Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 560 - Jay Jones - 3 Simple Ways To Market Your Business For Free

[00:00:00] Are you leaving money on the table by not participating in affiliate marketing? There are many entrepreneurs that are making tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars a month with affiliate marketing. There are several ways to profit from affiliate marketing by starting a part-time affiliate marketing business, doing affiliate marketing full-time or using affiliate marketing to complement your current business.

[00:00:24] If you're interested in learning how to make money with affiliate marketing, join me on my workshop at amcashmachine.com. That's A-M like affiliate marketing, cashmachine.com. In addition to the workshop, you're going to get a live one-on-one consultation with me to help you implement your affiliate marketing plan.

[00:00:45] You'll also get my latest e-book, How to Create an Email Sequence with Chat GPT, that's going to teach you how to improve your affiliate results. The program also entails downloadable resources and tutorials and much, much more. Make sure you're one of the first ten to respond so you can get the live one-on-one coaching with me. Go to amcashmachine.com for more information. That's A-M like affiliate marketing, cashmachine.com.

[00:01:14] See you in the workshop. Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for black entrepreneurs.

[00:01:35] I'm your host, Jay Jones, and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire black entrepreneurs to launch, build, and grow successful, sustainable businesses. Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses.

[00:01:57] If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, episode number 560.

[00:02:23] I'm your host, Jay Jones, and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you. Today we're going to be doing a rebroadcast of one of our most downloaded episodes from March of 2024 titled, Three Simple Ways to Market Your Business for Free. Three Simple Ways to Market Your Business for Free. Let's get ready for today's show content. Today's show topic is three simple ways to market your business for free.

[00:02:53] Three simple ways to market your business for free. And guys, I'm going to tell you, ain't nothing cheaper than free. All right, so make sure you stay locked in and tuned in for today's content. Now, before we get to the content, there are just a few things I want to share with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family. First and foremost, I want to welcome all first-time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family. Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast.

[00:03:21] And I'm going to share all my social media contact information and resource links, such as the link to my latest workshop, amcashmachine.com. Amcashmachine.com. Am as in affiliate marketing, cashmachine.com. So if you're looking for part-time income, if you want to be a full-time affiliate marketer, or if you want to complement what you're currently doing in your current business with affiliate marketing,

[00:03:47] make sure you go to amcashmachine.com for more information. Also, if you are a first-time listener to the podcast, make sure you hit the subscribe button wherever you watch this podcast or wherever you listen to it. We drop every Monday morning at 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube. So make sure you hit that subscribe button so you won't miss an episode. Now, let's get ready for today's content.

[00:04:17] Three simple ways to market your business for free. As entrepreneurs and salespeople, we know without qualified prospects to sell to, your business and your entrepreneurial dreams are pretty much gone, right? No leads, no sales, no money, no business. That's how it works, right? So sales, guys, is the lifeblood of any business. And on today's show, I'm going to give you three simple ways to market your business, that don't cost you any money.

[00:04:47] Now, the first one I want to talk about is a self-liquidating offer. The definition of a self-liquidating offer is a product or service that pays for its own advertising cost. A product or service that pays for its own advertising cost. So, for example, this means that if it costs you $35 to acquire one customer, each customer acquired in your self-liquidating offer funnel will be worth at least $35.

[00:05:18] So basically, that offer that you present to get a new customer or to build your database is paid for by an offer that you present. So let me give you an example here. So you're a business coach that helps other business coaches get clients. So this is what the scenario looks like. You run a Facebook ad for a webinar to help business coaches get more clients.

[00:05:42] And on that webinar confirmation page, you make them an offer that's going to liquidate the cost or offset the cost that it took to get them on the webinar. So let's look at this in detail. So when you run the Facebook ad for a webinar to help these business coaches get more clients on the webinar confirmation page, you make them an offer for $29 video training title.

