the 12 most important skills affiliates and publishers need to succeed in 2022

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The 12 most important skills affiliates and

publishers need to succeed in 2022

Our insights and predictions for the year ahead.

When the digital space is evolving fast, and the continuous emergence of channels and

platforms from TikTok to Twitch are making it even more difficult for content creators,

affiliates and businesses to stand out from the digital crowd. It becomes more crucial to

acquire new skills and keep up to date with any innovations, trends or skills to stay

relevant and be noticed.

When affiliate marketing is increasingly becoming digitalised every day, it is essential for

all businesses and affiliates to keep up to date with any developments to keep thriving.

Which digital media is spreading universally and increasingly becoming a more integral

part of our daily lives, the gap in s kills is also increasing. This rapid digital revolution is

demanding content creators, publishers and affiliates to adapt quickly in order to succeed

in this space.

This is why digital literacy (being able to create and share digital content, communicate

and solve problems using digital technology) should be the foundation to the skills you

need to acquire next year. In this article, we go through some of the basics to highly

specialised digital skills you need to master next year, in 2022.

Content

1. Market research

• Economic factors

• Consumer trends

• Technological advances

• Conducting interviews

• Using surveys

• Working with focus groups

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2. Creative video marketing abilities

3. Audio marketing skills

• Are the sounds (or combination of sounds) consistent with your brand?

• Are the sounds (or combination of sounds) unique?

• What emotions, images or feelings do your sounds evoke?

4. Storytelling abilities

• Simplicity

• Perception

• Empathy

• Evocative language

• Newsjacking

• The skeleton of a story

5. Neuromarketing

• Avoiding decision making paralysis

• Anchoring

• Reward and punishment

• Other positive psychology

6. Copywriting

• Strong grammar

• Acquire deep knowledge

• Align the content to user journey

• Make the ordinary interesting

• Natural Language Processing

7. Content strategy

• Content strategy

• Interactive content

• Immersive technologies

8. Design and UX

9. Marketing analytics

• The world of analytics

• Quality data




































• Big data

10. GDPR

11. Virality

• Growth hacking

12. Conversational apps and chatbots

• Personalised experiences

Summary

1. Market research

This is the foundation of your business or marketing plan, and content creators,

influencers, publishers and businesses need to know the macro external forces that are

likely to have an influence in their niche or space. This is essential to stay competitive as

they look towards opportunities and any underlying threats to mitigate in order to stay

strong competitively.

Some examples of market forces which can influence your business or niche could be:

• Economic factors










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What demand is there for the product? What is the current cost of living for the target

audience and how is the economic stability or growth/decline impacting your target

market?

• Consumer trends

What are your target audience’s values, ethics and motivation? What is their decision

making and buying habit? What are their trends and tastes?

• Technological advances

Any artificial intelligence impacting important technology? Any ground breaking

disruptions? Or any current or anticipated systems in the digital space?

Whilst it’s wise to stay up-to-date with current affairs, it’s equally encouraged to use

market research skills by questioning or interviewing your target audience, that way you

can get into their heads and have a deeper understanding of their needs which other

news or articles can’t give.

Some examples are:

• Conducting interviews

Use qualitative questions to collect answers so you can get their honest opinions, tastes

and thoughts about your niche, product or service. Ensure the questions are not biased

so that it does not influence their answers, whether that be by how you ask your questions

to show gestures which imply agreement/disagreement. I.e.

Don’t you think that 3D printers can be a waste of money?

Rather it should be:

What is your opinion on 3D printers?

• Using surveys

This is something you can do using survey monkey. It is a questionnaire that is answered

by prospects or customers, to understand their perception or opinion on anything

pertaining to your affiliate niche. This way you can understand their needs and interests





better, their values and beliefs and motivations and barriers. This will help you to make

effective decisions to grow your business. For example:

What is your age? What is your education level? What are your hobbies and interests?

What are your biggest challenges? What is most important to you? What problem does

this (product) fit into your daily routine?

Surveys can have answers blank, or provide the respondents with multiple choice

answers, ratings 1-5 or Yes, No or Don’t know.

• Working with focus groups

This is another great way to get delve deep into how your target audience interact with

your products, brands or services. It is a when a group of individuals come together to

discuss a niche topic.

This can be done face-to-face or alternatively, (mainly since Covid-19) can be conducted

through Zoom or video call. With this you can directly measure how participants respond

to affiliate product you wish to promote and you can probe deeper into certain questions.

For example asking “why?” to understand their motivations.





2. Creative video marketing abilities

This comes as no surprise, but it is probably the best way to engage and interact with

your customers. From cinematic editing to atmospherics generated and artistic creativity

which hooks viewers, the production of quality and enticing videos is becoming more and

more critical and a form which reflects one’s personal or business brand. Whether that’s

with animation, or story telling type film, creativity is the way to stand out and leave a

lasting impact on your viewers as you become memorable.

