As the online gambling industry continues its maturation, one segment of the industry that’s been asked to progress a bit more than others lately has been affiliates. Bringing an immense amount of knowledge and experience to the topic, Lee-Ann Johnstone, founder of Affiliate Insider, joined CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero to talk about the current trends of affiliate marketing.
The need for affiliate marketing to evolve is created by the industry itself moving forward. “I think one of the things for our industry is that it’s getting a little bit more serious,” Johnstone pointed out. “We need to be a little bit more responsible in terms of how we work with affiliates. Affiliates need to get compliant in terms of how they run their business.”
Affiliate Insider is helping that effort by showing affiliates the right way to mature as a business. “So we actually just did a six-week series on the affiliated side of bad compliance,” she explained. “We partnered up with SMP Partners for that. A lot of the stuff that we do with affiliates, in terms of business coaching, is to help them actually build compliant businesses, to work with operators in a more professional matter. It’s not just about, build them and they’ll come, anymore. So we’re helping business to put right strategies in place, to learn best practices about digital marketing, and to just help people to get connected. That’s really what we’re all about.”
Johnstone’s company has been thriving as more affiliates look for guidance, and she’s got more than 20 years of it. “We’ve been very, very lucky,” she notes. “I’ve obviously been in the industry for quite a while. We’ve picked up a lot of new clients, we’re actually working with people like Vbet, global international brands to help our strategy. We’re working with a lot more affiliates, who are coming to us to actually help them to commercialize their businesses better.”
Anyone looking for a taste of what Johnstone can offer, and to get a better idea of the networking side of the industry, is in luck. “We’ve actually just launched a little series on Facebook, which is totally free to watch every Wednesday morning, where I talk about effective relationship building techniques,” Johnstone offers. She also shared some free tips:
“What affiliates need to do in order to reach affiliate managers, professionally, and also to sell their businesses. So coming prepared to meetings, just simple business practices and sales techniques in order to get the deals done. Building relationships is very key, everybody is interconnected in this industry. So we like to give, build that community value. Our social media channel is free. You can join it, you can join our newsletter, and just get connected to people in the industry, and make use of the network and the relationships that we have.”
Where is the big push to network the most right now? “I think Africa is amazing, a lot of our clients are looking into that area of expertise, and a lot of affiliates are looking to get into that space too,” Johnstone answered. “So watch this space, because as you know, Africa is my homeland, and we’re looking to do some great things there with affiliates to help them get local information into the space and get going in those regions.”