[00:06:10] My business coaching funnel that makes me $20,000 per month. Now that is a $29 self-liquidating offer. But what you have to understand and understand is that it may only cost you $5 to get somebody to your webinar with your Facebook ads. So your average cost may be $5. You're selling a product for $29.

[00:06:35] Now, what's going to happen is not everybody is going to take you up on that self-liquidating offer on the confirmation page, right? So if one out of every five people take you up on that offer, that means you spent $25, $5 to get five people into the webinar. And if one person takes that offer, you've made $29. So that is a self-liquidating offer.

[00:07:01] You actually are making $4 for bringing new prospects into your sales funnel. That's what a self-liquidating offer looks like. If you're running webinars as the top of your sales funnel, one of the best ways to increase conversions on that self-liquidating offer is to let them know that this product that you're selling them, this offer, is actually going to complement the webinar. And you can word it something like this.

[00:07:28] Due to the time constraints of this webinar, I'm not going to be able to go as deep as I want to into my coaching funnel. That's why I'm offering you this $29 one-time offer to copy my exact sales funnel that's making me over $20,000 per month.

[00:07:46] So the incentive is, since you're not going to be able to get in-depth in this webinar, here's a specific online training that's going to show you how I'm doing $20,000 a month with webinars. And that's a great self-liquidating offer. They're coming for a free webinar, but you're going to offer them something that's going to complement the webinar and teach them how to be a successful business coach.

[00:08:10] And remember, make sure you price your self-liquidating offer correctly because not everybody is going to take that offer. So in my example, it cost me $5 to bring one person to a webinar. And so I can literally bring five people to a webinar, almost six. That would be $25 or $30. And my self-liquidating offer is $29. So that self-liquidating offer has to be priced correctly.

[00:08:37] So you're liquidating or you're not paying for any people coming to that webinar or whatever your call to action is. Okay. Not everybody is going to take that offer. So figure those numbers into your calculations. All right. And we're talking about three simple ways to market your business for free. Number one was self-liquidating offers. Number two, owned media. Now I talk about this all the time and I'm going to give you some examples. Own media.

[00:09:05] Remember guys, there are three types of media. Own media, earn media and paid media. Now owned media is any property owned and controlled by you or by your brand, such as your email database, a blog, website or newsletter. Social media is not owned media. That's rented media. You could have all types of great social media accounts, but you literally don't own that media.

[00:09:33] So if Instagram wants to take you down, take you off the platform, guess what? You're off the platform. So you don't own that. You're basically renting space there. Any social media platforms or any platform that can restrict you or take you off at any time. That is not owned media. Okay. Let me give you some examples of all three types of media. So you'll understand. So there's paid media. Everybody knows what that is.

[00:10:01] And paid media is exactly what it sounds like. If a company pays to promote messaging on any external platform, it's considered paid media. When you run Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Twitter ads, you're paying a social media influencer. That's paid media. You are paying to get that exposure. Okay. Earned media. That's when others spread awareness about you.

[00:10:25] So for example, if you're on black enterprise magazine on their website and also in the magazine, that's earned media. You've earned the actual exposure from some other type of platform. Okay. So that's called earned media. The benefit of earned media is that it expands your reach and it increases your credibility. So that can be super powerful for a brand.

[00:10:51] So if you're in ink magazine, entrepreneur magazine, black enterprise or whatever, that's great earned media. Now the drawback of earned media, it could be negative media. So for example, if people are complaining or their stories written about you or your business, that's earned media also. But there's could be a negative attachment to that. So say your business is selling food and the food is no good or you get bad ratings or whatever.

[00:11:20] That's earned media. Say for example, your restaurant is under investigation. That's bad press. That's bad media. So earned media can be good and bad. And then once again, there's owned media that is media that you own. And I'm going to give you what these type of media platforms are. Email database. Don't laugh at me. Email is still strong. Nobody can control your email. All right. Except you.

