Elevating Your Online Ministry: Mastering Faith-aligned Brand Collaborations and Affiliate Marketing

Ever wondered how to seamlessly blend your faith with the business savvy needed for forging successful brand collaborations? I'm LeeAnn Fox, and I'm here to walk you through the incredible potential of tapping into affiliate marketing and partnerships to elevate your online ministry. In this episode, I'll reveal why nurturing a bedrock of organic traffic is your golden ticket to making the most out of affiliate links. You'll get a behind-the-scenes look at my journey into the world of digital ministry, where I balance the art of genuine endorsements with strategic brand collaborations. Discover how to harness the power of social media to amplify your message, focusing on one platform to grow a loyal community that resonates with your mission.

As your digital ministry coach, I'm spilling the beans on creating win-win situations with faith-based product brands. Dive into how these symbiotic relationships can be more cost-effective and impactful than traditional advertising, especially for niche audiences like Christian parenting. I'm committed to sharing my blueprint for authenticity, ensuring I only promote products that align with my values and those of my audience. Get the inside scoop on how to build trust and achieve higher conversion rates for brands, from bible-themed subscription boxes to advent blocks and storybooks. It's time to connect with brands that share your faith-driven ethos and take your online ministry to new heights.

If you are interested in taking your digital discipleship to the next level through blogging, YouTube, social media, and/or online Bible study groups, be sure to join my private FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kingdombloggers
You can also follow me on YouTube where you will find a variety of helpful tutorials for navigating each of these important platforms: https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomBloggers

Transcript

LeeAnn Fox: 0:02

Welcome to the Kingdom Influencers podcast, where our mission is to get more Jesus online. This podcast will equip and empower ministry leaders as well as regular everyday Christians to take the message of Jesus Christ throughout the digital realm. I'm your host, LeeAnn Fox, digital Ministry Coach and the creator of the Kingdom Bloggers Ministry, and I am so excited and honored to be a part of this journey with you. Let's get started. Hi everyone, leanne here from Kingdom Bloggers. Today I'm going to talk to you about working with brands. There are two types of ways that you can work with companies. The first is the most obvious and the most common, and that is simply joining their affiliate programs. Most, every company, most, not all, but most every company has an affiliate program. Usually you can find that in a footer link on their company website. Usually it'll say affiliates, or join our affiliate program or work with us, or something of that nature. Work on that and there'll be an application. Whether it's a hosted through the company affiliate program or if it's hosted through a hub such as Share a Sale, it'll direct you to where that application is. Y'all know. I tell you don't go joining affiliate programs until you actually have traffic organic traffic to your websites, because those links simply won't convert if you don't have any traffic. Build your foundation first, but then start thinking about the different programs out there that you could join beyond just Amazon. How does affiliate marketing? Brand collaboration is kind of a different thing. Many companies have both, so kind of working in both aspects of it can really ramp up your earnings. I'm going to talk to you about brand sponsorships and collaborations and stuff like that so you can understand how to get started and also some legal things that you need to be aware of. What is a brand collaboration sponsorship? It's basically where a company, a certain company that you like their products, will either give you free products in exchange for reviews on your site, so they're not paying you money, but they will send you free items so that you can either review it on your website, on YouTube and or through social media, or a combination of all of them, or they will pay you outright a certain amount of money to do the same thing. Now, when you have the affiliate marketing and the collaborations together, then through a collaboration, you're getting paid just to write the post, but you also want to be in their affiliate program, so the links mentioned in the post, if they buy the product will also convert to commissions. So there's the way those two work together With brand awareness, brand collaborations, working with brands.

LeeAnn Fox: 2:34

However you want to say it, you do need to start building a social foundation first. Most brands want to see social media promotion of their stuff because, I mean, let's be honest, that's where everybody's at right now, whether it's Instagram, tiktok, facebook and Twitter, the other channels and so forth. If you're not already active on social media, I would recommend starting with one. Figure out which platform is where your target audience spends most of their time. You don't have to be on all of them. I don't care where anybody tells you, focus on one, build that foundation. And I say focus on one because each platform has its own algorithm and you just go crazy trying to figure out how to do well on all of them at the same time. So just build one at a time.

