Power Up Your Marketing Through Influencers and Affiliates with Enelin Paas

Brought to you by Salim Omar and the Straight Talk About Small Business Success Podcast.

Backstory: Who is Enelin Paas?

Enelin Paas is the CEO and founder of Digitairial Agency, a  woman-owned company with many achievements under it's belt. Paas is also the head of business development of Safetywing, a startup insurance company which she took to $4 million USD in a year through affiliate marketing.

Her travels and work as a freelancer in marketing in 2015, led Paas to chase her dream of having a sustainable digital nomad lifestyle. 

Enelin Paas can be reached through her business website digitarialagency.com or on her personal website in www.enelinpaas.com.

What is Affiliate and Influencer Marketing?

• Influencer Marketing
  

You are running a business, have great products and you want to sell them through influencers. Influencers and micro influencers normally content creators in social media. They can also be YouTubers or also bloggers. They have a big social media following. You reach out and you propose a collaboration with the influencer. You can offer them free products or you can offer them a commission from sales. Many times influencers also ask for sponsorship, because it's their full-time job. Influencers earn from creating content. It takes a lot of effort to create a good YouTube video. Finalize the deal making to make sure that you have all the tracking links and marketing materials for the affiliate influencer. The influencer does their magic and promotes your product to their audience in their own way- a way that is natural and effortless. This works best because if you would tell them exactly how to do it, it would look fake-like an ad. For long term success, keep collaborating with influencers. The influencer can start making posts about your product and using them on a weekly basis.

• Affiliate Marketing 

Some affiliates don't have social media presence or a huge community behind them. They still hold value. Examples of affiliates are media-owned online magazines and blogs. A review from them can make a huge difference. You can make a deal with affiliates as well. They may have media kits and a price list. Affiliates are interested in scaling collaborations and earning commission over a long period of time.

• Referral programs 

Referral programs are specifically made for your current happy clients. They are not interested in earning money, but they may be interested in getting gifts from you such as branded merch, or a discount. They don't earn money when they recommend the product to their friends and family. This makes all the difference.

• Partnerships 

If your product is a B2B product, then B2B partnerships work the best. Partner with companies that complement or match your product. You form an agreement. Their motivation is to expand their audience and email list with yours and create synergy to support each other.

Do You Find That Small Businesses are Not Aware of These Strategies?

"When I started in 2018, I felt it was really new. Over the last year I am starting to see more founders reaching out to me asking about these types of marketing. I see more and more service providers, such as agencies popping up. Small brands are feeling more confident to work with influencers. It's not only like Gucci, Dior or Ferrari thing," says Paas. 

According to Paas Influencers and affiliates are definitely on the rise for all types of businesses. Social media companies have even begun to regulate the process.

What Type Of Business Is Affiliate and Influencer Marketing Suited For?

The ideal client  for Paas and her business-Digitarial Agency would be a B2C online company. 

"It can be ecommerce business selling any kind of item for people around the world. It is even better if they are already in the position to give out a proper commission for affiliates," says Paas. 

Paas says that a lot depends on the type of product and how expensive it is. The more you can give to the affiliate from your profit, the better. And also, if the company already has some kind of sponsorship budget, so they're willing to invest in the channel and do collaborations and also try out, like, YouTubers and maybe bigger influencers. And they can put some of the funds that maybe today they are in ads, also to try out that in the affiliate influencer field. That's our ideal client.

How long does it take to get results?

According to Paas, it takes an average of five to seven weeks before you see results.

• In the first week, Paas spends time on research, getting to know the business and picking out the good affiliate management systems for her client.
• The second week is dedicated to strategy. She analyzes competitors, the market and the motivations behind current clients. This helps choose your affiliates and influencers-preferably those who have the same audience that matches your target audience. 
• In week three Paas develops the program. This involves setting it up, running tests and making sure the landing page gets the lead into the SaaS system that manages the affiliates. 
• In the fourth week we send marketing materials to affiliates so that they know the products
• Week five- Emails are sent out from the leads collected throughout the first few weeks. 

"It takes time for the influencer to warm up the audience. The first conversions come around approximately the seventh week,"says Paas.

Final Words of Wisdom from Enelin Paas

Closing Statement

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