes and buys it.
Well, the company's going to reward me for my mom buying that, but there's nothing after that. You got that reward, and it's good. It's really like a referral marketing system. With network marketing, you're building a network of people. You're building a team. Most compensation plans are going to reward you for that team-building aspect, and there's a residual piece to it. There's more of a relationship being built. That's just my opinion, but a lot of people will confuse the two.
If you're not someone who enjoys building a team, you just want to grow your audience, and it be more passive affiliate marketing is going to be for you because you cannot passively grow network marketing, especially if you're building a team, you need to support that team. It can be completely passive if you have enough systems and automation and put your content out there, grow it, and have your funnels set up, and it can be completely passive.
For the network marketers out there who are watching this and realizing like, “I didn't know what affiliate marketing is,” I totally agree. If you're building a team of people, you fall in that quadrant of marketing. Even if you're in a network marketing company and you're like, “I don't want to build a team. I just want to sell the products,” you're acting as an affiliate marketer.
My network marketing, I started over in network marketing six weeks ago. I was like, “Don't want to do this again,” but I felt called to this company. They're a faith-based company. It was just attracted to the leader. I knew each other previously, and I wasn't feeling aligned with the company I was with before. I knew I needed to make an exit. I just didn't know if I was going to enter into a new company or just leave the industry completely, but this company has an ambassador, what they call as an ambassador, and it's an affiliate marketing. I think a lot of network marketing companies are now offering that because they can double dip. They can have the ones that want to build a team and the ones that don't want to build a team.
Some people just want to refer to the product, and that's it.
You can be rewarded for either one. A lot of companies are offering that. I mean, big-name companies that people don't realize. Nike has an affiliate program. IHG Hotels, which is like Holiday Inn, they have an affiliate program. Amazon has an affiliate program. There are so many.
One thing that people don't realize, almost everything you use in your life, Google has an affiliate program and you just don't know. Go to any website and scroll all the way to the bottom. You'll probably see a section. Affiliate partnerships or referral programs or something.
All of them. I've checked them more and more and more because I'm like, it gets to where you get in the space of like, “I wonder if they have an affiliate link.” I have affiliates. I have with my socially awesome brand. I have what's called the socially awesome subscription, and I allow anyone that purchases it to become an affiliate for me because then they can pay for their subscription by just getting 3 friends or 4 friends. It's beneficial to me because I'm not spending money on ads, and they're more likely to stay in the subscription because a friend told them about it versus they saw me. For me, I only incorporated that about two months ago, but it's been huge for me just by doing that. Imagine you could do that with any service you provide. Practically anything.
Practically anything. I love it. I've seen people do everything from they have a lead magnet that someone can download to every single clickable link is an affiliate link.
I have that. I have a lead magnet called the 40 tools I use to start my business because that was one of the very first trainings I did was about short-form video content, and everyone wants to know what ring light do you use. What mike are you using? When they go to Amazon, they get overwhelmed. There's too many choices. People want to know what one do you use. I created a lead magnet called 40 Tools I Used to Start My Business. Every single one of those is an affiliate link. If anyone purchases anything, might be $2, $3, $4, or $5, but it adds up and it didn't cost any money. Once I created the lead magnet, it was done.
How many times have you created a real or a video and someone is in the comments going, “Alyece, those hearings, where you get those?”
I’m an affiliate for earrings. It’s ridiculous. I knew it, and that’s one’s my favorites, but yes, you're exactly I got to wear. Girl, I got an affiliate for the eyelashes I wear. I'm not kidding because every one of my reels were like, “Who does your eyelashes?” Like, “Where do you buy your eyelashes?” I would never. I’m not in the beauty face. I rarely wear makeup. I put a little on today. That's not me typically, but I do eyelashes because I don't have any naturally.
I'm like, “What? I need to be an affiliate for some eyelashes because that's triple dipping.” I am making a reel about, I don't know, my network marketing opportunity. I'm getting paid by Instagram to post it. I got a bunch of people wanting to know where my eyelashes came from. I'm triple-dipping on one seven-second video. It doesn’t make sense not to.
Leveraging Affiliate Marketing
What types of people can leverage affiliate marketing? Is it like for everyone, anyone? Give us some examples of who could start layering it in right now.
Everyone. My 16-year-old has several affiliate opportunities because I've taught him to look. He’s not even a business owner, but he bought a sweatshirt from a boutique, and they have an affiliate opportunity. He's got a little referral link. He sends it to everyone. If you are in the beauty space or the health and wellness space, think about things that compliment your product or service. If you're in the health and wellness space, maybe you become an Amazon affiliate so that you can have all of the things that you use in your daily business.
Your weight gloves that you use when you're lifting weights, your shaker cups. All these things that are in your content and in your stories already, may become an affiliate for a piece of equipment. If you're a Peloton person, you become an affiliate for them. That would be a huge commission. You could be an affiliate for a boutique that sells workout clothing. Think about things that compliment your brand. If you are a coach, if you're an online business coach, what are the software that you're using?
