AskPat 342 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 342 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Alright. Here's today's question from Garret.

Garret: Hi Pat. This is Garret. Thanks for all that you do. I've been listening for a few years, and I have question. I have a product based affiliate site that's modeled after Spencer Hawes at Niche Pursuits. It was your interview with him that stimulated me to get started and push into the whole online marketing deal. Currently, I'm making . . . and keywords, but my question is, how do I use this affiliate type success, reinvest the money, and possibly build it into a larger, more profitable business? Any and all suggestions are appreciated. Thank you again for everything. You and your AskPat podcast have opened my own, and many other's, eyes to a whole new world of passive income. Thank you. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey Garret. Thank you so much for the question, and well done to you on getting a niche site up and having it do well for you. Spencer is a great guy over at NichePursuits.com. I recommend everybody go check him out if you're doing any sort of niche websites or anything like that. Yes, some people have commented that I've been switching back and forth between niche and niche and you can thank Chris Ducker for that one. I've been getting into bad habits. I need to keep saying niche because that's . . . The riches are in the niches, not in the niches.

Again, well done, great job, and how can you leverage the success of your niche site into a larger, more successful business? For one, I hope you're collecting email addresses. We talked about AWeber just a second ago. You need to build your subscriber base because the power of any business is proportional to not just the size, but the strength of an email list. I don't just say size because there's a lot of people with great lists out there in terms of numbers, but when they send emails, the open rates are low, they're not very responsive, people don't click on anything. Again, you don't even need a large base on your email list to have it do really well for you. You just need a super targeted, well thought-out list and autoresponder sequence to help leverage that success you've had. The people who've come over to your site, perhaps you give them some sort of lead magnet or something of value through signing up to your email. Maybe that lead magnet is some sort of ebook guide or a list of the top tools. Again, it doesn't have to be very long, or it could be access to a video with one of the top secrets in the space that you're in. Anything like that will help incentivize people to get into your email list.

From there, you can start to build a relationship with those people even better than you can on your website. You start to send them emails asking them questions like, “What are you struggling with?” or “What do you need help with?” or “What other things are you looking for?” For example, you have a product site and maybe they're buying one thing. You can see what other things they're interested in so that down the road, you can either do your own stuff, create your own products, whether it's a information product, or maybe you even go down the Amazon/manufacturing route and create your own products that are similar or along the same lines as the things that you are selling or promoting or mentioning on your site currently. You can also be partners or partner up with other companies and then promote those within your email list. Again, that email list is really important because that becomes your target audience, and then every new post that comes out will drive more people into that list, which will get more people coming to the page and sharing it. It's just going to build, again, on the success that you've already had.

Then making sure to think ahead in the future in terms of what kinds of products, promotions, other companies out there that you could potentially partner with. What I would do is, actually, you have some success now, you can work with other companies that have some success as well and partner up with them. You can do a promotion where you share something of there's in exchange for them sharing something of yours on their site with their audience, and together you'll both grow. A lot of people do that as well. That's one thing I think a lot of people don't realize they can do once they start building up a fan base or an audience or an email list is you can leverage other people's audience with that list that you've built.

Actually, Neil Patel right now on QuickSprout.com is doing a fun little experience where he's trying to build a website from scratch, similar to what I've done with the Niche Site Duel and things like that. He's trying to build a website that'll make $100,000 a month and he's doing it in a very similar way, very transparent. I recommend you go to QuickSprout.com. You check out that experiment. In the latest post, he talked about how he did some things to increase the number of Facebook fans that he's had. Although the Facebook fans aren't very targeted, he's paid for those Facebook fans for his page. It's allowed him to do a couple things. One, to have social proof on his brand, which has helped with his authority and getting new fans and new likes and new email subscribers because there's that social proof that there must be something good here if there's this pool of people who are already here. Also, he had mentioned that he is using that to leverage other people's audiences. I forget what he calls it, but it's where, like I just mentioned, he will a post for a post, trading posts on each other sites and that sort of thing. That's another way you could leverage the success of your niche site.

I would also think about what other kinds of offers that you could have that you can just give directly to those same people. If they've purchased something, or maybe they're clicking on ads on a specific item, try to find items just like it. Instead of thinking on a horizontal level, think vertically. What else could they want? If they got . . . I remember Spencer did an example where he had a niche site selling, I think it was, hunting knives or some sort of camping knives or something like that. Okay. If people buy camping knives, what else could they use? They're camping. Maybe they want tents, or maybe they want the upgraded knives, or maybe they want holders for their knives, little leather expensive pouches that they can get to put their knives in. Maybe it's a glass case that they can get. Again, thinking about the people who purchase stuff on your website or who are looking to purchase stuff who come across your website, what else, beyond what they were searching for and originally looking for, can they possibly get? Again, you have the ability to do that. Again, that email list is going to be very important.

You also may want to think about running a survey for your audience as well and maybe giving people access to something. Maybe that's a part of your lead magnet or it's an additional lead magnet. You can give away something in exchange for some answers when you ask your audience, “What are the things that you're looking for the most?” Also, “Why are you here?” Trying to figure out how did people come across your site and why are they there and what they like about it. That way you can do more of that, and you can understand what struggles they have or what other products they're looking for and then you can deliver on them. Again, that's how you can leverage the success and the audience that you've built already.

Also, I would want to mention, to finish off, just make sure your optimizing the success you have now. A lot of people, they find success, but there could be a lot more with what you're already doing. Even before you get into these other things, except the email list, I sure hope that you're collecting emails right now. That should be the first step no matter what, but you should also fine tune the things that you have now. For example, on the niche site, if you are getting advertising clicks, are your advertisements optimized? Are they in the right spots? Are they using the right colors? Have you split tested any of that stuff? If you're selling products as an affiliate, are there other products that you could sell as an affiliate? Are you doing well with one of them and can you potentially contact that company to get a higher commission rate, which I've done before? A lot of people know that I've done that with Bluehost, and that's how it's been very successful for me because I have a higher than advertised commission rate with that company because I pull in a lot of volume for them. Thinking about those things that you're already doing that are successful and can you make them even more successful.

Garret, I hope that answers your question. I wish you the best of luck, and please keep us posted on your status and any updates you might have. Garret, thank you so much. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt. You'll hear from my executive assistant in the next couple weeks to collect your information so we can send that over to you. For those of you who have questions that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com, and you can ask right there on that page.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. To end today, we're going to end with a quote from my good buddy, Chris Brogan. He says, “Don't treat your customers like a bunch of purses and wallets.”

Yeah, don't do that, especially on your email list, which a lot of people tend to do. Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks so much.