Not too long ago, I received an email that was inviting me to promote Digital Course Academy (DCA). Because this is a program that I have personally purchased and found to be really good, the opportunity to make some extra money as an affiliate was an absolute no-brainer for me. I was excited to make it happen.

Although, I had no idea how the promotion would work out for me. My email list was relatively small and not targeted towards creating online courses (which is what Digital Course Academy teaches). Therefore, I didn’t have my hopes up too high. I knew that I could end up making nothing.

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Nevertheless, I went all in and ended up earning over $6,500 in a period of two weeks. I could have made more if there were no refunds, but I was still really happy with the result (for some affiliates 6,5k is not much at all).

This blog post is not to brag or to impress you. Instead, it is to help you and show that it is possible to make money with affiliate marketing.

If you have never participated as an affiliate in a product launch before, or you have but with no success, this post is for you. I will share with you the process of how I did it, as well as the things that could have been done better. I want to be as transparent as possible. Enjoy!

An invitation to be an affiliate

As stated above, this launch started with an invitation to promote the program. Because I bought it in the past, I was given the opportunity to promote it during the next launch.

To become an affiliate, I needed to apply via an online form, stating that I have read the guidelines and terms.

In some cases, to promote a product or program, you need to specify your website and ways in which you are planning to do the promotion. It is up to the product’s owner to decide whether they want you to become a partner or not. In this case, I was accepted.

Creating content around the subject

Because I have a blog, the one that you are currently on, my biggest strategy was to market and promote through the content that I create.

In other words, I first looked for popular keywords around the “online course creation” subject. Keywords, such as: how to create a digital course, how to create an online course, online course creation, etc.

Doing keyword research is essential in content creation, especially when you are trying to promote something.

Recommended: What Is Keyword Research? – How to Grow Your Blog Efficiently

The whole purpose of creating content around keywords is for people to be able to find us through Google. If someone is interested in creating an online course, they might search the internet using the keywords given above, and hopefully, find my blog post as the number one result in Google.

Now, whether you will actually be the number one result is a whole different story. It depends on how old your blog is, how authoritative, how good your SEO is, etc.

You may actually never end up “winning” that first spot, but as they say – If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. Besides, being second or third in the search results is still good.

If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. – Nora Roberts

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However, the most important piece of content that I created around the subject of online courses was a review of Digital Course Academy itself.

By writing a review of DCA, I attracted people that are interested in creating online courses, but I also attracted people that want to know more about this specific program. These people know exactly what they are searching for, and I am giving it to them.

That is why it so important to promote products and programs that you have personally bought, use and enjoy. This way, you can say a lot more about the product, and it will be coming from a very personal and genuine place, as it was for me in this case.

You can find the review here: Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy Review – Honest Thoughts (+ BONUS!)

Finally, I also made a review of DCA in the form of a YouTube video. Not everyone wants to read; some prefer to watch. So if a person like that comes along, I have it in video format as well.

Note: my personal affiliate link is, of course, placed in all of the blog posts around course creation, in the DCA review, as well as in the descriptions of the YouTube videos that go with the blog posts.

Social network promotion

One thing to keep in mind is that if you have decided to be an affiliate for a product launch, then be sure to go ALL IN!

In the past, I would send an email here and there, make one blog post and that would be it. The results, as you can imagine, were also comparable to the effort I put in – very poor.

In this case, I wanted to see what kind of results I am able to achieve as an affiliate if I work really hard. I was ok with making no money – I just wanted to go through the process and learn for the sake of future launches.

One strategy that I actively put into use is promoting the program via social networks. I used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Most serious affiliate programs will give you text copies, images and promo videos that you can use in your social networks to promote the program. So you don’t even need to waste time creating your own.

Besides using my social network accounts and pages, I also used my Facebook group to promote DCA.

The group is not about digital marketing or creating online courses; it’s about self-development. Moreover, I don’t allow members to promote their products or services in that group. But because I knew that many of the people there want to start their own online business, I would be doing a disservice to them if I wouldn’t introduce Digital Course Academy.

Again, because I felt so confident that the program can change the lives of people in the group, I had no problem sharing it with them. That’s how you feel when you promote products that you genuinely care about.

Live videos

I am aware that not many feel comfortable going live on Facebook and Instagram, but the rule of thumb is: the more work you put in, the better results you will get.

Live videos don’t need to be long. I usually did one Facebook and one Instagram live video a week, five to ten minutes long. For me, that was enough to cover a small portion of a topic related to creating online courses.

At the end of the video, I would let the audience know that if they are interested to learn more, they can click the link in the “bio” section of my Instagram account. With Facebook, I would simply leave the link as a comment to the video.

And don’t worry that you may have no viewers watching your live stream. You can save it so that people will be able to watch it later on. Everything counts.

Sending out emails

As an affiliate, you will be sending out plenty of emails to your subscribers. As a matter of fact, email marketing is the number one way for affiliates to make money. For that reason, it is crucial that you start collecting emails as soon as possible.

I often point out the fact that because my blog niche is very broad (self-development), it is harder for me to attract subscribers. I write about business, health, motivation, spirituality, technology, etc.

