How Affiliates Can Build Brand Loyalty

3 Tracks to purchase
It is generally understood that there are 3 reasons chose to purchase goods, or pick a product (well there are a few more, but I’m going to give you the trimmed down version not an economics lecture).
• The Snob Effect and Veblen Effects – (the more exclusive and in most cases expensive a product the better) or in case of the Veblen Effect – (more expensive means better quality)
• The Bandwagon Effect – (the bandwagon effect is self-explanatory and implies buying the coolest product despite their being better alternatives – think IPOD)
• The Price Leader – (The cheapest is the best value)
Technically the Snob and Veblen Effects are different, but I’ve bundled them together for simplicity. What you should be doing is thinking about this when you write your content. Many of us will do this naturally as we strive to highlight the facts which interest us as a consumer. However what if you want to target a different audience? Keep your writing consistent to one of these tracks throughout an individual article and when starting a new site you should probably keep it consistent across the entire site to appeal to a certain type of reader making them more likely to return.
Newsletters
These are something that quite often results in something of a fail. Firstly, you will need to properly incentivize people to sign up to these. Competitions are a good way, if you’re smart you can up your social mentions too (see my article on social mentions). If you get this right however they can be a great way of keeping your readers/customers interested. Remember, don’t overdo it, most gamblers don’t want to hear the news twice a day. Bi-Monthly is probably enough in most cases, once you’ve got an email list, give out some freebies they don’t have to cost much, but it keeps people reading your newsletter and coming back to your site, remember giving this sort of thing out is unlikely to instigate an immediate win financially, but the long term effects can be dramatic.
Engage with your readers
Poll them, talk to them on social, let them submit questions, to create a returning reader base you need to give them reasons to return! Customer engagement is always a surefire way to increase the numbers of people returning to your site. Think of Land Based Bingo Halls and how their business model often revolves around the same people returning week in week out. One of the main factors in this is that they get to know the staff, the feel for the place and regularly return because they are being engaged with and thus feel like they are part of a greater community. Creating loyalty through community is relatively simple to apply online.
Believe in What You’re Doing/Selling
This is rule 101 of branding and marketing, if you don’t believe you are offering something useful then that will show through in your pitching, writing or advertising depending on the scale of your business. Write about something you have an interest in and understand that in most cases you are adding value to the web this creates more believable content that people can actually get use from. It doesn’t have to be the best or the most unique content on the web, it just has to help the person that finds it. All too often I hear people banging on about great, unique and sharable content. Yes you need that as well, but meet the basic needs of the customer (reader) first and foremost; then work on something they’ll tell their friends about.