55 Investing in Brand Affinity to Foster Loyalty Our market will continue to get competitive as white label brands launch and grow their businesses. Brands will need to focus on customer loyalty to increase customer tenure and remove the lure of new offers being made elsewhere. There is a distinction between brand loyalty and brand affinity that is often missed. Building affinity is not about giving partners more money — that’s loyalty. Brand affinity goes deeper than the monthly commission payments. It’s about soliciting real emotion. It’s about thinking of your affiliate partners as marketing partners in your business vs. traffic suppliers, which is commonly the transactional view our industry has always had. Here are four questions you can ask yourself on how to build brand affinity: How can you make your affiliates feel something positive about your program? How do your teams represent your brand from the first touch point an affiliate receives to the ongoing messaging they encounter in your program as times move on? What messaging and services do you offer your affiliates at each stage of their journey within your program? Where and how do you market your program, (talk about what you’re doing and discuss thought leadership with your partners to help them learn more too)? Focusing on how to build brand affinity is a quick way to build scale with little budget. When your whole team engages in this, some powerful things can begin to happen — tenure increases, prices decrease, partners collaborate more and become transparent with their data. These are all things that can help a brand grow its program and offerings without always having to pay to appear in top positions. It takes patience and a bit of time, so you have to be invested in playing the long game. Remember it is not money that builds brand affinity — it is your actions, thoughts, works and deeds that will. Conclusion As you take action in 2023, take these five key trends into consideration and ask yourself how you will be shaping the future of your business this year as you navigate the trying and changing times ahead. The key takeaway here is to keep calm, focus on your KPI, build trust in your partner relationships, and use the appropriate channels and forms of content to do that. Make the most of the creator tools that are in place, and build new, and exciting channels with partners who want to reach customers in specific niches. Lee-Ann Johnstone is an award-winning digital marketing strategist and affiliate marketing veteran. In 2018, she launched her agency with a view to help brands launch, scale and grow successful affiliate marketing programs. Since then, she’s been voted one of “Top 10 Most Influential Women in iGaming,” has created a chart-topping Affiliate Marketing Podcast and created AMPP, an affiliate marketing performance program designed to help affiliate managers level up their performance and grow their affiliate programs and relationships with a 12-week live coaching program. For more information about Lee-Ann and her company, visit her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/leeannjohnstone/ 5 BIG AFFILIATE MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2023 G P W A t i m e s . o r g 18
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