Podcasting For Affiliate Marketing with Tom Hunt

Show: Revenue Optimization with StatsDrone
Episode: Podcasting For Affiliate Marketing with Tom Hunt
Host: John Wright
Guest: Tom Hunt
Published: Fri, 02 Feb 2024 10:24:00 +0000
Duration: 39:10

Speaker labels are a two-speaker split from pauses (host vs guest). Timestamps are `[HH:MM:SS]` from the episode audio. Light ASR; names and brands may need a pass.

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[00:00:00] John Wright: It's super interesting to see these much bigger, especially B2C companies invest in the podcast medium. Here are my thoughts on this.

[00:00:07] Tom Hunt: I think if we, if the goal is to create content that's going to influence people to buy, then we're an affiliate.

[00:00:13] Tom Hunt: Then I think there's three levels. I think written content is the easiest to get right, but the least impactful. And we go one step up, then we have audio content, which is a little bit harder to get right, but a little bit more impactful.

[00:00:29] Tom Hunt: And then the like, number one is video content, which is the most impactful, but also the hardest to get right and most expensive.

[00:00:38] Tom Hunt: So if it's not a video podcasting, you're doing like a documentary series video, like about an event or about your life, then that's going to cost you. Or it's going to be really hard to call off and make good. So I think really what we're seeing here, because obviously written content has been in the affiliate game forever. I think we're just seeing people progress up this ladder of content, complexity and influence and where, and more people are adopting podcasts. And maybe in five years, everyone's going to be doing a lot more video.

[00:01:04] John Wright: I'm John Wright, and you're listening to affiliate BI, the business intelligence and affiliate marketing podcast brought to you by StatStrome. Welcome to the affiliate BI podcast. Today, I'm very happy to have Tom hunt on the show who he's got 24,000 followers on LinkedIn. I've called Tom the Taylor Swift, the B2B marketing. Um, he runs fame.so, which is a podcasting agency, helping B2B companies set up their own podcast. He also has Bcast.fm, which our show is actually hosted on that. So it's a really good podcasting software.

[00:01:42] John Wright: And last but not least is my favorite podcast is the confessions of a B2B marketer. Uh, Tom really pumped to have you on the show. Welcome. Wow. I'm absolutely honored. I'm good. So if it's confessions of B2B marketer, you're number one. It's number one. Yeah. It's, I looked at it. I mean, Spotify tells me it's number one, like for what I listen to the most. And I know it without thinking it's, I know every Thursday when you've got an episode that comes out, uh, I listened to it on almost autopilot. So it's, uh, yeah, it's a, I love your show. It's great. You have a lot of insights on everything.

[00:02:18] John Wright: Like it's very helpful for what I have to do as a SaaS founder, uh, as a marketer trying to push our SaaS. And I believe your insights actually share across other industries. It's not just B2B. Um, I believe that actually like if I was a Philly marketer today, I'd say this is a podcast you should listen to as well.

[00:02:38] Tom Hunt: All right. Well, hopefully we're going to get into the affiliate game today. Uh, we'll have a couple of questions there and it's, uh, it's up to the listener to, to tie in the insights. But I know there, there are a lot of connections. Um, can I, can I give one of those connections to start with? Yeah. So the very first thing I did in business, I think was back in 2012. And I was buying Google ads and sending them to affiliate offers for like locksmiths. So specific States in the U S buying Google ads, sending it to random affiliate offers, right with the God of getting like a 50 pound commission.

[00:03:16] Tom Hunt: And then buying the kicks for like one pound. So my, any knowledge or skill I have is rooted in the affiliate game.

[00:03:26] John Wright: So that's a, that's a great background. And like I said, I personally believe, you know, if I weren't able to transport you into any part of affiliate marketing, I think you would do an amazing job. And, um, I'm sure there's lots of people that can do that, but it's, uh, it's not easy to have like a skill in one area and believe, I think if you ran into affiliate marketing, you would just run right through it and you would do extremely well in it.

[00:03:50] Tom Hunt: Thank you, Joe.

[00:03:51] John Wright: So I know your story well of listening to you on the podcast, but I want to jump into a story when, um, basically when you knew that B2B podcasting was a powerful channel, uh, so when did you realize that, you know what, this is actually beyond powerful, it works and maybe the attribution isn't there, but this is something that you wanted to double down on.

