First Edition June 25, 2015
Black Enterprise I spoke with Rosetta Thurman. Happy black woman, We discuss how she utilizes affiliate marketing and why it plays a key role in her own wealth creation and business model, which, frankly, is an area that many Black-owned businesses are underutilizing.
For those unfamiliar, affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission through promoting another brand or company’s products, tools, or services, or by selling products or services to a mutual customer or audience and sharing the revenue.
The adage “your network is your asset” rings truer than ever for many business owners operating in a digital environment – but are we making the most of it?
Creating multiple streams of income is becoming increasingly important for entrepreneurs building their businesses. The great thing about the digital age is the incredible power that business owners have to grow their networks, spread the word about their products and services, and earn income from those connections by helping fellow entrepreneurs do the same through affiliate marketing.
Even budding entrepreneurs benefit from this marketing strategy in two key ways. The first, and quite obvious, is that they generate passive income by partnering with companies that share their values. The second is that they grow and cultivate their own community by recommending useful tools, services, and products. As a result, entrepreneurs add incredible value to their community while also establishing trust and authority, both of which are necessary to attract the right kind of clients and customers.
As Thurman explains, there are many different ways to build profitable, mutually beneficial affiliate relationships, and when she was asked to discuss affiliate marketing, she squealed with joy, “because no one has ever asked me about this,” she says.
Happiness to take back to the bank
In just over two years, Rosetta Thurman has built a multi-racial, multi-cultural community of nearly 250,000 women around the world. Happy Black Woman helps women “build the life of their dreams.” Thurman emphasizes that Happy Black Woman is Rosetta herself. And thanks to the business and life tools she shares through her online platform, she has built a thriving business with her community of Happy Women around the world. She has built multiple six-figure businesses while living out of a single suitcase that supposedly fits all her belongings.
In 2010, she began what she called the “Cycle of Liberation” — “Do one thing and realize you can do anything” — a journey to discover what would make her happy. At the time, living in the Washington, DC area and working in a corporate job, she quit her job, cut her hair natural (aka “the big chop”), started hosting happy hours, and blogged about her journey. What she found was a community of women who felt the same way but desperately wanted: happiness, success, and freedom. These three words became a recurring theme and guided all of Thurman’s decisions regarding community.
Learn more about affiliate marketing
In 2007, while working for a non-profit, Rosetta became aware of affiliate marketing programs through the help of a fellow blogger.
She was intrigued by the concept. “I tell people about resources all the time, and I noticed that a lot of the businesses I promote have affiliate programs,” she recalls, and the decision to get involved was easy. “It was a no-brainer to try it out for myself and see how it worked.”
Thurman’s first big partnership was with the main goal of helping people in the community. Bluehost At the same time, she taught others how to blog successfully: She made $900 in one month just by providing personal recommendations on hosting providers. She says she was “super surprised” that she could make so much money “just by sharing resources” that she was willing to share without any financial incentive.
But Thurman emphasizes that while the financial rewards of participating in affiliate marketing may be great, it’s not just a get-rich-quick scheme. To be successful in affiliate marketing, she advises participants to think like a marketer.
She says, “The real benefit of getting involved in affiliate marketing is that it teaches you how to think like a marketer when promoting other people’s products and services, rather than just saying, ‘Hey guys, this product is great, you should buy it, click here.'”
You need to ask the very important questions: “What are the benefits of this product? Why would people want to use it? How have they used it to great success?”
The result is increased revenue and increased awareness of how to sell your products and services to others.
By getting involved in affiliate marketing, Rosetta understood how to combine content creation with sales.
Monetization: An Elusive Concept
Thurman says the relationship between content creation and sales is “the same relationship you need to have in the business of providing free content, but at the end of the day, you want people to buy something.” [Affiliate marketing] It shows us how to do that in a powerful way.”
But entrepreneurs don’t have to limit themselves to partnering with companies. Affiliate marketing offers another way to expand your reach and promote your products and services without spending a fortune on paid marketing. Building relationships with other individuals who run businesses is a powerful way to build partnerships and provide value through a shared audience.