LeeAnn Fox: 3:16

This is not to say, go into Facebook groups and join those threads where it's like everybody follow me and I'll follow you. That is not what we're talking about here. You want to have genuine, organic followers, people who, because the content that you're putting out there on, say, instagram, people are following you because they found you and they like what you have. That is going to be genuine, organic followers and those are the people who are genuinely going to be interacting with your content. And you know social media and I'll just say this I am not a social media expert. I am actually very minimally on social media About what I do do to there does actually convert well for me, and so I have kind of figured out what my audience wants and how to find my people and so, whether it's just posts, regular posts, more so doing the reels and the videos, like showing people your life, things like that but it's really important that you know your audience on social media. If you're just sharing like static image versus every day, there's really not a lot of engagement and a lot of clicks are gonna happen to that.

LeeAnn Fox: 4:17

So showing you using a Bible, let's say, bible study is your niche, using different Bible study tools that you have purchased and you genuinely use and why you like it that kind of stuff is what gets engagement and gets people following, because they see you doing, not just showing, if that makes sense. If you're not yet with brands, you haven't gotten to the point that you feel confident to reach out to them. You can start building up sort of your credibility, if you will. Anytime you purchase something. You know I just ordered a She-Reach-Truth Bible, so I'm gonna be showing that all over, you know, in some little videos and things like that. But anytime you show the product that you're using, tag the company, even if you're I mean, this is like before you're an affiliate, before you're working with them in any manner tag them so that they can see hey, this person shares a lot about our stuff and they're constantly tagging us and we can see that their posts are getting a lot of engagement. If I was the marketing person for my company and I saw that, I would see you as a good risk as far as sending you free product, because I would sort of, based on seeing how much engagement you're getting on your content, I would feel that by giving you free product, chances are you're gonna make sales right, and so that's kind of what it comes down to.

LeeAnn Fox: 5:33

Now. You know you can't put direct links really on Instagram. When you can't, it just have to be like a ridiculous amount of followers, and that's why your link in BioPage is so important to have it set up for this type of strategy. But tag those brands when you use it. You know hashtag. If the brand has hashtags, use those hashtags, and that way you start building an awareness of your profile to the brands that you're eventually wanting to reach out to. Then, when you finally feel like, hey, I've got, you know, good followers, I've got good engagement, I'm gonna start reaching out to them directly. Many of them have just in their website, somewhere in the footer, a way to reach out. A lot of them now actually have influencer contact aside from just the affiliate program, but you could also just reach out to them directly through a DM on their Instagram. That is a very common way to reach out and just say, hey, I was interested, I use your products a lot, my audience would really love them. Yada, yada, yada.

LeeAnn Fox: 6:27

What kind of collaboration opportunities do you have? This has worked for me. I have been reaching out lately to a lot of different companies and have had wonderful success with it, and so that is kind of how I got started. Actually, the very first collaboration that I got, they reached out to me because what I don't remember which product, it was one of my Bible journal products. They went looking online. They were Googling that type of kind of keyword to see what pages were coming up on page one. So let's say, if I had a prayer journal and that was my company's product, I would go to Google and just type in how to start a prayer journal.

LeeAnn Fox: 7:02

What are the best prayer journals? You know all the queries with prayer journal and all the bloggers whose content showed up on page one. I would be reaching out to them saying, hey, we have this wonderful prayer journal. We notice you, know you have great content about it. We would love to send you a free journal in exchange for an honest review and, by the way, you can also join our affiliate program, right. And so that traffic y'all know I'm all about the blog. Traffic is a way that companies can actually find you, because if they're marketing people are actually worth their weight. They're going to look for the organic sources of traffic that will sell their product, and so that is how one reach out to me.

LeeAnn Fox: 7:42

They sent me a free item and then, of course, I did. I had to do a lot of. I had to do six things. I had to do blog posts, youtube and then several social media posts about it. But hey, I'm good. That got me more active in social media and gave me more content. Beyond that, there's a lot of different companies. You know the Daily Grace Co. You guys know I love their products. I am constantly buying them for myself, buying them as guests. Well, they have an affiliate program and they recently moved it over to called the Shopify Collabs, and in there it's just so much better. They send out free stuff to their affiliates and so forth, so that's a really great program.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:20

They do have very strict requirements on that you have an active social following or you have significant organic blog traffic. When I first applied, it was at a time that I wasn't doing social media, and so initially they declined my application and so I wrote back to them. I replied to their declining email and I said hey, I really love your stuff and although I'm not active on social media, I have three websites that together generate about 200,000 visitors a month between the three of them, and that is organic traffic. And so through that I also have my email list, and so in that capacity, my readers are looking for Bible study resources. So I sent that to them and they immediately replied back and approved my application, and I've been with them for three years now.