[00:04:15] John Wright: There's two examples. The first was in 2017, I had a online marketplace. I was trying to grow. Didn't really work, but as part of that, to market that platform, I started a podcast where it was actually a daily show 10 minutes and I would update on what was happening that week.

[00:04:31] John Wright: And the podcast ended up kind of being more successful than the business.

[00:04:37] Tom Hunt: And the magic moment repodcasting was that I got chatting to one of the listeners who actually wanted to give me money. I think it was 10,000 pounds to invest in the platform I was building. Never met this guy only, I think chatted over email. And so something obviously happened when this person was listening to me for 10 minutes every day, assuming they listened to all the episodes, um, that made them like, and trust me. So that was the first thing I was like, well, that's a bit strange, but also very awesome.

[00:05:04] John Wright: Second thing fast forward five years on a fast forward one or two years. I was headed to my generation at B2B SaaS company. We started a podcast to focus on a very specific persona that I thought they weren't targeting enough.

[00:05:18] Tom Hunt: Long story short, the show was very profitable for them, both on the guest side, because we closed deals with guests, but on the listener side, because they build an audience of people that were starting to know, like, and trust them so when they needed revenue intelligence software, they would go to them. So as those two experiences, uh, that highlighted the power of the audio medium. Uh, I didn't, I wasn't aware of the first story. It's the first time I've heard that before, but, um, yeah, it just goes to show. It's like, I think, uh, the moral of the story is that when people start listening to you over and over again, the thing that I hear, and I'm sure you hear this quite often is people are like, I feel like I know you.

[00:05:57] Tom Hunt: And then if they know you, um, then they want to buy from you or do a partnership with you.

[00:06:03] John Wright: Yeah. I think, yeah, I think you have more influence over people if they know you and you don't know them.

[00:06:10] John Wright: Why that is, I really know is probably some like biological thing goes back further than he is, um, but it works. Yeah.

[00:06:18] Tom Hunt: I'm going to jump into a side topic. Cause you mentioned that you were doing like a smaller podcast series and I'm always listening to podcasts and I try to take a learning, like put my learning hat on and go who's doing something different and is it effective? And there's a podcast that I've been listening to. And of course I'm going to forget the name of it, but it's an AI podcast with the Jaden Shafer. And he does these ones where they're like five 10 minute clips. Um, and it's like short, easy to consume, but it's really interesting. And of course AI is moving so fast. What do you think about a podcast series like that, that are maybe short, shorter form?

[00:06:56] John Wright: Yeah. We always recommend like the easiest way to start with like a 45 minute recording slot, pulling out a 25 to 30 minute episode with one host, one guest. That's where we recommend starting. But then if that's working and the showdown is going up, the host of enjoying it, then we would recommend experimenting with either potentially much longer formats, multiple hosts, multiple guests, or even these, the shorter format. So I don't have a bias against any kind of format. Why do, why do some of get concerned with if, if they're the host or a team that haven't been able to do the basic thing first, and then they go and try

[00:07:33] John Wright: and do this thing that is probably a bit harder to pull off.

[00:07:37] Tom Hunt: Makes sense. Um, okay. So my, my last guest, James Dooley mentioned that he thinks video and podcasts as media channels will be important for affiliate marketers moving forward, and I pretty much think this is important for B2B. What's your take on that?

[00:07:54] John Wright: We, for sure. Any podcast should always be recorded in video anyway, because you're going to get a better episode because you can see the host or the guest face. So we recommend always recording video.

[00:08:06] Tom Hunt: And then video also is going to help with promotion. The snippet video snippets with faces always perform better on social channels. And if you can do, if you can do like good work on the long form, that can also just potentially double your exposure by uploading that to YouTube. So yes to video in terms of it being important in the future. If we go back to what we're saying about if somebody knows you and you don't know them because they've been looking at your podcast for a year, then you're going to have this, you're going to have the influence over them.

[00:08:37] John Wright: So if you think about what the affiliate marketer really is trying to do, I think in most cases they're trying to like in an ideal world, build an audience of people that know, like, and trust them that they have influence over. So when they bring them something that is valuable, that they're going to get a commission from, they're going to get much higher sales. Now, maybe I'm just focusing and maybe you can tell me, John, and I just focusing in on a very specific kind of affiliate marketing, e.g. Like the Guru type where you build the audience. Because I know there's loads of other different types like that stuff. I used to do with Google ads. But maybe that's a question back to you.