A visitor interested in business might sign up for my email list if I promise to send email updates about business only. The same goes for people interested in diets. But how do I get a person interested in diets to sign up for my email list if they know that I will be bombarding them with emails about business as well? I hope you get the point.

I really need to emphasize that if you are only at the beginning of your online business journey, make sure to pick your niche carefully. Ask yourself, what kind of audience am I trying to attract? What will I promote? The more specific you can get, the easier it will be for you to market as an affiliate down the road.

So, because I have a very broad niche, I also have a relatively small email list, under 1000 people at this point.

In the past, I would also be afraid to market aggressively to my list, as I knew that it would lead to unsubscribes. The list is kinda small enough already…

But this time, because I genuinely believed it would help my subscribers, I did my best to promote the program. I sent plenty of emails, and the closer it got to cart close day, the more emails I sent.

At the very end, I would send out 2 emails a day. Moreover, I would change the subject line and send the same email to all those that did not open it the day before. This is an option that most email service providers offer. It’s a great feature to get open rates higher.

Doing things the right way this time, as an affiliate, I learned two things.

First of all, only a few people unsubscribed despite my worries.

Secondly, the majority of people that opted in for DCA came from my email list. Verdict? Affiliate marketing via emails works best, especially when you are sending out A LOT of them!

People that weren’t interested in Digital Course Academy either unsubscribed or simply didn’t open the emails. Most went with the latter option.

Landing page + bonuses

One of the best strategies to get people to buy through your affiliate link is to offer them a bonus package.

What’s a bonus package? It’s simply something of value that you offer people on top of the product if they buy through your link. It can be an e-book, one of your existing online courses, 1-1 coaching, group coaching, etc.

Depending on how expensive is the product that you are promoting, the bonuses must be of perceived value to the customer. In other words, the person must really WANT to get those bonuses.

In the past, I would not even consider creating a bonus package because of my limiting beliefs. “What can I possibly offer?”, I thought to myself. But because I know that all of the experienced affiliates offer bonuses, I decided to go for it as well, even if they might not be so great.

I created a landing page describing all of the bonuses that people would get if they purchase DCA through my link. You can find the landing page here.

I then promoted this landing page in my emails, social networks and blog posts related to creating online courses. Also, if someone would google for “digital course academy bonuses” (which many people do), they would come across my page in the search results.

Depending on how good your bonus package offer is, it can be the single most powerful way to make sales as an affiliate.

Facebook ads

I have successfully used Facebook ads before with affiliate marketing, but this time I was willing to spend more money. I also spent a lot of time watching tutorials and learning how to maximize my reach with ads while spending the least amount of money.

The result was that I got cheaper clicks than I ever have in the past.

What could be done better

Bigger-better email list

I briefly stated above that email marketing is the most effective way to promote as an affiliate. Because I was able to make over 6,5k with a small list, I can only imagine how much I could make with a large one.

I also stated that my email list was not really targeted towards the “online course creation” topic, and as a result, many people didn’t care about the emails I was sending them. So what could have I done differently?

Well, there are two things.

1. I should have begun collecting emails through my blog in advance, targeted only for people that are interested in creating online courses.

For example, I could have created sign-up forms with the following text: “If you are interested in making money by creating an online course business, sign up here to get more info on how to make it a reality..” Or something similar…

This would guarantee that the people that signed up would be more likely to buy DCA.

2. I should have segmented my existing subscribers.

Instead of emailing my whole list the entire time, I could ask everyone that is interested in creating a “digital course business” to click a special link inside of the email that would automatically transfer them to a different email list, dedicated to creating online courses only.

This way, I wouldn’t need to annoy all those that don’t care about creating courses.

Note: I would have actually segmented the list this time, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy with the email service provider that I am currently using.

So I recommend that you look for automatic list segmentation features when choosing your email service provider.

Recommended: How to Create an Email List for Your Blog (And Which Tool to Use)

Improved Facebook ads

As an affiliate for an upcoming major product launch, I should have gone deeper into Facebook ads long before it all started. As I said, Facebook ads can be really powerful (and cheap) if you know what you are doing.

Note! Despite having all my ads being manually approved by Facebook, I got banned from their platform. They banned me after I already stopped all of my promotions, without any prior warning.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to get it back, at least easily. Therefore, make sure you take the time to go through their terms and policies. You don’t want to be violating anything unknowingly.. although I am still not sure what I violated as they won’t say.

Could have found people to interview for the launch

Apart from creating content around keywords and making reviews of the program, I could have interviewed people that already have a successful digital course business.

This is also a very powerful way to attract buyers since it validates the idea that you really can make money with online courses. In other words, it’s social proof. People come, they read/watch, they are amazed by the results that others have, they are more likely to buy.

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More, more, more emails

Finally, as an affiliate, I could have been even more aggressive with my emails.

Many of the subscribers didn’t open my emails even once. I should have analyzed the situation a bit more, changed my subject lines and tried harder. Many affiliate marketers can send 3 or even 4 emails a day without feeling guilty. This may sound like much, but hey, it converts.

This was it for today! Hopefully, this mini-guide was useful to you. If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment down below.

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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