LeeAnn Fox: 9:05

Don't ever take no for your first answer, like if you really feel that you can sell their product, definitely kind of reply back with some data, some statistics. But you gotta have that data, you gotta have that traffic, you gotta have that social engagement or email list and so forth. The Daily Grace is one. I'm actually gonna share a link down in the notes to some companies that I have been working with, either as a direct affiliate or as collaboration slash influencer style manner, but it is again very important. They have to understand If they're sending you free stuff, you have to make it worth their while. They're not just gonna send it to you because you're like, oh, I'll promote your stuff. If you don't have an organic audience, you're not gonna sell their product. Therefore, they just wasted money sending you their product. So don't start signing up for things if your foundation is not yet ready for that. But once you do start getting that whether it's the blog or social media, whichever one, that would be the time.

LeeAnn Fox: 9:56

Now some legal things to keep in mind when you're working with brands. You already know about affiliate marketing. You must disclose the use of affiliate links in your post. Right, and it has to be. That disclosure has to be there before the insertion of any affiliate link. If you're an Amazon affiliate, you also have to have their little blurb on your site. Working directly with brands, the Federal Trade Commission actually does regulate this stuff and so, legally, there are some things you have to keep in mind. When someone, a company, sends you free product, for example, you have to disclose that in your content. So if you're doing a review whether it's a video review, a blog post, reviewer is just sharing it on social media and they've asked you to do a review of it on there you have to disclose that you were given this item for free in exchange for a review. You have to disclose that, okay.

LeeAnn Fox: 10:42

Also, all the free stuff that you get from companies. You need to keep an itemized list of those things and the approximate value of each one of them, because you have to include that as income when you do your federal taxes. I was. I just received a spiral Bible this week to do a review on. They sent it to me for free, so I just have a spreadsheet. I put the date that I received it, the company information, the item name and then their value according to the invoice they sent me, the packing slip, and so at the end of the year I do have to include that as in kind, in like. I don't know what they classified as in the taxes, but you do have to count that as income, the monetary value because you are receiving these items and so it's very even if it's something that's like $2, you still need to account for it when you do your federal taxes. I'm not a tax person, not giving legal advice, so these are things you should discuss with your accountant or your tax person. But just know, all that free stuff you're getting from companies, you have to account for it.

LeeAnn Fox: 11:41

How to find brands get on social media, of course, follow other channels that kind of have the same target audience that you have and look at the kind of products they're like in collaborations with. They usually will tag those companies. So go to those companies, check out their website, see if there's a direct application. If not, send them a DM. Like I said in the beginning, before you even get to that point, start reviewing products. Now, all the stuff you're buying. I said the she Reads Truth Bible. I got that and it's sitting. It's actually right here. Haven't even opened it yet. I bought that for me, bought it on Amazon. So I'm gonna do a review for it. I'll probably do YouTube, couple of social media and so forth, but I'll tag the brand Again, building up my credibility as someone with an audience that likes to review Bible study type resources.

LeeAnn Fox: 12:26

Whatever your audience is maybe your Christian parenting there's a ton of faith-based products brand that produce these type of products.

LeeAnn Fox: 12:35

Hello, bible things like subscription boxes, advent blocks, story books, things like that Reach out to those companies. It's cheaper for them to work with you so that you can promote their products than it is for them to hire and pay for advertising. I don't know if you knew that it is so much cheaper for companies and much more effective for them to work directly with influencers who have a whole audience. Then for them to budget a certain amount of money a ridiculous amount of money for radio and TV and advertising and all those things, that's expensive. Just come to us, give me free stuff or pay me for it either way, and then I will then put it out to my audience and that is going to have a much better conversion because I am only gonna recommend products that I can actually look at, say, hey, this is good. I will never recommend junk to y'all, and most of y'all know that If you have any questions at all, hop over to my Facebook group and I hope to see y'all tagging some companies and social media soon.