[00:09:11] John Wright: Could you rephrase the question one more time?

[00:09:14] Tom Hunt: In our firm, I was just explaining, I guess, one type of video marketing where somebody builds an audience. Yeah. And, but then it like, I assume the audience here or we should also try and tailor this to other types of affiliate marketing because there's probably other ways of doing that, right? Yeah, I think so. I mean, like I said, I try to look at what other people do and there's two parts to it. One is like, what are the ways in which you can earn affiliate commissions from your podcasts? And I think there's so many ways that a podcast can amplify it. Like just to be very blunt, doing a podcast does link building for you.

[00:09:53] Tom Hunt: And links pointing towards your site helps build you more authority. So you're going to get that right off the bat.

[00:09:59] John Wright: If we do believe that, you know, being personable and people feeling like they know you is going to help you make sales, then it doesn't just, it only doesn't only apply to B2B sales. It will definitely apply to B2C. And one thing I believe to be true, whether this is video or podcasting or both, is that people in affiliate marketing, they're not going to have an easy time saying, let's just, let's just make this happen. They want to do it. Um, but the only way they're going to do it is one, the owners are going to get involved and do exactly what you see on your side, which is how do we get the owner of the SaaS company to, to get into podcasting or they hire someone.

[00:10:36] John Wright: I am starting to see the very large affiliate companies, especially in iGaming that are basically, they're going all in on podcasts. They're like, we need to set up a professional studio. We've got hosts. And in some cases, if they've got really deep pockets, they're going after like sports celebrities. Uh, like just to like throw a bunch of names out there, this company called Better Collective acquired a company called Playmaker for something around like the 200 million Euro range. And they now have a podcast that features Shaquille O'Neal.

[00:11:08] John Wright: Well, it's not going to be easy for any one of us to say, yeah, let's get the budget together to hire Shaq and have him on a podcast, but I'm actually watching this happening in the background. And I think there's a lot of affiliates that aren't really aware of what's happening and I actually think this is the next change it, it is not easy for people to say, I'm going to just make this happen. There's a barrier to entry in this is easy as hell, but you have to get uncomfortable and say, I'm going to, I can make a video. My first few podcasts are going to be probably not so great, but if I keep doing this for a year, it's going to be, eventually it's going to work itself out.

[00:11:46] Tom Hunt: Great insight. Yeah. It's super interesting to see these much bigger, especially B2C companies invest in the podcast medium. Here, here are my thoughts on this.

[00:11:54] John Wright: I think if we, if the goal is to create content, that's going to influence people to buy, then we're an affiliate.

[00:12:01] John Wright: Then I think there's maybe I'm simplifying this, but there's like three levels, I think written content is the easiest to get right, but the least impactful and we go one step up. Then we have audio content, which is a little bit harder to get right, but a little bit more impactful.

[00:12:18] John Wright: And then the like, number one is video content, which is the most impactful because you have like a richer amount of information, but also the hardest to get right and most expensive.

[00:12:30] John Wright: So if it's not a video podcasting, you do like a documentary series video, like about an event or about your life, then that's going to cost you, or it's going to be really hard to pull off and make good. So I think really what we're seeing here, because obviously written content has been in the affiliate game forever. I think we're just seeing people progress up this ladder of content complexity and influence and where, and more people are adopting podcasts. And maybe in five years, everyone's going to be doing a lot more video.

[00:12:56] Tom Hunt: In theory, that's what the stats should tell us. But I just think that there's going to be a lot of people that they're going to struggle to make this happen, which I think is great for affiliate marketers that are willing to put in the effort, get uncomfortable, start that YouTube channel or whatever it is, and just make it happen.

[00:13:17] John Wright: So the typical listeners of this show, they may be like a solo printer. They have an email list. Maybe they already have a podcast and they have a content site and they're selling, maybe let's just say they're in the gardening niche and they sell like gardening tools and gardening courses. Is that like a good assessment?

[00:13:35] John Wright: Right now, it's been like my previous background comes more from the gambling industry, so I have a lot of gambling affiliates listening in. And it's just been kind of like the nature of who I ask for guests.

[00:13:49] Tom Hunt: Probably about 50% of the guests happen to be SEO and SEO and affiliate marketing are kind of like this odd couple that they can't seem to get away from each other. So yeah, we actually have a mix of people. We have people that are solo printers as affiliates, some that are part of companies that are like 50 plus in size.