Those are some of the largest commissions you can get is ClickFunnels, Active Campaign, and AWeber. Any of those email systems. I have affiliate links for all of the software I use because when I'm working with a client, they ask me, “What cart system do you use?” “I use Thrive Cart. Let me share my link with you so that I can make sure you get the same deal as me.” I always disclose to people, I have an affiliate link, and it doesn't bother anyone.
We're so used to it, like they don't care.
They are. I have people that come to me and say, “Do you have a link for that?”
They're like, “If you're the one sharing it with me, I'm happy to buy it through your link, that's cool.” I cannot tell you how many times, and I'm sure the people watching will agree. You've encountered some sort of reel or TikTok or live video where someone's talking about something and you're going, “That's awesome. I've been looking for this. I'm ready to buy it. Please just send me a link to where you got it because I don't want to have to do a Google search from scratch, find the thing, look for the thing, and where is it on Amazon and I cannot find it.” It makes their life easier when you just share the darn link.
It does, and a lot of affiliate opportunities allow you to offer something special for people purchasing with your link. For instance, I have, like I said, different ring lights and tools and things that I use in my business daily, and I have several that give a $5 coupon when you use my link. Also, it benefits them as well to use my referral code because they get a special coupon with it. It really is, and you're going to see it more and more because companies are realizing that people are more likely to buy from them, and they're more likely to retain that customer if it comes from a referral.
I mean, referrals have always been out there. People have always done referring, but now that customers are able to get a benefit from it and make an income from it, they're more likely to do it. I see shout-outs daily on it's as simple as I'm reading a book right now, I share that book on my story, and I say, “This book's amazing. This is what it's done for me. Here's my link. Go grab it.” It's that cool. I'm able to make a couple of dollars and pay for the book by getting two people to buy the book.
Why wouldn't you? Here's a fun fact that a lot of people don't know. When you're an Amazon affiliate, and anyone can be an Amazon affiliate, let's say someone sees your reel about your book, and they click and buy your book. For the next 24 hours, anything they buy on Amazon is credited to you. If they buy a big-screen TV, bam, you just got a big commission.
Yes. I had that happen. I had someone buy a Dyson vacuum. I don't know what they clicked on to buy, but they bought a Dyson vacuum with my link, and I got like 30-something bucks or something. It was like, “That's nice. I'm not mad at that.” A lot of companies have different affiliate levels too. Amazon not only has the affiliate opportunity, but the influencer opportunity, and it's just another form of it, but people don't realize I mean, there are people making more than a regular full-time income doing this.
I watched several people online make $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 a year, nothing but affiliate marketing and that's because they narrowed down and focused on growing their audience because you have to have people to market it to. That's the name of the game, growing your list, your email list, growing your audience. After that, it's just sharing what you love.
I've actually seen people use affiliate marketing in a way that a lot of people worry about being salesy of like, “I don't want to seem pushy. I don't want to seem like I'm trying to make people buy stuff.” If you only have one offer, and you're trying to push that one offer on everyone, it can feel that way, but if you have a mix of affiliate offers, and you're like, “Here's my top three choices for if you're shopping for something,” and all three happen to be affiliate links, but simply by providing options that people feel like, “They're not just trying to shove their thing on me, they're trying to help me.”
I love to capitalize on that, too. I love that I offer it for things that complement my lifestyle, too. It's not just, “She's in social media marketing, so she wants you to go get active campaign email software.” I said I have affiliate links for everything, and I try to pose it in a way that benefits my audience as well, because, like you said, people are going to ask. They're going to ask. “Girl, I got to get those earrings. Girl, I need those eyelashes. Girl, where'd you get that pen?”
Affiliate Marketing: I have affiliate links for everything, and I try to pose it in a way that benefits my audience as well.
They're going to ask.
Everything they're going to ask.
You can either be the jerk that doesn't answer. You can be the nice person that answers and makes their life easy and makes money at the same time.
Then I always tell them. I'm very open with my audience too, like I said when it's an affiliate link, because I want them to know that that's an opportunity for them to make money as well. I train a lot on affiliate marketing in my community because it is something that people are curious about and they don't know where to start, which is why I wanted to talk about it today because people don't know where to start.
One of the things I've started layering in as well, which is a different version of triple dipping. Anytime I encounter someone like you, who teaches something that I'm like, “That's super valuable, but I have no desire to ever create a course on that. I don't want to create a course on affiliate marketing. I'm not really into that.” If my audience keeps asking, I'm happy to be an affiliate for you and refer them to you because it's a win-win. It's a win because I gave my audience what they wanted. It's a win because I didn't have to create the course, and it's a win for you because you got a referral. Triple dip.
People don't realize that you can be an affiliate for a lot of business coaches and a lot of online brands and you can ask. I mean, if you are bold in wanting to start your affiliate marketing and, like you said, someone that has a great service, go to them and say, “I'd love to be an affiliate for you. Would there be a referral? Do you have a referral system?” Start with that. Do you have a referral system or an affiliate program? If they say no, are you open to us collaborating and coming up with one? It doesn't have to be anything crazy detailed. Of course, a lot of lower ticket items and even some of the higher tickets are going to have a cookie, like you said, that tracks.
