How has affiliate marketing added value to your workflow?

Affiliate marketing allows me to share products that are helpful to my audience AND get paid for it. I typically will share helpful items anyway, and the income that comes from the recommendations is just an amazing bonus on top of that.

How do you decide which products to add to your affiliate networking?

I only promote products that I've used and that I know will provide value to my audience. We have to realize that affiliate marketing is a service because (if you do it correctly) we're helping to reduce the noise that's out there for our audience. We play expert CURATOR in the process, and that is of value because you're saving your audience time and, ultimately, money. Sharing products that you're not familiar with but have a great commission might make you money in the short term, but over time your audience begins to realize that you're in it just for the money and may begin looking elsewhere for help and recommendations.

It's important to know what the goals of your audience are. The product recommendations should always support that journey for them.

What are some creative ways you've used Descript in your affiliate marketing efforts?

I've used Descript for creating and editing podcasts that have products mentioned in them. I've used Descript to create videos for YouTube that show the use of and benefit of specific products I've recommended (especially in the podcasting space, where I share different software and hardware I use to produce a show). Ideally, sharing your process of how to do something and then inserting the product recommendations as a natural "this is what I used to help and how it helped me" becomes a very organic, non-sleazy, or salesy way to approach affiliate marketing, one that you could actually get thanked for! Descript helps make that easier by making content creation a breeze.

What are a few starter tips you'd advise for someone just getting started with affiliate marketing?

1. If you're not sure what to promote, start thinking about the tools and products YOU use. Sometimes we don't even realize the amount of things we use that could be helpful to our audience as well.

2. In addition, ask your audience this question (it works well on social media): what's one thing you recently bought that has really helped you with (insert your niche goal or your audience’s here)? You'll get a list of items that at least should be on your radar that you can begin researching and potentially using too. Some of your audience is already buying those items; now, you can be the one to amplify that and share that recommendation with even more people!

3. Share a story of transformation around the products you promote. You're not creating a commercial; you're creating context around how this may or may not be of use to your readers, listeners, and viewers. How hard was the task before, and now, using this new product, how much easier is it?

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