[00:14:11] John Wright: Some of these people have aspirations to basically say, you know what, I'm good and I'm going to go ahead and do this on my own and start my own affiliate company. So it's quite the mix.

[00:14:22] Tom Hunt: Got it. Now let's, so let's go back to the SEO point and we can talk about how podcasting helps with FEA. Obviously you mentioned backlinks, like is, is it is like backlinks on autopilot basically. Um, the key here is getting a link from the guests to link back to your podcast posted on your domain. That's like the key one. Um, and so you can just simply ask your guests to do that. You'd be like, here's the episode, feel free to share it and ideally link it. Um, but then of course, no, it's not just the backlinks, right? It's the content, the unique content that can't be AI generated that you're producing quite easily every week or every other week. So SEO and podcasting really do go hand in hand in my opinion.

[00:15:02] Tom Hunt: I agree. Something I'm not doing enough of is, uh, getting those backlinks from, uh, my guests, uh, they come in almost naturally, but I should be more proactive.

[00:15:12] Tom Hunt: Yeah, for sure. So talking about the same stories about what we're doing, like I've, I've got my next question lined up and I'm not going to read it cause it's super long, but it's basically a story. I had this one guy who was trying to pitch me some marketing services and honestly, I can't remember his name or what service he was pitching, but I knew the answer was no, but then I was trying to be like, why do I not want to buy from him? And then I started thinking about who would I buy from today and why? And then I created my list and I think this was a post I did a month ago and I even tagged you on it. I said, these are people I either bought from or I would buy from. And I said, the things that they have in common are the other have a podcast

[00:15:51] Tom Hunt: or they've been on podcasts or they do video where I get a chance to see what they do and more importantly, they also share a lot of content. So I just want to get your take on this, uh, interesting concept of giving away stuff for free, not having a fear that someone's just going to take your stuff, consume it for free. And like the benefits of, of doing things like this.

[00:16:14] John Wright: Yeah. I think who are you explaining is an increase like the, the baseline amount of trust that someone needs to buy something I think is going up and it's going up because it's easier and easier now for people to rep pay themselves through the internet. And so if you have in that case, you're considering buying someone something from someone that you have consumed none of the information, then maybe like a more of a red flag comes up. I think it's going to keep going up and up and up as it becomes easier and easier to create and distribute content on the internet.

[00:16:49] John Wright: So what does it mean for someone listening that's trying to sell some stuff? I think it means you'd have to jump into the arms race. But you want to jump into the arms race in a way where you have a unfair advantage. So let's talk about that. Somebody that they're starting out with a new affiliate in the gambling space. And they, they understand that their conversion numbers are going to go up if they become more famous or they become more known in their space. So what do you do? I think first you look at communication mediums. So we've got written and we got audio, we've got video, and we also have image. Or design or infographic.

[00:17:26] John Wright: Then you probably look back at your history and your skills and your interests. And you're like, have I proven the inability to create any of these that people have liked before? Let's say our hypothetical gambling affiliate has previously written a book. They used to be, they used to work in academia and they've written a paper and they've written a book. So they're awesome at writing. So then you'd be like, okay, we've got the medium writing. And they'd be like, okay, where is the people that I want to buy this stuff? If I assume it's gamblers. So then maybe there's like a social network that has a higher percentage of gamblers. Or maybe it's really just through email that you can find these people

[00:18:06] John Wright: or maybe it's through YouTube or maybe it's through a podcast.

[00:18:09] Tom Hunt: We probably disregard podcast and YouTube because that's audio and video and our person is not skilled at that. So then it's probably just going to be the social platform or the community or the email list.

[00:18:23] Tom Hunt: And so then they probably maybe start writing some stuff and testing those three areas.

[00:18:28] John Wright: And then seeing which one works best and then just doubling down on that. So not starting the podcast and the YouTube channel, et cetera, at the same time, it's just like getting this one thing to work. And once you have that it's, and you've like milk that as much as you can. Then you can consider doing the other things. And what's interesting, just add another point to all of this is in the last five years, streaming has become like a big part of some of these affiliates are like the fastest growing segments in iGaming affiliation. And it goes to say that, I mean, what is streaming? Streaming is live video that eventually could end up on YouTube, could end up

[00:19:07] John Wright: being cut up into clips on TikTok, but I mean, it's the same medium. It's video. And these streamers seem to be very small companies. Like we're talking anywhere from like one to two, three, four, five, one person to 10 people. And they're starting to become a really powerful on what they generate. They're, they're an influential part of these affiliate programs now.

