Building An Affiliate Marketing Business With Joshua Kennedy

Last Updated on December 15, 2020

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About Joshua Kennedy

I started working in digital marketing in April of 2017 and was fired by my employer within one month. I started with another company in July of 2017 and by September, I launched an affiliate program for my new employer (health and wellness company) on the fly / without experience. In the first year of the program, it grew from zero to around $200,000 and by the end of year two, it grew to around $500,000 a month for three brands on premier platform, Impact Radius.

After requesting a raise based on the performance of the program I created, and having that denied, I decided to leave the company and later start my own business.

About Imagine Marketing

The name of my company is Imagine Marketing (imagine-affiliate.com), and it was founded in January 2020. In my role before as an affiliate manager, I founded the program so I figured the transition to business owner wouldn’t be all that much different. I started it because I had the belief that I could do it, and that I would recoup more of the value I created compared to my previous roles. Because of my background in affiliate marketing, it initially started started out as an affiliate marketing agency, targeted at growing health and wellness e-commerce brands. After a few months of building the company, I realized that the company was as much a network as an affiliate marketing agency. So now my primary focus is bringing on as many health and wellness brands as possible and develop as many longstanding affiliate relationships as possible. It now has a sort of sub-affiliate model to where I train part-time subcontractors as well. As the business grows, I want to reinvest in building better health and more community for consumers.

Contents

How Did You Get Your First Several Customers Or Users? How Many Users Or Customers Do You Have Now?

My first client came through FB group around socially conscious entrepreneurship. Some of my other clients came through online networking. The rest of my clients have come through referrals or LinkedIn. I have around 6-7 brands on the network.

How Does Your Company Grow And Acquire New Customers?

Well, we deal with b2c and b2b. On b2b, it’s a lot about specifically targeted outreach – understanding who our client profile is and then working backwards. As far as affiliate relationships, we do a lot of research and individualized email outreach to build those. For b2c, we utilize affiliate relationships across a variety of channels – cpc, cashback partners, influencers, publishers, etc. to build referral traffic that turns into customers for our clients.

What Actionable Tips And Tricks Do You Have For New Founders Who Are Looking To Get Their First Thousand Users Or Dollars?

– take an appraisal of the tools / technology in your industry to see what you can use
– use a variety of recruiting tactics to find clients, including inbound methodology
– understand your ideal client or customer – then study their behavior
– leverage interns for help
– model after successful competitors