You already recommend products, tools, and opportunities to people around you, whether you realise it or not. It happens in everyday conversations, WhatsApp groups, LinkedIn messages, and even when someone casually asks you for advice about how to grow their career or improve their skills. The difference now is that you can earn from those recommendations—up to ₦480,000/month, or ₦5.76M/year.

Since we officially launched the MIA Academy in January, something interesting has been happening. People who went through the bootcamp started telling their friends about it. Alumni shared it in WhatsApp groups. Coaches recommended it to mentees. Community members dropped the link in conversations without anyone asking them to. We didn’t build a referral engine. The community built one for us.

The MIA Academy Affiliate Program is our way of making that worth their while. If you’ve been recommending MIA products to people, you can now earn 40% on every sale that comes through your link. This article breaks down how the program works, what you can earn, and how to get started.

The MIA Academy runs bootcamps where marketers build skills in product marketing, growth, GTM, and AI while working on real projects.

How the MIA academy affiliate program works

The structure is simple. You apply to the program, get a unique Selar affiliate link, and share it with your network. Every time someone buys an MIA Academy product through your link, you earn 40% commission.

The earnings process is also designed to be fast and transparent. Your commission lands in your Selar wallet the next day, so you are not waiting for 30 or 60 days before you can access your money. There is no minimum payout threshold, which means you can withdraw to your bank account whenever you want.

Your affiliate link is not limited to a single product. It covers every product available on the MIA Academy store, so you do not need to generate different links for different offers. One link gives you access to promote everything, and all your activity is tracked within one dashboard.

Selar’s affiliate system handles the tracking itself. Your dashboard shows clicks, views, conversions, and total earnings in real-time. You get an email notification on every sale. There is also a 180-day cookie window attached to your link. This means that if someone clicks your link today and decides to buy four months later, the system still attributes that sale to you, and you still earn your commission.

You can include it in a LinkedIn post where you talk about your experience. You can also share it in a conversation with someone who is looking to learn marketing. If you prefer a more visual guide, there is a video walkthrough available that explains the full setup process step by step.

The math: what you can actually earn

A single Pro Bootcamp referral earns you ₦30,000 in commission. Refer 10 people in a month and that is ₦300,000. Maintain that consistently over a year, and you are looking at ₦3.6 million from referrals alone.

That is the simple headline number, but the real opportunity becomes clearer when you look at the full product catalog. MIA Academy serves two main audiences, with two main offers.

• For marketers in tech, the Pro Bootcamp is ₦75,000. Every referral earns you ₦30,000.

• For business owners, the Online Marketing Bundle is ₦45,000. Every referral earns you ₦18,000.

Now, because of the 180-day cookie window, the content and links you share today can continue generating sales months later. Over time, this creates a compounding effect.

Check out the MIA Academy, where modern marketers learn applied product marketing, growth, GTM, and AI skills taught through real execution, feedback, and systems you can use at work.

Who this is for

This program is best for people who already have a relationship with their audience and can speak from a place of trust.

• MIA Academy alumni and past product buyers – You went through the programs. You know what they deliver. You can talk about specific modules, specific outcomes, and specific things you built during the bootcamp. That credibility converts better than any ad copy. If you bought a handbook and it helped you set up your own ads, you can speak to that with specificity that no promotional email can match.

• Career coaches, mentors, and educators – If you work with people who are trying to break into tech marketing, land remote roles, or build structured skills, MIA Academy products are a natural fit for your recommendations. The bootcamp produces 12 portfolio pieces. The self-paced courses come with handbooks. These are practical tools you can point people toward and know they’ll get something concrete out of it.

• Content creators in marketing, tech, remote work, or personal development – If your audience overlaps with people trying to grow their marketing careers, transition into tech, or build their business online, MIA products solve real problems for them. You’re already creating content in this space. The affiliate link lets you earn when your recommendations convert.

• MIA community members – If you’re in the WhatsApp group, the LinkedIn community, or you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you probably already know people who would benefit from the bootcamp or the handbooks. Now you can share with a tracked link and earn from it.

How to get started

The whole setup takes less than 10 minutes.

• Step 1: Apply. Fill out the affiliate application form. It takes 2 minutes. You’ll get confirmation within 24-48 hours.

• Step 2: Get your link. Once approved, you’ll receive your unique affiliate link via email from Selar. You can find it anytime at selar.com/me/affiliatelinks.

