Utilizing a Street Team and Affiliates to Explode Your Launch
Episode 314: Show Notes
Word on the street is that you want to do an epic launch! On today’s podcast we’re talking about three things that led to an incredible launch: using affiliates, getting together a street team and of course having a valuable product that everyone wants. But what is a street team? We’re discussing the need for one of those, no matter how big or small your business is, dishing out advice on who you might want to include, the process of asking someone to be on your team and how to communicate effectively with them.
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We then give you a breakdown of how we succeeded in pulling off our recent rebranding launch, sharing how we kept our followers and fans engaged with our communications, what we did to promote this change and our business at large. From our first-hand experience with launches, we advise you on using affiliates as an incredibly powerful tool to market your brand, giving you practical tips for recruiting key people who can really boost your business, even if you are only starting off. If you have a launch in the pipeline, are thinking about it, or just want to learn a ton about making valuable connections in business, do not miss out on today’s Strategy Hour Podcast!
What a Street Team is and Who You Should Include
A street team may also be called your launch cheerleading squad, your support group or your girl gang. It doesn’t really matter, but what is critical of this team is that they are raving fans of your brand; a healthy mix of online friends and peers who love and support your mission and who are there to support you in many different ways. The unique thing about a street team is that they are your volunteer army who are there even if you didn’t ask them to be. The idea behind a street team is to put more structure to your communication with this group of people and to be intentional about what you are asking them to do or help with.
Asking Someone to be on Your Street Team and Communication With Them
What you have to keep in mind when approaching someone to be on your street team is to remember that some businesses plan out their launch marketing calendar way in advance. If you’re not notifying them of your launch in time, they might not be able to help you. The further in advance you can ask them to be involved, the better. As you gather your street team members, you should find ways to filter information to them, and we’ve found that private Facebook groups is one of the best platforms for doing this. You can also use Instagram group DM threads. We provide our street team with graphics, swipe copy, important links and, for larger projects, access to an affiliate center where they can make an affiliate link, for example.
Getting Traffic and Keeping Your Audience Engaged
As you probably know, we recently relaunched our brand, changing our logo and name from Think Creative Collective to Boss Project, and we wanted to make it a really big deal. We knew that by relaunching, our brand awareness and traffic was going to increase and we wanted to utilize that opportunity. We decided to do a bundle giveaway which involved asking people we love and who offer amazing workshops, products and services to contribute something at a reduced rate for us to give away in one amazing package we call the Boss Vault. The idea was to reward our fans for sticking with us and supporting us through this change, while also optimizing exposure to the changes we were making to the brand. We could have simply sent out an email saying that we are changing our name, but no one would have remembered or perhaps even read it, so that week-long launch event and giveaway gave us an opportunity to really drill the point. In this way, selling something at a bargain price was a great way of keeping people engaged.
How Affiliates Can Benefit You
Even though affiliates can be a great way of making more money, it is important to keep in mind that the effort they put into promoting your launch might depend on the compensation they get from it and their willingness to help might also be based on whether they have experienced your product or service for themselves. But this should not stop you from going for it! Even if you have a small business, you can still benefit from affiliate relationships. What Abagail did when she was running a client-based business was to pay another business to send her projects. So you could find a business who does more or less what you do and make an arrangement with them to pass along to you the work they do not have room for in their schedule. It might require you to pay a finder’s fee, but it is a super effective means of getting the work you want, especially when you are starting off. There are so many opportunities with affiliates, it’s just all about how you set it up. Affiliate marketing basically comes down to relying on referrals because your affiliate is putting their stamp of approval on you.
How to Practically Get Affiliate Relationships Started
What action steps can you take to connect with potentially great affiliates? What we did before launching our rebranding campaign was to hop on social media platforms, scroll our list of friends and look at the courses, products and services that they offered and make a list of the ones who we could potentially establish mutually beneficial partnerships with. It’s all about connecting with people that you already have some sort of relationship with and establishing if and how they can benefit your audience. It might be a give and take relationship where they share your stuff and in return you share their brand with your audience, or you might ask them for their email list, which of course if a much bigger ask. What you could do is follower swaps, which involves contacting people with a slightly higher following than you, who your audience could benefit from, and asking them to do a follower swap. So you would send some people their way and ask if they would do the same. It comes down to communication and asking people to reinforce the messages you share. The important thing with managing affiliate relationships is to remove all pressure and to make it easy for people to support you by providing them with all the information and material they need. And remember, if you want people to do it for you, you have to be willing to do it for them, and building this relationship of trust will be extremely rewarding – guaranteed!
Quote This
If you want it for you, you have to be willing to do if for other people.
Highlights
What a street team is and who you should include. [0:02:49.1]
Asking someone to be on your street team and communicating with them. [0:05:02.1]
Getting traffic and keeping your audience engaged. [0:07:59.1]
How affiliates can benefit you. [0:18:37.1]
How to practically get affiliate relationships started. [0:21:51.1]
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
We help overwhelmed and creative entrepreneurs break down their Oprah-sized dreams to create a functioning command center to tame the chaos of their business. Basically, we think you’re totally bomb diggity, we’re about to uplevel the shiz out of your business.
