INSIGHT that allows them to in turn engage with their own community. They strive for expression and many will upload photos or social content specifically to influence others to purchase too, thus extending your brand reach at minimal cost.
How to curate your content There are five key ways to tailor your communications strategy to ensure that you are optimising your content when targeting Generation C customers: 1) Invest in creating organic social content – across multiple channels You’ ve seen the stats and understand where these consumers will likely spend their time online. A big component of this time is spent socially networking and sharing content and information with
others. You need to understand how to use key social network channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to drive traffic and engage this target audience to connect with your brand. This will be key to building a successful and engaging customer relationship. 2) Create content that will spread your brand voice by word-of-mouth( WOM) Some of the most successful brands never actually talk about their own products or services – they just speak to their audience about content that interests them. As an affiliate, there is no reason why you can’ t build your own brand and tone of voice to discuss subjects that correspond with your target audience’ s broader interests.
Think like Red Bull – it hardly ever talks about its energy drink, but it runs and hosts events that are all about the experience you’ ll have when you drink Red Bull( it“ gives you wings”). This makes the product a wider sell for people wanting to affiliate with the brand and be awesome too. Content is about engaging your audience in a tone of voice that suits customers and their needs.
3) Think about viral contests for social engagement Social media channels’ like and share buttons are incredibly easy to use, so spreading content virally has never been simpler. This helps to drive traffic like wildfire. Finding innovative tools that enable better content sharing and branding while saving you time is an effective way to grow your traffic sources using WOM content.
Bespoke social tools like Vyper. io enable you to run social-sharing contests that engage Gen C customers and encourage them to share your content with their wider social circle. As mentioned, two-thirds of Gen C consumers will share any content they find enjoyable and educational, or have already seen posted within their social networks. According to Google’ s research,
“ Gen C craves instant access to information, exactly when they want to consume it. Traditional paid media just doesn’ t cut it for these guys”
85 % of Gen C relies on peer approval for their buying decisions. This is a cheap, effective way to make use of your existing bespoke content, offers or promotions to engage and help build your broader brand. 5) Be more heroic than hygienic in your content curation( entertain – don’ t advertise) Nobody wants to click on your affiliate banner any more, unless it’ s telling them something they need to take up right now( time-sensitive odds, for example, still work and remain highly effective for operators in terms of customer conversion). In addition, today’ s online reality is that most consumers already have ad-blocking software installed.
To stand out from the crowd, you must think about the audience and what, where and when they will be seeing your message. Then tailor your message to suit. It’ s about hero content, which requires more effort to create but will deliver a stronger result when placed in front of a Gen C consumer.
Why? Because it’ s entertaining and engaging, and it speaks about an event, an action or a subject that brings real value to the target audience. It allows you to create content that makes people stop and stare, or have any kind of reaction rather than ignoring it, which is largely the reaction to standardised messages being pushed. Hero content speaks to the individual – not to the product or service with which you want them to engage. 6) KISS – keep it simple, stupid!
Make sure that what you want to convey can work in as short a sentence or phrase as possible.
Your target audience has only limited time to read long emails, articles and blogs these days – they are too busy socially networking and interacting with their peers. Keep your messages short and“ Tweet-able”. Gen C consumers are consuming content on a mobile device the majority of the time. It’ s therefore key that you don’ t waffle on about information that might be secondary to your brand and call-to-action messaging.
If you understand your audience, you can better target them with content that converts. This will prove fundamental to growing your affiliate business to break through the noise, effectively communicating your promotional offers, increasing your revenue and, above all, driving better customer conversion.
With almost two decades’ experience in digital marketing in a range of sectors, LEE-ANN JOHNSTONE oversees Income Access’ marketing and business development teams. Previous roles at parent company Paysafe, Centrebet and PartyGaming honed her expertise in igaming-focused affiliate marketing and acquisition.
iGB Affiliate Issue 62 APR / MAY 2017
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