• Step 3: Set up your dashboard. Your Selar affiliate dashboard tracks everything. Set up your bank details immediately so there’s no delay when the first commission comes in.

• Step 4: Access the resource kit. The Google Drive folder has promotional copy, creative assets, product one-pagers, and promotion playbooks. You don’t have to write anything from scratch.

• Step 5: Join the affiliate WhatsApp group. This is where affiliates share tips, get updates on new products, and ask questions directly.

• Step 6: Make your first share. Pick the product that fits your audience best and post within 48 hours. The sooner you start, the sooner the 180-day cookie starts working for you.

How to promote without being spammy

The golden rule: lead with value, not the link. Tell a story. Share a problem the product solves. Be honest about who it’s for. People buy from people they trust.

The content types that convert best are personal stories (“here’s how I used this to land a remote marketing role”), honest reviews (“I went through the MIA bootcamp, here’s the good and the bad”), how-to content (teach one concept, then point to the full program), and comparison posts (“MIA Bootcamp vs. free YouTube learning: which is worth your time?”).

WhatsApp is the highest-converting channel for Nigerian affiliates. Broadcast lists segmented by interest, status updates 3-4x per week, mixing educational content with product mentions, and DM conversations where you share the link as a genuine recommendation when someone asks about courses or career transitions.

LinkedIn and Twitter/X work well for longer-form content. Write threads on marketing concepts or career transitions. Share lessons learned. Mention MIA products where they’re genuinely relevant. The newsletter link in your post helps, but the real conversion happens when your audience trusts that you’re recommending something you’ve actually used.

Instagram works for feed carousels, stories with polls or question stickers about marketing topics, and short Reels sharing a tip with “link in bio” at the end.

What you should never do: spam links in groups without context, make false income or job guarantees, cold-DM strangers with nothing but a product link, or bid on “MIA Academy” or “Marketing In Action” as paid ad keywords.

Why we built this

I built MIA with community input. Every bootcamp, handbook, and template was shaped by feedback from the people who used them. The affiliate program is the next step in that same direction: letting the community participate in MIA’s growth, not just its consumption.

The best growth channel for MIA Academy since January has not been ads, SEO, or content marketing. It has been people. Alumni who went through the programs and told their colleagues. Coaches who pointed mentees toward the bootcamp. Community members who shared the Selar link in WhatsApp groups.

None of them were paid to do it. They did it because they found value in the programs and wanted others to benefit too. The affiliate program formalizes that. It doesn’t change the behavior. It just makes the behavior worth something financially.

If you’ve been telling people about MIA Academy, now that recommendation pays. And the math is simple. Ten Bootcamp referrals is ₦300,000. Build that as a monthly habit and you’re looking at ₦3.6 million a year. Add a few bundle referrals and it grows from there.

Apply to the MIA Academy Affiliate Program and start earning from the recommendations you are already making.

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MIA is trusted by 2,000+ marketers across Africa, the US, and Europe, helping you put marketing in action better, faster, and with context.

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I built a set of marketing agent skills for Claude based on how I actually do product marketing, GTM strategy, and growth work.

See demo:

Each skill is designed to help Claude reason like a marketer. It analyzes context, clarifies positioning, breaks down decisions, and produces outputs you can actually use, from strategy to execution.

Get the skills on GitHub: https://github.com/realjaymes/marketingagentskills

I am currently experimenting with vibe coding, and this is one of the projects I’m building with that knowledge.

This repo is the Claude skills version of the MIA Resources I have developed:

• Product Marketing Templates & Resources Library: 50+ Product & Growth Marketing templates, frameworks, and resources to execute marketing with clarity.

• AI Prompt Frameworks & Templates for Marketers: 50+ frameworks and templates that marketers and founders use to produce consistent, high-quality outputs from AI tools like ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects, Gemini Gems, Custom GPTs & OpenAI Assistants.

The problem that agent skills solve is that every new ChatGPT/Claude project or custom GPT currently forces you to start from scratch. You have to manually recreate prompts, reupload knowledge files, and re-explain context each time. When you switch from one AI tool to another, none of that logic carries over, so you end up doing fresh customization just to get back to a usable baseline.