[00:19:30] John Wright: Yeah. I think you have to be, it's like a specific type of person. You have to almost have like a background in acting or have like an awesome voice to, well, you don't have to have that, but I feel like the people that were blowing up really fast, they're almost like actors or like TV stars, right? Like I could not do a YouTube channel or like streaming. Oh, I guess I could be able to take me ages to get good at it because it's just not something that I, I'm that good at. And so I feel like I'm okay on the mic and I like writing. So that's why I've chosen LinkedIn organic and then the podcast, which is actually not video for now, because I don't feel like I'm not going to video yet.

[00:20:06] John Wright: Right. I've seen some companies do shorter podcast series where it's like five episodes and as much as I think they're doing it for link building, I also believe they're doing it for other reasons, like brand building for lead gen. So I just want to get your take. If you've seen a bunch of examples that have done this well.

[00:20:26] Tom Hunt: A specifically short series. Yeah. Like it could be, I've seen it where it's like 20, you know, it's not that they do a podcast and they're concluding it, they're intentionally starting a podcast series that has an end date and it just sits there. It's branded. It's, it's kind of like, you know, a silo that is still discoverable.

[00:20:47] John Wright: Yeah. So put like, if we're trying, if I got this brand awareness, then we typically would advise somebody to keep doing it forever.

[00:20:56] John Wright: When we see people doing these like shorter seasons, there's only a couple of reasons. So one of them is often it can be good bottom of the funnel content. And so let's say you're just talking about trends in an area. Um, though it's almost like content that they use to help their sales team. That's one reason.

[00:21:13] Tom Hunt: Um, another reason sometimes it's just that somebody in the leadership team has like this pet project. They're like, I want to do this. They don't really have real goals, but they have the budget and they want to make something cool.

[00:21:24] John Wright: Um, that's probably the two reasons that I've seen because just having the limited series does, it doesn't in, in my opinion, optimize for growth or, or brand awareness. Um, you can still get the benefits, obviously, of building the relationships with the guests that can be useful. But again, that's much better or that's much more impactful if you keep doing it over time and you get bigger and better guests and you get more well-known. Yeah. So given typically something that we recommend.

[00:21:52] Tom Hunt: What I have seen for the examples that I believe have done it well are people that also have a podcast on the side. And it's kind of like, like my, my personal take on it is I agree with what you said. You should also have something that's continuous. But I also think that this could actually be a great way for someone to do the training wheels. You know, when like I followed your tips and advice, which is be a guest on other people's show, start your first version of the podcast and then, uh, use that as the training wheels to get to the final one, which is what you want to do, and that's exactly what affiliate BI is like I've been a guest on other people's show. Then I started the affiliate interview series and then I started this one.

[00:22:31] Tom Hunt: I think the one in the middle, actually, that might be a good strategy to say, you know what, do five episodes, make it intentional because you know, there's a finality finality to it and it'll tell you if you actually enjoy doing this or not, and it doesn't look like you've set up a project that's, you know, that's failed, like, you know, when you see a someone's podcast and you're like, oh man, this hasn't been done since 2022. You kind of feel like a little bit let down that they haven't continued it when you love their, their content. But if it was intentionally meant as a series that had an end date, uh, that puts a little spin on it.

[00:23:07] John Wright: Yeah. I think great way to dip the toes in without like looking embarrassed or looking not good because you haven't continued it.

[00:23:16] John Wright: So I want to ask you, everyone knows that my favorite podcast is yours. What are some of the podcasts that you listened?

[00:23:22] Tom Hunt: Yeah. So I'll just list them off. My first million, the all in podcast, a load of crypto Bitcoin ones that are trashed by for some reason I'm addicted to them.

[00:23:35] John Wright: Um, I got off my true crime addiction. That was probably about a year and a half. I've, I've, um, I pushed that one back and then I'm actually in the market for the pond podcast is good.

[00:23:51] Tom Hunt: I'm actually in the market for new ones.

[00:23:54] John Wright: So specifically like small business podcast, one that we actually launched that I am now definitely a listener of it's called the small business mentor. So that's just about like really nerdy stuff on small businesses. Like not, these are not VC back companies. These are like super boring small businesses and it's all the, like buying them, selling them, et cetera. So that's what I'm interested in. So I'm in the market. If anybody has any, any good ones, just ping, ping it to me on LinkedIn.