[00:11:49] Just think about how many brands or companies reach out to you with sales promotions via email. Black Friday is coming out. Sending out emails. Amazon Prime days are coming out. Amazon is sending you email. Don't forget about Prime days. Amazon owns that media. Okay. They own the actual customer. You have websites. You have blogs. You have podcasts. You have newsletters. Those are all forms of owned media.

[00:12:18] And when you have owned media, you can distribute information to that audience at any time and nobody can stop you. So if you want to send out your email newsletter, nobody can. Nobody can stop you. If you want to put out a new podcast, nobody can stop you. If you want to update something on your website or blog, nobody can stop you. If you're on social media, guess what? People can stop you. The platform can stop you.

[00:12:46] And I've told this story before, but I'm going to say it again because it's a cautionary tale. You never build your business and build your database based on social media because you don't own it. So I had a customer that her whole business was based on social media. She got that social media shut down by one of her competitors and literally she was out of business. Didn't have an email database to back up. All right.

[00:13:15] So you're not going to do what you do per se on social media, but at least you have the contact information to reach out to people. Hey, my social media got shut down. This is my new account. So leveraging social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, whatever, LinkedIn. That is great. You want to leverage social media to build your database. Your database guys is where the money is. That's the most important component of your business.

[00:13:43] When Borders bookstore went out of business, Barnes and Nobles didn't buy its books. It didn't buy the old inventory. It didn't buy the old locations. It bought its database out of bankruptcy. They understood how important the database is. So owned media. And let me give you a real life example of own media. What you're listening to right now, my podcast, right? My podcast is owned media. I control the content.

[00:14:09] I control what when it comes out and I'm able to market my own products and services for free on my own media platform. So I just talked about earlier today, my new AM cash machine workshop for affiliate marketing. I'm actually marketing that on owned media. It's something that a lot of the BEB family members were asking me for when I did an episode on affiliate marketing.

[00:14:35] So I created a program, a workshop to answer or solve a problem. Okay. So that is a real life example of owned media. A lot of the things that you hear on here that I advertise is, is my stuff. My online courses, the workshops, the webinars, all of that stuff is owned media. So that's the importance of owned media. Owned media is free once you create it, right?

[00:15:03] So here's the problem why a lot of people can't get new customers. Many of us are paying more in ad costs than they actually bring in in revenue. So you can't build a business that way unless you have a whole lot of reserves. So if you're spending $5 to get a customer and you're only making a dollar off of the customer, guess what? You're losing business or losing money and you can't sustain like that.

[00:15:29] That's why taking the time to build a platform and creating own media is a definitive way to make sure that you can be profitable because you can connect and speak to the audience anytime you want. Be it a podcast, a newsletter, a video on your website, whatever it is. Email. Email. That's the way to build a strong, successful, sustainable business when you have owned media.

[00:15:57] What we're talking about today, guys, is three simple ways to market your business for free. Number one was self liquidating offers. Number two was own media. Number three, create your own affiliate program. Now, I've been talking about affiliate marketing for years, but we're always on the other side of affiliate marketing where we're marketing somebody else's products or services.

[00:16:19] But you can simply create your own affiliate program also where other people market your products or services for a commission or for compensation. OK, so it does work on both sides. So let me give you a real life example.

[00:16:36] Any of you who sell online courses, if you use a platform like Thinkific, Thinkific.com, they actually have a component or mechanism where you can actually share the commission on the actual sale of one of your online courses.

[00:16:55] So if your online course is selling for $297, you can create an affiliate program where somebody can get a 50% commission by sharing their affiliate link or marketing your affiliate link to their audience or their network. So they would earn, in this case, $148.50 each time somebody bought the course through their link.

[00:17:20] The benefit of this is creating an affiliate program on your own is the reach that you get. So you're literally not paying anybody to market your program. So if they didn't market and sell this online course, you wouldn't have the sale, right? Because you may be saying, well, normally I make $297, I'm only making $148.50. That's $148.50 you wouldn't have had because you wouldn't have marketed the course to the people that bought it.