Agent skills move that logic out of individual prompts and into reusable reasoning patterns. Instead of rebuilding context per project or per tool, you define how the AI should think once and apply it across workflows, projects, and assistants. That makes AI setups more portable, more consistent, and far easier to maintain as your work becomes more technical.

These skills make it easier to unify and apply the knowledge and prompts from the knowledge files and custom GPTs/prompts. Get the skills on GitHub here.

PS: If you want to brush up on prompt engineering and custom GPTs, check out this workshop and recap article where I show you how to build AI workflows for ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

🔍 How to use this

The skills are grouped into two main areas:

1—Strategy & GTM Thinking Skills

Use these when you need clarity before execution.

Examples include: product positioning, product messaging, product launch and GTM, marketing ideas, product ideas, landing pages and SaaS pages, ICP and customer segmentation, case studies, experimentation, performance marketing, and lifecycle marketing campaigns.

2—Execution & Optimization Skills

Use these to turn decisions into action.

This includes: outbound GTM with Clay, workflow automation with n8n and OpenClaw, AI humanization, and vibe-coding marketing agents.

For every skill, Claude can:

• Analyze your situation and assumptions

• Ask the right clarifying questions

• Generate structured outputs you can directly apply

• Adapt recommendations based on your stage, market, and constraints

🧭 Why this exists

I created this for marketers like me who are getting their hands dirty with the technical side. People exploring GTM engineering, vibecoding workflows, and using AI to actually build, not just brainstorm.

If you have feedback or think there’s a skill that should be included, drop me a note on Twitter/X or LinkedIn.

The MIA WhatsApp Community is open. It’s where marketers like you network, share insights, give feedback, and gossip (what’s trending).

Also, don’t forget to check out the MIA Academy, where modern marketers learn applied product marketing, growth, GTM, and AI skills taught through real execution, feedback, and systems you can use at work.

I launched MIA as a newsletter in May 2024, and it was born out of my own frustrations. In the last 7+ years, I’ve been the first marketing hire (or solo marketer) at nine different startups. When you’re in this position, the responsibility falls entirely on you to build everything from scratch:

• Setting up the marketing function and strategy

• Defining OKRs and success metrics

• Establishing budgets for campaigns

• Outlining team roles and hiring needs

• Creating execution playbooks for marketing projects and tasks e.g. landing pages, paid ads, events (physical and virtual), co-marketing, SEO, content, lifecycle marketing, etc.

The way I navigated this was by leaning heavily on documentation and research. I studied how senior marketers before me had solved similar challenges, and I built on their systems and models. Early in my career, I relied a lot on templates from HubSpot, and as I grew in marketing, I began learning from advanced frameworks shared by leaders like Brian Balfour, Emily Kramer, and Julian Shapiro.

Over time, I combined these influences into my own custom playbooks and resources, which eventually led to launching the Marketing In Action (MIA) Newsletter. Today, MIA is everything you need to put marketing into action—templates, frameworks, community, data, insights, case studies, ideas, martech and GTM tools, with the MIA Academy to build real product, growth, and go-to-market skills through hands-on execution.

The lesson here is that documentation is leverage. When you take the time to capture what you’re learning—whether through notes, templates, or frameworks—you’re not just solving problems for yourself, you’re creating resources you (and others) can reuse and improve over time.

Sharing that documentation is equally powerful. It turns individual lessons into collective knowledge, builds trust within communities, and often opens doors you didn’t even know existed. That’s why I started Marketing In Action—to move from just “figuring things out” to building a community of knowledge that others can learn from too.

What went well this year?

We’ve seen a lot of growth.

Here are some of the wins we recorded in 2025:

1,000+ active subscribers and 37.6k views.

To picture this visually, this is what 1,000 people look like. A packed theater, with no empty seats.

We have readership across 86 countries, primarily Nigeria (46%), United States (32%), United Kingdom (5%), India, Canada, Ireland, Germany, and other global markets (22%).

Our audience is spread across 7 regions; Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Oceania, Caribbean & Central America.

200 engaged community members on WhatsApp

After much deliberation considering options like LinkedIn Groups, Slack, and Telegram, we launched a WhatsApp Community. It’s where we share, learn, network and gossip.

Published 41 newsletter issues.

Specifically, we published 12 interviews with marketers, 5 marketing playbooks, 8 marketing case studies, 10 product showcases, and 4 podcasts.

