I recently watched Pat Flynn’s webinar on affiliate marketing and took some good notes. You probably already know this, but Pat is the owner of Smart Passive Income. teaching people how to create passive income-driven businesses.

I thought Pat Flynn gave some really good tips in his affiliate marketing webinar. It was all about common mistakes newbies make and preconceived notions people have about affiliate marketing. The webinar also went over best strategies around affiliate marketing, which I will talk about in this post! Hopefully you guys benefit from this summary.

Disclaimer: While all attempts are made to present correct information, there is a chance I’ve written notes incorrectly! 

The Ultimate, Effective Affiliate Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing products effectively, you need to treat these products like they are yours, which Pat claims is the ultimate principle to follow.

• You want to make sure your audience understands it is worth their time and money.
• When you treat the product like it’s yours, you’ll actually be promoting in a legitimate way. You’re not just mentioning, “hey get this tool I use”. Instead, you’re actually talking about it in a way where you believe in it and think it will really benefit your readers.

To execute on successful affiliate marketing, these are some basic guidelines on what you should be doing:

1. Find the right product to sell
2. Outline what the product promises or what value you promise with product usage
3. Provide proof that the product works
4. Provide your own personal experience

In general, you’re aiming for authenticity and transparency. When you’re being real, people will believe in you and your brand as they know you’re trying to provide value and be genuine.

Step 1: Choose Your Product

Are you comfortable promoting these products?

1. Do you have gusto and confidence around the product?
2. Does it pass the “grandma test”?
   1. Would grandma be proud of you for promoting that product?
3. Could a person thank you for the product recommendation?
4. Could you answer questions about the product?
   1. Pat Flynn loves when people ask him questions about other people’s products. He knows the products he recommends so well that it’s like he’s an employee of theirs.

There are many ways you can find products to promote or affiliate programs around products you love. I will get into that in a separate post.

Step 2: Passive Promotional Strategies

1. With passive promotional strategies, you’ll set them up once and they will continue working for you.
2. Passive promotional strategies are not aggressive or sleazy.

First example: Create a Resources Page

40% of affiliate sales come from Pat’s resource page. Quote from his webinar: “Becoming an expert curator is a great way to build your personal brand. People love being pointed to tools that can help them”

You can check out the resources page on my site as an example. To be honest, I need to revamp it as because I have a mix of entrepreneurial tools and travel products which make it a bit crowded.

Second example: Checklist

He provided an example of an email marketing checklist you could create with the topic “How many of these 10 things are you actually doing with your email marketing?”

You’ll list 3-4 things these users may already have like the following:

• Autoresponder series
• Name collection on email form
• A lead magnet

In the middle you’ll provide things they may not have, but you’ll direct them to products that’ll help them.  You don’t even need to call out the product specifically in the checklist item. For example, you can say “Have the ability to ____” as a checklist item, then introduce the product. This makes the checklist less salesy, and you’re making sure you’re trying to provide value.

Step 3: Active Promotional Campaigns

• Active promotional campaigns are usually time-based, so there’s built in scarcity and urgency
• These take a lot more time to plan and execute, but you can see bigger results

First Example: The Small Win Challenge

1. Ask people what they are already buying
2. Start with “What’s the first step?”
3. Provide a small challenge related to their first step
4. Affiliate product can naturally fit as a their step 2
5. The challenge can spread virally

In his email challenge, he challenged people to go from 0 to 100 email subscribers in 3 days. He only mentions ConvertKit at the end as a cool tool to use.

Second Example: Demo Videos

1. Highest converting campaigns use demo videos
2. Works for all products, including online courses, physical and digital products

Demo video tips:

1. Find other demos for the same product and make yours better
2. Show off how simple it is to use (this is what people want)
3. Publish on YouTube and optimize for keywords

Conclusion

I hope these strategies help you out. They are great for promoting products in a way where you’re actually helping out your readers/listeners rather than requesting from them. Pat actually mentioned that he made 85% of his earnings through affiliate marketing since 2008. Pretty crazy! I believe affiliate marketing is an awesome way of making money online.

Let me know in the comments if you have other recommendations!