With the ever-expanding digital age has come telesummits, a relatively new form of affiliate marketing, allowing business owners to partner up virtually to provide valuable content to their audiences through live or recorded telephone presentations and interviews on topics of interest. To make the relationship work for everyone involved, Thurman explains: “The idea is that all of the speakers will promote the telesummit, but at the same time, depending on the organizer, there’s also the opportunity to become an affiliate selling the telesummit recordings. This structure allows us to leverage each attendee’s audience and introduce them to a new, wider pool of potential customers.”
Thurman attends various TeleSummits each year because “they allow me to share amazing information that people in my community want, need and want to improve their lives, which aligns directly with my mission to help and empower women to live the lives they desire.”
She also notes that for new speakers looking for an opportunity to “gain experience,” TeleSummit offers a great opportunity to gain experience.
Determining the right fit
Rosetta has been in affiliate marketing on both sides of the deal, and this is great news for our readers, because she shared with us some great insights on what to consider before partnering with someone, and what she would never do.
Positioning yourself as a good potential partner is effective when using the program or product you are trying to sell. Vendors, especially those offering programs, look to their previous clients and customers as ideal brand ambassadors. And of course, in terms of finding great partners, it’s a two-way street… you know, [a provider would] They will be a great partner because we have already experienced the content and training they offer.”
You also need to make sure you are offering something that your community will benefit from. Don’t just take their money. You might get 75% of the sale, but if your product isn’t right for your audience, they might not buy or even lose trust in you. In either case, it’s a failure for you.
Another thing potential partners consider when determining fit is reach, and this is especially true in the case of the aforementioned TeleSummit, where attendees are expected to promote the program to their own platforms and audiences.
Thurman says, “Don’t give up if you don’t have a big email list. You may have a huge following in other ways. By reach, I mean a combination of your email list, website traffic, and social media followers. If you don’t have a large reach, Thurman suggests using Facebook ads, citing them as “one of the ways we’ve grown Happy Black Woman over the past two years.” Facebook ads make it easier for the public to expand your reach even further. [Facebook is] Huge.”
Get paid
Once potential partners decide to become actual partners, I asked Thurman what suggestions they could implement to protect themselves and ensure they get paid for fulfilling contracts as agreed upon. She suggests starting with a corporate affiliate relationship before diving into a joint venture-like relationship that combines your brand with the other company’s.
If you haven’t received a payment from a business associate, she said, it’s likely a postal error, “but in my experience, it’s almost always the case.” Keep in mind that many business associates will make payments directly to your PayPal account or through other electronic means.
To protect
Regarding your concerns, Thurman suggests, “You really need to make sure that the person you’re partnering with has a proven track record with the product, service, or program that you’re considering partnering with.”
A checklist for affiliate marketing success
Thurman highlights three points to ensure a good fit and prompt payouts in any affiliate relationship you start.
Make sure your product is suitable for your target audience. This is something she emphasized throughout the interview, and she cited it as the main reason why people fail when adding affiliate marketing to their revenue generation efforts: Successful affiliate marketing doesn’t just mean generating revenue.
Make sure your partner has a good reputation in the industry. “Google is your friend. I Google everyone.” You have a responsibility to do your due diligence. People can promise you anything, but you want to know what other people have to say about them. Also, sometimes people who are newbies overestimate their accomplishments. For this reason, Thurman never works with newbies. She further explains why, saying, “I know everyone has to go through growing pains, and I don’t want that to be our first experience.” And while she has received criticism from others for missing out on “the next big thing,” this is a precaution she keeps in place.
Don’t just chase money. “Put your community first. If a fashion blogger suddenly writes an article about gluten-free bagels in order to get affiliate commission from a bagel company, it won’t work because it won’t make sense to readers. It won’t benefit you and it will confuse your community.”
Do the first and third look the same? They do. Thurman is so passionate about adding value to her customers and viewers, and that’s why her brand is so popular and profitable. She thinks about the members of her community before the money, and in doing so, she’s built an empire that has enabled herself and many of her community members to live lives of happiness, success, and freedom.
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