[00:17:48] That's expanding your reach and marketability. I had on the show my brother Arlen Robinson. So if you want to create an affiliate program, he has a software called OSI Affiliate. Operation Sam Instagram, OSI Affiliate.com. It's owned by a brother named Arlen Robinson. He was on my show about a year and a half ago.

[00:18:14] And this is software that you can set up for your business where you can create your own affiliate program. So we've talked about a lot of affiliate programs and affiliate platforms out there like ClickBank, Commission Junction. You have Warrior Plus. You have all types of different platforms that people can go on and find affiliate products.

[00:18:38] You also can go directly to a lot of websites and software companies and other companies. Then you go on there and you look for affiliate and they'll have their own internal affiliate program. So affiliate marketing is there for you guys to create your own program. So don't be, you know, fearful because you think it's a daunting task. A lot of times the platforms will help you create and administer your affiliate program.

[00:19:07] So OSI Affiliate.com, black owned company that helps you create affiliate programs, tracks the affiliate sales, and then you can go and compensate your affiliates for selling your product or service. Like I said, we have to stop thinking about just being the consumers, but also the producers. So when you look at the people that are selling crazy money, making crazy money in affiliate marketing,

[00:19:35] a lot of the ones are the people that create the products. So now you create the product, you put it on a platform like ClickBank or whatever. And now you have all these quote unquote professional affiliates marketing that product or service. You look at the software ClickFunnels. I used to be a ClickFunnels user and I was a big fan of their software. I don't use them now.

[00:19:59] I use a company called System.io, S-Y-S-T-E-M-E.io. They do everything that ClickFunnels does, but it's a whole lot less expensive and they actually have a little more functionality that I like. But ClickFunnels became so big, not just because the founder, Russell Brunson, was talking about it all over the place. They have an affiliate program.

[00:20:25] So when you do that $297 a month with ClickFunnels, there are a lot of affiliates that have marketed ClickFunnels and they're getting 50% of that $297, that $148.50. And so when the affiliates and they're getting that each month. So when the affiliates see that they can make recurring revenue by selling this software, you know, they're going to do it. So that's one of the reasons ClickFunnels was able to get so large.

[00:20:55] In addition to them spending a ton of money on, you know, social media and advertising, it was their affiliate network. So don't sleep on creating your own affiliate product. One of the things that you have to be concerned with, though, if you're selling a $25 product, really how invested are people going to be to actually use your product or sell your product as an affiliate product? Because it's not a lot of money.

[00:21:22] If you're giving them 50% of $25, they're making $12.50, right? So it's doable, but are people really going to push the product? So there's certain types of characteristics that good affiliate products make or have. You have to have enough margin in there where you can offer a good payout or a good commission. Because if not, people aren't going to waste their time for $12.50, right?

[00:21:49] They got to do hundreds and thousands of units for you for them to even make any money. So if any of the BEB family members are interested in creating an affiliate program for their business or product or service, hey, just reach out to me on social media, DM me or email me directly. And if so, I can put together a workshop or something about creating your own affiliate program.

[00:22:15] Before we get to the last segment of the show, let me just give out my social media contact information and my resource links. So everything I'm about to say, guys, is on the website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Make sure you go there. We have a ton of resources. We redid the website. A ton of free resources. But everything I'm about to tell you is on the website. I mentioned at the top of the show, guys, my latest workshop is out amcashmachine.com.

[00:22:44] If you're interested in affiliate marketing for a part-time business, full-time business, or just to complement what you're doing now with your current business, go to AM, like affiliate marketing, cash machine. Now, if you want to get in touch with me, anything long, guys, hit me on my email. Jay Jones at blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Jay Jones at blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Facebook, blackentrepreneurblueprint.

[00:23:12] Twitter, Jay Jones 001. Jay Jones 001. Instagram, I have two IG accounts. The first one is Jay Jones for real. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S. The number four. R-E-A-L. Second one is Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. LinkedIn, make sure you connect with me there, guys. Go to LinkedIn, type in Jay Jones Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, and follow me there. And also YouTube.