[00:24:20] John Wright: Cool. Um, I listened to the all in podcast. I'm a fan of a Uran. So grow your B2B, uh, SAS, um, podcast as well. And I think there's, yeah, there's a couple more. I got to definitely dig up.

[00:24:35] Tom Hunt: So I want to ask her, what are the three biggest mistakes that you see podcasters do?

[00:24:41] John Wright: Yeah. The three things are a knocking the positioning sufficiently narrow or sexy enough.

[00:24:52] Tom Hunt: So I'll quickly explain a thing. Then we'll go into more detail. B is not being strategic about guests, especially in the early days. And then C not being consistent. So the first one we want, we break down positioning is two things. So first we have the, what we call the niche, which is like the category the show sits in, we want it to be sufficiently narrow, especially in the early days, because it's much easier to find your first listeners. This is very, if it's very specific, the best example I have of that is let's say you have the email marketing software. You don't start a marketing podcast. You don't start an email marketing podcast. You start an open rate podcast, become the number one most downloaded open rate podcast in three, six months. And then you can expand later if you want.

[00:25:32] John Wright: So that's the first is the niche. The second part of positioning is what we call the edge. So here's the thing that a listener would tell their friends about. So my show is called confessions of a B2B marketer. The niche is very clear B2B marketing. The edge is the confessions piece. So I try to get people to share stuff that maybe they wouldn't share.

[00:25:49] Tom Hunt: So having tight, narrow and sexy positioning is like the first thing that will have, I think the biggest impact on whether the show is going to succeed or not, so narrow on the niche and something different, interesting, more controversial of the edge too, is being strategic about guests, especially in the early days, the reason for this is if we can bring on guests that could have some kind of business value to you, whether they become friends, that's not really business value, but some kind of value to you, they can become friends. They can become partners. They can become customers. The reason we say that is because if we can get some good thing from the

[00:26:27] Tom Hunt: guest side in the first six months, then we're much more likely to push through the bullshit of the first year to actually grow the audience. Ultimately, the ROI is on the audience side, but it's hard to get there unless you have something that's driving you.

[00:26:41] John Wright: So it's determined if you think you are, you're going to be much more determined to continue and reinvest and improve the show if you close a deal with a guest or you close a partner with a guest. That's number two.

[00:26:50] Tom Hunt: And then number three is you're simply just being consistent. And if you get the first two right, then being consistent is much more likely to happen because it is going to take you a year to start the audience compounding. How long has this show been running, John?

[00:27:04] John Wright: This one specifically has been running since August 1st, 2023.

[00:27:10] Tom Hunt: Got it. So we're coming up to six months. Yeah.

[00:27:14] Tom Hunt: Nice. Okay. Awesome. And have we, do we have type of fishing? Have we been strategic about guests and are we going to be consistent?

[00:27:21] Tom Hunt: I think we've been mostly consistent. Like I started the Philly interview series over a year ago and that gave me a lot of experience of going, I knew I wanted to launch this podcast a year before even launching it. And like I said, just taking your, your strategy into mind. And yeah, I think we've been pretty strategic about who we want to interview. Yeah. Some of the guests that I've had on the first one, the Philly interview series, I realized I knew which ones I wanted to bring back and, and kind of shift the theme about what I wanted to talk about. And it also gave me a lot of time to think about, well, who would be on

[00:27:57] John Wright: as a guest on this show and what was the theme? So my theme was I tried to apply as best as possible. I think I have, I did it partially right. I wanted to focus on business intelligence and affiliate marketing and be a little bit geeky and strategic to talk about something that was being discussed at conferences, but wasn't being written down and wasn't being recorded on video. It's similar to your confessions concept of going, can I get people to share stuff that they wouldn't normally share? I wanted to dive deep as much as possible and talk about things that I just think aren't being covered, like data science and affiliate marketing is something that people are like, I don't even know what that looks

[00:28:35] John Wright: like and where to start, but what I've realized is that like, I've been partially successful in applying your concept. Now the problem with the Philly BI is that it actually applies to everything. There's business intelligence and SEO. There's business intelligence in design and user experience in product marketing. It's kind of ironic that I'm able to actually capture the entire industry, but still kind of pull it into a single theme. So, um, I think I've done a good job in the intention and I'm getting amazing feedback from people saying that they listened to the show and what they like about it. So I'm, I'm pumped and the guests I have, um, this year, it's actually, last year's guests were all amazing.

