TCC Podcast #278: Building Your Launch Strategy, Growing Your Network, and Utilizing Affiliate Marketing to Expand Your Reach with Laura Sprinkle

Laura Sprinkle is our guest for the 278th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Laura is an affiliate partnerships strategist and has worked with people like Amy Porterfield, Selena Soo, and Todd Herman. Launching can be challenging, but adding an affiliate program could give your launch the eyes it deserves to increase sales and reach. Laura breaks it down like this: Laura’s fascination with the ability to sell what you create. Early beginnings as a health coach and how she transitioned to the marketing side of business. How she bumped into big names like Selena Soo and Todd Herman – you never know who you know. What’s working in the launch space vs what isn’t. How to elevate your VIP experience with clients to make deeper connections. Why it’s important to focus on prelaunch – and guidelines on how to make it work. The differences in each style of launch and knowing which is right for you. Deciding what you want to be known for. Navigating multiple offers and how to not dilute or confuse your audience. The importance of content and media repurposing. The benefits of being an affiliate for a program – and how to express that to affiliates. How to find good affiliate partners through the rings of recruitment. Are affiliate partnerships for first time launchers? How to build relationships and network without the aim of just getting something out of it using the 4 wins exercise. Affiliate program best practices… and what to avoid. How her team is set up to help her attain maximum productivity and function. Money mindset – being expensive but worth it. How to reframe failure to raise your rates. Tune into the episode and learn how to implement affiliate marketing into your business. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Club In Real Life Event Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Laura’s starter kit Episode 124 Episode 239 Jonnie’s website    Full Transcript: Kira:  You know you've got a great offer to sell and it's been proven to do well and get your clients results. But now you're looking to expand your reach and help even more people. On this episode of The Copywriter Club, podcast, affiliate marketing expert, Laura Sprinkle, joins us to walk through what it takes to create a successful marketing strategy and how to utilize affiliate marketing to get your offer in the hands of other people's audiences. Joining me today is a very special guest, Jonnie Stellar. Jonnie is one of the most talented copywriters I have worked with. I've worked with Jonnie on many different projects over the years. Jonnie has written copy for TCC. And his most recently worked with a big marketing agency. So, thank you, Jonnie for joining me today and cohosting. I appreciate it. Jonnie:  Absolutely. I'm so excited to have dusted off my podcast mic that I never used. Yeah. It's such a pleasure to be here again with you, Kira, for the second time I've been on the podcast. Kira:  Yes. All right. So, before Jonnie, we jump in, I'm just going to share our sponsor, TCCIRL. This is not anything new. We have our big event coming up. It's coming up fast. So, we are traveling to Nashville, Tennessee on March 28th through 30th. We're going to host our event in person after a hiatus and last year going online. And we're really excited just to see so many writers in one room. We can't wait. And I could read the promotional blurb in front of me. But I'd rather just ask you, Jonnie, you've been to our event. Can you share what stood out the most to you? Why was it worth it for you to be at TCCIRL? Jonnie:  Yeah. I think I believe I've been to three TCCIRLs of two for sure. First one was in New York and then the second one was most recently last year in, I'm sorry, in 2021 in San Diego. Sorry, if I'm getting my years mixed up. Kira:  It's all a blur. It's all the years are a blur now. Jonnie:  I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. Because it's definitely been like just such a huge for the past year and a half. So, I'm kind of getting my wires crossed here. But I do know one thing is for sure, something that really stands out. At least the highlight of some of the past couple of my years of life has absolutely been attending TCCIRL. Everything from walking away with, I mean, stuff you can't read on the internet, stuff that you can't learn anywhere else. And then, the connections that you make with the other copywriters as well. I mean the importance of making these connections that could essentially last you a lifetime. And just as fun. It's like, it was one of the best. And I've been to a lot of copywriter conferences before, by the way, just like marketing conferences. And this stood out for me so much, just because, well, you and Rob were there. And I noted on the podcast forever before I even ever reached out to you. And the way that just the entire event flowed. And you had the best speakers. I mean, even last year, when all the things went down the year before, it was you still had the most incredible speakers that I still follow to this day and that I still get so much value from. And so, I hope I'm not overselling it. But I definitely think that all of us need to get out of the house and just get your butt to TCCIRL this year. Kira:  Yes. All of us need to get out of the house. I agree with that. So, if you are listening to Jonnie and it sounds like something you'd be interested in, you can find out more information and head over to the copywriterclub.com/TCCIRL-2022, and we will link to it in the show notes. So, let's jump into the interview with Laura. Okay. So, we're got to kick off with your story. How did you end up as an affiliate launch strategist? How did you get here where you are today? Laura:  I ended up here well, for a variety of reasons. But I would say that the biggest thing was that I was really, really fascinated with launches and with people getting their ideas out of their head and into the world and the fact that as entrepreneurs, we literally just create things from our minds and then sell them. I just think it's so fascinating. But before that, I was actually a health coach. So, I created a program called She's Got Guts and I had a book, and I was getting it out there, and I made some traction. And I found that when people would ask me about what they should eat and about their health, I really felt uncomfortable answering. I really didn't care that much, not care that much, but I just was like, you need to figure it out for yourself what you should eat. And when I really, really thought about it, I really enjoyed the putting together of the programs and coming up with the marketing strategies and all of that. I didn't care as much about how many carbs you should eat and all of that jazz. So, I went into the marketing side of things. And through that, it was actually Selena Soo. I was working on her launch and she invited me to be her affiliate manager. I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew her launch well. I needed money. I was like, "Sure, let's do it." And really fell in love with it. So, it was just that divine invitation, I guess, to join this world, and that's how I got started. Rob:  So, I love that story. I'm curious, what was the She's Got Guts program? Obviously, there was some of that stuff you didn't like, but what did it promise? What was the transformation? Laura:  Yeah. It's so funny. It's been so many years now. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, what was in that program?" I wrote a book too. I'm like, "What was in that book. I wonder if it's any good." But I talked about gut health primarily. And at the same time, I remember my course being nothing about health. It was a lot about getting in touch with your intuition. It was about following your gut. And it was about how when you dive into your health and when you take care of your belly, which is in the chakras, if you follow chakras at all, but your gut health is really related to your sense of self and your confidence in the world. So, I talked a lot about that as well. Kira:  Okay. I might need the book. Laura:  Here, you think we're talking about affiliates. So, we're got to talk about some gut health right now. Kira:  Different direction today. Sorry, Rob for jumping. Rob:  No. I was just got to ask, as you were launching that, were you doing anything specific? Or obviously, this is your first foray into launching a product or whatever, how did that go, what did that look like? Laura:  Yeah. So, I took B-school. And I put together the program. I spent so many hours I remember on the website and creating graphics and the videos and filming and all of that. And then my quote launch was really, I posted a few times on social media. I think I did like a challenge. And I sent some emails to my pretty small audience. Actually, I also ran Facebook ads. I had no idea what I was doing. But I probably spent $1,000 on ads. And I maybe have 10 people join my program. It was $99. I may be conflating two different versions of this launch. I think I launched it twice. And I say now all the time. If I had known about affiliates, if I had known that partnerships was a thing, I would probably still be doing that because it would have just worked a lot better than what I actually did. Kira:  And I know you mentioned, you met Selena Soo and kind of got started with her. I know, you've also worked with other big names in our space, Amy Porterfield, Todd Herman. Can you just share how did you end up bumping into Selena? And because it's a big client, big name, and so, could you reverse engineer that for anyone listening? Laura:  Yeah, definitely. So, the way I got connected to Selena was I joined Todd Herman's 90-day year program. And at the time, I was having a lot more time on my hands than money, I would say.