[00:23:41] Make sure you guys subscribe to the YouTube channel. We have additional content on YouTube that is not on the show. So you can go to YouTube, type in Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, and hit that subscribe button. Now, the last segment of the show, guys, I just want to reiterate that these are three simple ways, guys, you can market your business for free. There's a ton more out there, but these are three of the ways that I think are super easy for you to do it.

[00:24:08] One of the reasons I picked these three is because they kind of are synergistic. So when you talk about a self-liquidating offer, that's actually you're using paid media, but you're offsetting the cost by having a self-liquidating offer. Then I talked about owned media. That's media that you own. Your website, your email database, your newsletter, your blog, or whatever. That's owned media. And then once again, affiliate marketing, creating your own program.

[00:24:37] This is something where you're setting up your own network or platform for other people to help you sell your product and or services. And I think this is one of the least used methods out there. And I think people don't use it because they think it's super hard to create that platform where you have your own affiliate program. But like I said, go to OSIaffiliate.com. Support my brother Arlen Robinson with his, his software.

[00:25:06] And that can easily help you guys create your own affiliate platform where more people are sharing and selling product and services for you. But remember it has to be the right type of product and the right type of service. There has to be enough money in there for people to want to sell it. Okay. If you have a high priced digital program, that's perfect. Say you're doing online courses, workshops, or whatever. That's beautiful.

[00:25:34] If you have physical products that have the margin in it, that's fine. Also, I'm just going to give you guys an idea. Go to Clickbank.com, C-L-I-C-K bank.com. Go to Digistore24, D-I-G-I-S-T-O-R-E, the number 24.com. You can go to Commission Junction. I think it's CJAffiliate.com, but just type in Commission Junction and you'll see all types

[00:26:02] of different products or services and how their affiliate program works. Like I said, we have to stop being a consumer and start being a producer. A lot of these companies out here, like Athletic Greens, right? You'll see the commercials on TV now, AG1 or whatever. Athletic Greens was started on Clickbank as an affiliate product. Now they created the product.

[00:26:27] They went to Clickbank and said, hey, we want to offer this as an affiliate program on your platform. And they've grown into a multi-million dollar company because they just didn't sell the product themselves. They created their own affiliate program and they put it on Clickbank. And I think they're on a couple other affiliate platforms, but that's a way to super grow your product or your service. Once again, if you have the margins to be able to pay, to pay out your affiliates.

[00:26:57] So one of the things, if you're selling an affiliate product and you want to create an affiliate platform, what you'll see on Clickbank and the other big affiliate platforms is they never really try to sell one unit. So say it's a supplement. They always try to sell three units or six units. And the reason being is that's the, they make more money. Number one, but it also is a higher cart payout or a higher payout to the affiliates.

[00:27:24] So you'll see like, if it's a supplement, you buy one bottle is $69 per bottle. You buy three bottles, it's $59 per bottle. You buy six bottles, it's $49 per bottle. But the average cart value is higher, obviously with the six bottles, even though it's the lowest per bottle cost. And that allows somebody to pay out a nice amount of affiliate commissions.

[00:27:51] So if you're looking at $49 times six bottles, that's $294, right? And if you divide that at a 50% payout, it's $147. So you have to be, or you have to understand what makes a good product to sell with your own affiliate platform or with your own affiliate marketing program. In closing, I just want to let you know, I appreciate you guys so much.

[00:28:16] Uh, please continue to spread the word about the podcast, the new revised revamp website, blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Make sure you go to the site, hit the learn button. We have all types of free content to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ. We have the BEB ecosystem in everything that we do is trying to elevate, elevate that entrepreneur IQ to help you build successful, sustainable businesses. Remember, it's not about me. It's not about you.

[00:28:45] It's about us. It's about building a worldwide economic power base in the black community by building and supporting black owned businesses. Love you guys. See you same time next week. Peace.