[00:29:14] John Wright: And this year I'm getting, I'm starting to get some bigger names that are just saying yes. And some of them are like, you know, tell me a bit of your show metrics. And now I actually have some metrics to share. Um, so that's, that's been really cool.

[00:29:28] John Wright: Definitely the key behind the only other outcome of being consistent is that you build a social proof to get bigger and better guests, you just basically climbing the ladder as soon as you get a big one, you're more likely to get the next one you keep going and going and going. The bigger guests often may have a, like a bigger audience when they share the numbers improve and that helps you with social preview the more. So you just have to keep compounding. And that's why it's so important to get the first and the second one, right. Okay. And maybe like a weird comment that I wanted to share, and I'm, I'm sure you feel the sentiment is I feel grateful to have like some of these amazing guests where if I didn't have the podcast, I don't know how it would have got this interaction going or this network effect.

[00:30:08] John Wright: So I believe this podcast has opened up a lot of doors for networking. And quite often I'll finish the recording that big. I feel like I should have paid this person money for their insights. Like I get the luxury of asking questions, but people that are really good at something that I'm not. And yeah, of course the audience gets to share it, but what's your take on, on this, this, this really valuable part of the podcast. That's super valuable to me.

[00:30:35] Tom Hunt: Yeah. I think as a founder, CEO, I've only just really come into this role recently, but you really need to have like one fit in the business and one for outside the business.

[00:30:46] John Wright: Um, the outside of the business needs to be like, it was going on the market was going on in this space while the new trends and new developments. What better way to do that than to every week, get 30 minutes or an hour with some other thought leader in the space. So I'm totally with you. I don't think that most people, if I get hit and benefit basically of learning and that only accrues to the host.

[00:31:09] John Wright: Um, but it is significant and I think it's extra useful if you're a job in the business is to have one for out. So it might not be the CEO, because if you're ahead of marketing, ahead of sales, it's useful if you have a little bit of a foot outside the business. And maybe you have a different role where it's important for that. So that is 100% a benefit that you only really realize once you start doing it.

[00:31:31] John Wright: I had no idea. I just knew that I felt that podcasting was something that I needed to do for our company, uh, cause I followed you before and then I learned a bit about, uh, your service with Bain. And I felt kind of uncomfortable. I'm like, I don't know if this is going to lead to sales or what benefits is going to happen, but that actually became the number one benefit by longshot. Um, I just think it's interesting that a lot of people don't talk about it, but when I talk with other people that do a podcast, I ask them about this and they're like, yeah, absolutely. This is a, it's, it's definitely the number one benefit and everything else is just, it's just icing.

[00:32:09] Tom Hunt: Nice.

[00:32:10] Tom Hunt: So next I want to talk about the episode where, um, I'm definitely going to butcher his name, uh, the guy, uh, Jacob, is it, is I sick? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you had the episode where you went back and forth talking about what is better to do a podcast of podcasting versus guesting. I actually, by the end of the show, I was kind of leaning towards him as being winning it by only, only from a different context, because I've obviously followed your advice in becoming a podcaster first. Now, what I want to say is that because I've set up the podcast, I believe guessing is now important for me.

[00:32:48] Tom Hunt: Um, but like I said, the last comment we just had, I believe that by being a podcast, um, host yourself, you don't get this network effect. Um, I think the trade-offs are, I believe I'm getting maybe a bit more sales from being a guest, but the network effect is like, like if I had to take a single benefit, it would be this. And so for that reason, I'm, I have to give you the win.

[00:33:13] Tom Hunt: Hmm. Okay. When you say network factor, you mean like building your network through the show? Yeah. Just like having that time where it's like, I'm doing this recording. I feel like I owe this person $500 minimum for their time. You know how you just meet some people that they're like high net worth individuals and I mean, you'd be lucky to be able to like literally hire them out for a thousand or $5,000 an hour. Like, you know, think about some of your biggest guests and the fact that they're giving you time and you don't have to pay for it.

[00:33:42] Tom Hunt: Yeah, for sure. I think my core argument in that debate was the fact that you are not, you're not building your own permission asset. You're not building your own audience. Right. And so if you have your own podcast and you want to advertise something to the audience, you can simply just record a 30 minute ad and send it into your episodes. So that was my main argument. But I think what you're saying is that, and I do believe this is for every episode you do as a guest versus a host, as the guest, you are definitely getting more exposure to new audiences because you're the audience of that show doesn't know you. And so you're getting exposed to that.

