Should You Try Affiliate Marketing? An Interview with Ross Winn from Podcast Insights

This week on Audience, we’re talking monetization. While many podcasters start their show as a hobby, more times than not, they eventually want to start thinking about how to earn some money from the show.

But rather than focus on every podcast monetization strategy, we’re drilling into one specific method: affiliate marketing. Ross Winn from Podcast Insights is an expert on promoting affiliate products to earn some extra cash. His site is the go-to for all things podcasting–from how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast for beginners.

When you land on Podcast Insights, you’ll notice a few things right off the bat. There are email courses that ask you to sign up, discounts to popular WordPress and podcasting tools, and a plethora of content all about getting a new show off the ground.

What you might not notice is how all these things are working together to support Ross’ affiliate marketing strategy. At the top of today’s episode, we talk about why podcasters should consider affiliate products as a monetization strategy. As we move through the interview, Ross then lends his tips on how to use a website, repurposed content, and a email list to drive more sales.

Listen to the full episode now to get all of this tips or read a few of his biggest takeaways below!

What can podcasters learn about affiliate monetization strategies?

The key is to have a website (we recommend creating one through WordPress!). Having a place where people can learn more information is essential to affiliate marketing. It makes it easier for people to find click on the affiliate product you’re promoting and it offers opportunities to further engage your audience via email.

To get people to visit your site after listening to an episode, include it in your intro or outro calls-to-action. Remind them of the URL address and where they should navigate to to redeem your exclusive offer.

When listeners finally land on your site, it’s time to hit them with the offers. Either a list of the affiliate products you’re promoting or an email opt-in page that gives people access to exclusive content.

The email opt-in page serves two purposes. The first is to provide exclusive, high-quality content to your listeners. The second is to build an email list where you can announce new episodes and directly send affiliate links to your users.

Put an opt-in unit right on your homepage to make it super easy for listeners to subscribe. Try OptinMonster to create unique interstitial units and test copy variations to find the call-to-action that converts best.

To entice people to subscribe, we recommend using a lead generation product. That can be an e-book, access to gated content, or an online course that has information your audience is interested in and can’t find anywhere else.

Podcast Insights prioritizes email based courses around different topics their audience needs help with. Primarily how to start a podcast and how to build a website for a podcast. Each course is heavily promoted on their homepage and throughout relevant articles. The opt-in units describe the value of the course and why a user can’t find this information anywhere else. Whether someone visits the website after listening to an episode or discovers an article as a result of a Google search, it’s almost guaranteed they’ll see a promotion for one of these courses.

What’s inside your email courses?

Podcast Insights has a podcasting course that’s designed for beginners, all sent right to your inbox. It drives people to focus on a smaller topic that’s part of the larger process of starting a podcast to avoid feeling overwhelmed. In bitesized chunks, his subscribers can accomplish the building blocks of creating a show in a more manageable way. And it works. The well-researched tips and tutorials have helped countless podcasters get their show from idea to reality.

In addition, he has a course about building a WordPress website for your podcast. It’s specifically designed for beginners as well, with actionable steps to actually create a site. From there, it goes into more detail about email magnets to create an email list, where to offer affiliate products, and how to create written content that’s optimized for SEO.

Each course offers beginner tutorials with options for more advanced instructions. They include free equipment recommendations and well-reviewed product suggestions. Some of these products are also part of his affiliate strategy, furthering his objective of earning more commissions.

Finding the overlap between written content, podcast episodes, and YouTube videos is a key part of creating a successful affiliate program. So how does Podcast Insights’ show, Podcasting Simplified, fit in?

How does your podcast into your broader content strategy?

Podcast Insights is a website first and a podcast second. The show is a repurposed version of popular blog posts where Ross explains a topic in his own words. However, his other favorite tactics are interviewing customers and aggregating testimonials to tell stories around how a brand is part of someone’s world.

The podcast episodes are for those who are auditory learners, for the person who doesn’t want to scroll through a 10,000 word article. He’s found his audience has three different preferences–those we prefer reading, listening, and watching. So in order to get the most bang for his content-buck, he can hit all three buckets by simply repurposing one article into three different mediums.

Along the way, each version of the piece of content contains links to affiliate products so he can earn commissions no matter from where someone clicks. As an added bonus, it doesn’t take too much additional time to create three different versions of the same thing.

First he writes the article. Then he records the podcast episode using what he’s already written as the basis for the script. Then he films a video walking through the tutorial again using the article as the outline for what should be in the final cut. Spending a few extra hours repurposing material into new mediums is an efficient way to extend your reach and monetization efforts.