These were some of the best reads:

https://www.marketinginaction.x

It turns out that you really love our growth case studies.

2.9 average search position, 10 domain rating, 124 backlinks, 39 referring domains.

Our work earned us referrals, recommendations, backlinks, a few collaborations, and press mentions, all of which helped boost our search rankings and backlink profile.

We’ve launched the MIA Academy.

MIA Academy is where modern marketers build real product, growth, and go-to-market skills through hands-on execution. What we’re trying to accomplish with the academy is simple: Reduce the gap between learning marketing and doing marketing.

If you’re ready for this kind of intense, execution-focused experience—or know someone who is—please share this with them. There’s a short quiz to take right now for a chance to get a full scholarship to the MIA Academy program!

The first cohort starts on February 2, 2026.

Join the Bootcamp!

We hosted our first event.

I delivered a virtual workshop on building prompt systems, human-sounding AI writing, and real GTM use cases for marketers and founders. You can read and watch the replay here.

Collaborated with 2 brand sponsors.

A few brands reached out to feature on our Product Showcase series, as they were looking for high-quality, long-form product reviews with an engaged audience. They left us with glowing reviews.

If you want to collaborate or feature your product in this newsletter and within our community channels, check out our media kit, and shoot me an email.

What didn’t go so well this year?

I don’t think we did half bad. The only thing we didn’t do this year was launch on Product Hunt, but that’s okay.

What next for MIA in 2026?

We’ll build on the existing momentum, and that also means:

Hosting MIA’s first Physical Event.

Marketing & Chill is going to be MIA’s signature community hangout where Africa’s most curious marketers, founders, and creators come together to connect, learn, and vibe in real life. The goal is to have the meetup in March. Register in advance. You will love it.

Publishing the State of Marketing in African Tech Report.

Marketers across Africa often struggle to find reliable data to benchmark their performance. We’re fixing that with a new multi-industry project—the State of Marketing in African Tech.

It will cover SaaS, FinTech, Web3, Healthtech, Edtech, HRtech, Agritech, Ecommerce, Energytech, Marketplaces, Entertainment Tech, Creators, and Agencies.

If you work in any African tech industry, take the 5-minute survey here.

Launching more tools, templates and resources.

We’ll be launching a number of resources, including: AI Tools, Marketing Products, and Notion Templates. You’ll find all launches here.

As a valued member of the MIA community, you get 20% off all MIA handbooks and templates when you use the code: MIA Community.

Here are some of the products we’ve launched from the MIA Academy:

🧩 Product & Growth Marketing Templates & Resources

Get access to 50+ Product & Growth Marketing templates, frameworks, and resources to execute marketing with clarity. Get access here.

🤖 AI Prompt Frameworks & Templates for Marketers

Get the frameworks and templates that 200+ marketers and founders use to produce consistent, high-quality outputs from AI. Prompting engineering techniques for every AI tool and platform.

📘 Growth Marketing Handbook for Growth Marketers

Master Growth Marketing across AARRR metrics, ads, onboarding, content, and more with the Complete Growth Marketing Handbook.

Thank you for being part of this journey—reading, sharing, and supporting Marketing In Action.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

—James

What went well this year?

In May 2024, I launched MIA and brought it to life.

Marketing In Action was born out of my experience over the past six years as the first marketing hire or a solo marketer at nine different startups—both bootstrapped and venture-funded. The biggest challenges I faced were finding ready-to-use marketing templates, frameworks, and first-hand benchmarking data.

So I decided to solve the problem for myself and thousands of marketers and founders struggling in the same shoes.

The MIA community has grown into a thriving space where marketers and founders can connect, share knowledge, and grow together.

We’ve seen a lot of growth.

Here are some of the wins we recorded in 2024:

542 active subscribers in 7 months.

My goal for 2024 was to reach 1,000 subscribers organically. While we hit 54% of that target, it’s not half bad for a new publication! For context, we’ve outpaced the typical growth range for niche publications, which is usually between 300–500 subscribers.

At one point, we reached 625 subscribers, but I periodically clean the list to ensure we’re only emailing those who want to hear from us. And if you ever feel like you’d rather not receive our emails, you’re always welcome to opt-out.

Right now, our audience is enough to fill a theater.

47.52% average open rate.

Our open rate is 122.9% higher than the industry average (21.33%). That’s why I prioritize subscriber engagement over building a massive broadcast list with low engagement.