[00:34:20] Tom Hunt: Whereas when you're recording an episode, maybe the guests will share it and expose you a little bit to the audience, but, uh, most of the people subscribe to the feed already know who you are. So pros and cons.

[00:34:31] John Wright: Um, I think combined together, uh, they, they have much more power than either of them on their end.

[00:34:39] Tom Hunt: Yeah. My, my, my simple answer is, uh, I think everyone should do both. I mean, you know, following your strategy, be a guest, start your training wheels version of the podcast and then, uh, do the final one where it's got the intention and you've niched down so you can become number one in that area.

[00:34:56] John Wright: Exactly.

[00:34:58] John Wright: And I'm going to follow this up with the last question I ask everyone, which is what do you see the future of affiliate marketing with your experience as it intersects with business intelligence?

[00:35:08] Tom Hunt: Yeah. So I think we'll go back to the point made earlier that the goal of the affiliate is to sell something to somebody and you, your conversion rates are going to increase significantly if they've that person that you're trying to sell something to has consumed information that you've produced.

[00:35:29] John Wright: And so, and I think that the need for that is going to increase with every year.

[00:35:34] John Wright: Because more and more people are having people that they can follow in the business world and therefore more of their spend is going to go towards. So people could they have more influence over them. And so my message here, or my suggestion is for, if you're an affiliate marketer to follow the steps we, we said about 10 minutes ago, which was to choose the medium and then choose the location in which you're going to start producing information in front of these people that you want to influence. And if you do that, you should be able to rise up higher than the baseline, which is also increasing. And then also your competitors to get higher conversion rates and ultimately grow the business. So that's what I see happening. And that would be my advice.

[00:36:14] John Wright: So just to maybe like dig in a bit further, there's been a lot of, I've just heard this from people say this on a lot of podcasts and I believe it to be true. The buying journey for someone to buy someone's SaaS product is become more complicated where there's more touch points and if you can find a great way to build and trust along the way, it's they're consuming content in a different way. You know, referrals word of mouth is becoming more important. Would you say the spider journey has also been changing for the B2C user that would eventually end up on, you know, these product comparison websites?

[00:36:50] Tom Hunt: Interesting. I think what we're seeing, I'm fascinated by celebrities releasing their own brands, like obviously Prime is like the prime example. I think they've sold like X amount of billions last year I heard on a podcast. Um, from basically a standing start just because there's this massive audience of people that can be influenced by the two celebrities.

[00:37:14] Tom Hunt: So I think it's more established in B2C and it's coming more to B2B as well. Yeah. I think it's interesting that talking to Chris Walker, who is, you know, the, the expert of B2B sales is he was saying that, you know, what celebrities do is they're, they're creating demand and affiliates are typically kind of sitting there, just capturing the demand that comes their way. And it's an interesting play that celebrities not only can they create demand, but they're like, why don't I create and capture it at the same time? You know, it's the ability to have your own product or service is maybe a bit easier than it used to be.

[00:37:52] Tom Hunt: Um, and if it's a digital product or service, then it's, that's even easier to have ready to go on a platter.

[00:37:59] John Wright: For sure. He's, he's very wise.

[00:38:02] Tom Hunt: Uh, Tom, this has been amazing. Um, so happy to have you on the show. How can people get hold of you? And just one more plug about, uh, all the amazing things that you do.

[00:38:13] John Wright: Yeah. I think if you have any questions about podcasting, et cetera, just DM me on LinkedIn is Tom hunt, uh, famed at SAO if you want help with the podcast and then of course, confessions of a B2B marketer in Apple Podcast or Spotify, if you want to listen to that show.

[00:38:26] John Wright: And, uh, I've lost track of how many times I've recommended people to you to follow you and to also, uh, check out fame. Um, I basically say, Hey, it's, uh, I've had a lot of help from following all the content that you give out. And I basically said, you can consume Tom's content for a year, but I'd say, just go, uh, cut to the chase and, uh, go straight to fame.

[00:38:48] Tom Hunt: John. I really appreciate that.

[00:38:52] John Wright: Thank you for tuning in to the affiliate BI podcasts. I'd like to take this time to ask for small favor, to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps us expand our reach to rank higher in podcast directories and reach more listeners.