People don't realize that you can be an affiliate for a lot of business coaches and online brands. You can ask.
That's how you get credit for that referral.
When it's a super high ticket, like I know one coach that I've worked with, she doesn't even really have funnels because it's so high ticket that she wants to have a conversation with you before she accepts you as a client.
She knows it came from you. She gives you the credit.
I get 3,000 bucks. I mean that I didn't make that in a whole month by the time they took taxes out of my corporate check, like that 3000 bucks. Could you imagine setting up once a month?
That's a nice little extra stream of income for something that you had no intention of teaching anyway. All you had to do was refer someone to the person.
That had an action call. If they purchase and she does the selling for you. She gets on the call with them and closes the client. You don't even have to do that. You just got to know, in order to set up calls like that, you need to be able to know how to look for what an avatar is and how to look for it.
Affiliate Marketing: You need to be able to know what an avatar is and how to look for it.
This is the perfect person for that.
I know what her avatar is or who she works with. I know she works with seven-figure business owners that have sales teams, and she wants to do training on sales teams. If I see a seven-figure business owner across my feed or I have 10 minutes, I want to do a quick search on LinkedIn. Everyone's got a 6-figure, 7-figure business owner. If they've reached that milestone in their LinkedIn, if I really wanted to, I could spend the time to go connect with some people on LinkedIn.
It's just you have to learn how to leverage social media and leverage your audience and not to say that as take advantage of them, but connecting the right people, because if someone came to me and said, “I'll set you up with five calls today with your ideal client. Would you give me a thousand bucks per person if they sign your contract?” Absolutely, 100%. I'll give you two, like a hundred percent. You just have to be willing, because that's the power of proximity, and I didn't have to go find those people.
Generating traffic is one of the toughest things. Someone else is willing to do that for you.
It's out there. You just have to go look for it. My business coach and several other courses I've taken, I'm affiliates for all of them, because, like you said, when I'm having conversations with people, they say, “I'm struggling with branding right now and I'm looking to learn how to DIY my branding.” Well, I do branding packages, but I don't do branding coaching. This person has already told me they're not in the budget for me to do their branding.
I'm going to say, “Look, I actually have this course or I took this course. Here's a link,” and it's done. Guess what? When PayPal says, “You've made blah, blah, blah,” I'm like, cha-ching. Sounds great. Then I like to also do a follow-up. I try to keep track of when I refer people to high ticket systems, not every Amazon person, follows up with them and says, “What did you think about that course?” Because then I know, okay, I made a good referral, and then I know who to look for in the future.
I love it. The audience is probably, for some, they were already aware of affiliate marketing, but we gave them a bunch of new ideas.
I hope so.
For others, they were like, “What this is a thing I need to say?
Yes, exactly. You already refer people, right? My mom asked me this morning, “Where'd you get those tennis shoes?” If anybody could get me to become an affiliate for on running tennis shoes, please sign me up because I have more people about those tennis shoes. I'm just not their brand, I guess. Seriously, it's that simple. My mom asked me this morning if I'd had a link out, I gave it to her.
I love it.
You're already telling people what you love. You just need to monetize.
Affiliate Marketing 101
Now, I know you have a perfectly created gift for the audience. They want to start triple-dipping, but they're kind of like, “My head is spinning. Where do I start? Or I just want the shortcut to the easy button, please.” Can you want to tell us about it?
Of course, I have an Affiliate Marketing 101 Guide. It is step-by-step what you need to do to get started, because that seems to be the biggest challenge I've heard from my audience in the past. It's like, “Okay, but I don't even know where to start.” If you are already in social media marketing, but you don't know about a lead magnet or you don't know about growing an email list, this is going to help you with what you need to know about that. If you have an email list but you don't know how to monetize it, it'll talk to you about that. It'll talk to you about how you funnel clients in. It really is just a starter guide and I have found it's everything that I wish I would have known when I was trying to figure it out.
Yes. Well, what an amazing gift. You guys, if you're realizing it's time for you to start triple dipping, or maybe you've been double dipping and you're realizing, “I'm missing a dip or two.”
I am missing it.
Grab the guide. That's going to be super helpful.
Imporant Links
Alyece Smith - LinkedIn
About Aleyce Smith
Alyece Smith is a mompreneur of 3 and the owner of Socially Ausome. She is a certified Social Media Marketing Expert with over five years of experience in Digital Marketing in Corporate America. She is passionate about empowering female entrepreneurs to implement simple social strategies into their businesses to build a life of freedom.
Currently active in network marketing and affiliate marketing, and as Social Media Management and Consulting agency owner, Alyece helps others elevate their online presence by making it simple, social, and ausome! She graduated from Southern Mississippi University and is a certified Customer Service Xperience Officer. FUN FACT: AUSOME is spelled differently to encourage you to show up on social authentically and uniquely.
My son Caiden is on the Autism Spectrum, and as an Autism family, we have learned to be unapologetically US. It was the inspiration and push I needed to start my journey in entrepreneurship.