Affiliate Marketing Strategist. Owner of Affiliate Insider (An Affiliate Marketing Agency, Media Hub + Training Business).
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Have you ever noticed that you have more of an affinity for certain products over others? Affinity marketing relates to how customers identify with and share a set of common values with the brands they engage with. And right now, brands need to think about and develop affinity around their affiliate program with their partners.
Market for emotion-based action, and apply the psychology of selling to your affiliate program.
Let’s be very clear: Affinity is not the same as loyalty. One reason brand affinities are so strong is that they are rooted in core emotions. Emotion-based selling will always work well in comparison to other types of sales. A good affiliate manager uses emotive-based sales to improve their outreach and partner onboarding.
Let’s explore this in real life. I’ll use myself as an example. I like using Apple products. I have a Mac and an iPhone. As an affiliate program marketer, I use digital media devices all day in my job. So what is it about this brand that I’m drawn to?
Apple creates products that make my life simple. They identify with being a company that services a digital generation (which I totally identify as), and they value quality, sustainability and service in business. These are things that I identify with in my own business and with my own clients. So, you see, I have an affinity with this brand based on the values that they represent and, therefore, I’ve chosen to invest my money in their product. Their product is not cheap. It is also not the best when you compare computer specs and prices to that of Apple merchandise. The price is not the issue. The brand affinity drives my emotive input to partner with this brand for my business, staff and personal needs.
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As affiliate program managers, we need to do the same in relation to our affiliate programs. We need to develop marketing content that supports our program growth and engagement to build affinity with our affiliate partners — and other publishers too.
Don’t market your offers; build affinity around your affiliate program brand.
Affinity runs deeper than simply a like for the product itself. Think carefully about one value your affiliate program delivers to your partners right now. It could be that you always pay on time. It could be that your program offers clear and transparent marketing offers with no hidden costs or marketing jargon. Being able to contextualize these values into your affiliate program promotion and partner outreach can help you to build rapport faster and get affiliates to promote your offers over competitors.
Affinity marketing costs nothing but an investment of time.
Affinity marketing is based around the notion that your brand will have a clear personality that your partners and affiliate audience will want to interact with. You might already have most of this in place within your company. Factors like tone of voice in your copy and knowing your ideal target affiliate or partner demographic should already be part of your marketing strategy to grow your affiliate program reach. But, in essence, these types of components can also help to develop your program’s brand affinity.
You need to make sure that you fully understand what your affiliates want from your program, and you need to ensure your team, agency or network is singing from that same hymn sheet. The messages that you send out should always be clear and consistent regardless of their subject matter. In turn, you can improve key business points such as sales, outreach, lead generation, and long-term partner loyalty.
It’s about building values.
You need to be pushing for positive perceptions around your affiliate program. Your tech stack should support scale and provide in-depth data to allow your partners to grow your business efficiently. Your team should be kept abreast of the latest digital marketing trends and be engaged to have meaningful conversations with partners about how you can help them develop and, in turn, grow your business. Affiliates (just like customers) want authenticity from the brands that they invest in working with.
Get more personal about managing your partners and their expectations. Ensure that you are including some of the real-life experiences and testimonials of what has helped to make your affiliate program brand what it is today. Don’t throw this information out all at once — you need to make sure that you have a program story that you can continue to pass to your affiliates long after they have signed up to your program. When I talk about the program story, I mean showing your program beyond facts and figures and using storytelling, personalization and testimonials.
Affinity marketing is all about looking into the psychology of what can be used to build a program and deep connection that really works for you and your partnerships. You can then continuously reinforce the value and traits that you have established with your program brand. No matter the marketing channel or outreach point that you choose to use, your team, company culture and affiliate program’s values must shine through, creating an easier point of emotional association.
Affinity is not the same as loyalty.
Brand loyalty can easily be swayed. Affinity will not be. It runs much deeper because it’s based on emotional decision-making. It is about building a genuine connection between you, your team and the partner you are working with, and this is much more difficult to break compared to incentivized loyalty.
While investing time to build affinity marketing around your brand is a longer-term strategy, it can only pay dividends. With many brands now focusing on their presence online and how they connect with their affiliates without events, affinity marketing is going to be a game plan that savvy brand marketers who operate affiliate programs invest in to build long-lasting rapport.
It’s a powerful tool that can really help your affiliate program stand out and start winning long-term partnerships too.
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