Published 22 newsletter issues with 8,000+ reads.

In just 7 months, we’ve been putting out content that people actually read—averaging about 1,000 views every month.

These were some of the best reads:

2.9 average search position, 8 domain rating, 51 backlinks, 16 referring domains.

Our work earned us referrals, recommendations, backlinks, a few collaborations, and press mentions, all of which helped boost our search rankings and backlink profile.

We’ve launched a few publications and reports.

Our major publication features step-by-step guides, templates, and resources in Notion, Google Docs, and Google Sheets that help marketers and founders put marketing theory into practice.

We’re also doing interviews with marketers and founders to glean first-hand insights in driving growth and innovation.

We launched the MIA Podcast where we are putting marketing into action, one conversation at a time. The first episode featured Gemini and Bard as AI hosts, sharing their thoughts on what the MIA Newsletter is all about.

In addition to our regular publications, MIA publishes three annual marketing reports, starting with the African SaaS Marketing Report.

What didn’t go so well this year?

I had ambitious plans to execute a lot of projects in 2024, but I quickly realized there was no way I could do it all alone. Between my full-time job in startup marketing and growth, running an agency, consulting, and managing other life projects, my plate was already full.

That’s why I put out a call for volunteers who believe in MIA’s mission and want to be part of its success. While a few amazing people stepped forward, I’m still looking for more capable hands to join these teams:

• Editorial & Content Team

• Design & Creative Team

• Community Management Team

• Partnership Team

If this sounds like you, fill out the form, and let’s make a ruckus in 2025!

What next for MIA in 2025?

Besides publishing a lot more content, I’m looking forward to:

Posting more memes.

Seriously. Life is already hard for startup founders and marketers who have to do the job of 10 people.

Doing more interviews and podcasts with African startup founders.

I want to speak with founders to uncover how marketing drives business growth—because no GTM motion—whether it’s Product-Led, Sales-Led, or a Hybrid approach—can be truly effective without marketing at its core.

Marketing often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves for its role in the entire customer journey, so it’s only right to give marketing its flowers.

If you know founders who truly appreciate the value of marketing, we’d love to speak with them!

Publishing the African SaaS Marketing Report.

This is a first-of-its-kind resource in Africa. The report will aggregate data from SaaS companies across Africa and provide critical benchmarks that every marketer, founder, and investor can use to make better decisions.

If you or anyone you know—friends, colleagues, or even competitors—works in SaaS, we need your help! Fill out the survey and share it widely. The more companies that participate, the better the insights we can all gain.

Doing more community collaborations.

has been incredibly gracious. She writes Marketing For Geeks, the second-best marketing newsletter in Nigeria.

I’d love to collaborate with more people like her—creators, writers, marketers, and founders who are doing the work of elevating African marketing.

Showcasing more marketing products and tools.

I’d love to highlight more martech tools—especially those that empower marketers to achieve more with less effort. If you have a favorite tool or a new AI solution you swear by, let us know!

Launching on Product Hunt.

I would like to launch the Marketing In Action Newsletter on Product Hunt. I anticipate that this will take a village to pull off.

On that note, I’ve also created a Product Hunt Launch Template—just in case you’re looking to launch your own product on the platform.

Sharing everything you need to put marketing into action.

Marketing In Action is everything you need to put marketing into action—templates, frameworks, community, data, insights, case studies, ideas, and martech/GTM tools, with the MIA Academy to build real product, growth, and go-to-market skills through hands-on execution.

We’re going to be launching a WhatsApp Community, where MIA Newsletter subscribers can network, and gossip (what’s trending).

Templates, resources, handbooks & systems for T-shaped marketers.

As a valued member of the MIA community, you get 20% off all MIA handbooks and templates when you use the code: MIA Community.

Get access to 30+ proven Product & Growth Marketing templates, frameworks, and resources: Subscribe here.

Get MIA Marketing Resources (20% Off)

Master Growth Marketing across AARRR metrics, ads, onboarding, content, and more with the Complete Growth Marketing Handbook.

Get Growth Handbook (20% Off)

Thank you for being part of this journey—reading, sharing, and supporting Marketing In Action.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

—James

We’re building a village of 1,000+ marketers and founders who want to increase their odds of succeeding at marketing. Share this newsletter with them.

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