With advancements in technology, it’s becoming easier to produce quality and unique

content. Social media apps as well as video apps make this feasible, efficient and

smooth.

Remember, to script or make a storyboard for longer forms. This will make sure that your

resources stay on track and don’t waver in the process. It should seem natural as

authenticity is the key to attract word of mouth or influence buying. It also helps create an

emotional connection with the audience.

This year, we’ve seen an uptake of cross-channel videos; from Snapchat product reviews

to Instagram Live Q&A streams to animation or film style short video grabbing attention

and bring an affiliate products’ story to life in a fun, engaging and memorable way. 2022,





will see that only increase in more unique and creative forms. It is smart to start working

on skills that other competitors are not doing from 3D-world creation, to animation or

immersive films.

3. Audio marketing skills

With more people looking for hands free way of engaging with brands or affiliates, as they

multi task from cooking to driving, they look to listen to engaging stories, interviews or

discussions around a topic of interest. This has a significant potential for affiliates; a

unique way to promote their affiliate product with just an audio recording. This can also

be uploaded as an MP4 file on a blog or website, on YouTube or SoundCloud and can

be shared with your target market whether that’s on email or social media post.

Similar to videos, sound has the capability to transport us to another place (because our

imagination brings us to those places immensely and intimately), it can make people

nostalgic, it also trains us to associate specific cues with things or products, i.e. jingling

bells with Christmas, it can also change our mood, all of those things make it a powerful

medium.

While podcast engagement and adoptions are growing as well as



https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/116-how-to-sell-your-affiliate-products-using-instagram-stories



This is why content creators, affiliates, influencers and brands need to consider a staple

sound or musical theme to be associated with or recognized with immediately. This is

why you should consider your audio characteristics that align with your brand or how

you’d like to be associated carefully. More and more consumers are consuming sounds

and is becoming a key channel alongside videos, live streams and so on.

Our prediction is that where videos have evolved to become interactive, we believe audio

will also be the same in coming years. Perhaps, this is a creativity you can embrace?

Our tips to ensuring you create and deliver a combination of sounds which align with your

brand are the following:

• Are the sounds (or combination of sounds) consistent with your brand?

Whether that’s a welcome sound or a chime when certain actions or events are taken,

these can embody your brand or products emotion and aesthetics. It could express

anything from musical (i.e. simple guitar or jazz), indulgent (i.e. lyrical or orchestras) or

dramatic (i.e. piano). Perhaps start with exploringyour competitors or other brands, which

embody feelings you’d like to express. All of this should be well thought out.

Whilst the sound or musical quality of sound help represent a brand, it is also important

that the voice or voiceover deliver such experience, where it matches the brand

personality. Therefore, it is also wise to ensure there is a consistent voice throughout.

• Are the sounds (or combination of sounds) unique?

It is highly important that you find a sound that reflects or becomes the DNA of your brand.

See it as a logo for your brand but in sound form. When it becomes successful, it becomes

highly recognizable when people are listening in or watching videos just from hearing the

sound. When it comes to radio adverts or podcasts or discussions, or even social media

videos, sound logos will help enhance your identity and facilitate how target audience

recognise the brand.

Because sound logo is so essential, it is necessary that it is original. So that it is not mixed

up with other brands. It is an opportunity to differentiate oneself from others.

• What emotions, images or feelings do your sounds evoke?





Use a song that embody the feelings you want to convey with your audio brand. With a

touch-poiny analysis . Does it reflect your brands positioning and values? Are there other

sounds which might communicate these better? Remember, these sounds should

enhance your current content or medium and clarify what your brand personality is. I.e.

Innovative, upbeat and happy, autumnal, festive. What ever the language is, it should

also tell your story and not just create a bond with listeners. A good starting point to find

sounds are Audio Jungle and Premium Beat.

4. Storytelling abilities

Stories bring people together, where the universal language or feelings of happiness,

sadness, fear, hope and so on can be shared where words are not always enough to

explain. It gives the audience a personal experience whilst creating a narrative around

your brand or product which should not only connect (or tap into people’s emotions) but

inspire and motivate them. It requires creativity and imagination and they are more

effective than content about product or business, instead it brings them to life which allows

for deeper engagement. This is a tactic publishers and affiliates should learn in order to

set themselves apart.

Some of our tips to get you started are:





• Simplicity

Keep it concise especially where attention spans are dwindling. And to make it effective,

do not elongate sentences, videos or discussions when something has already been

mentioned. It is also worth knowing the ideal length of different types of content. I.e. For

blogs it’s usually 1,600. Just remember, it also depends on your purpose and audience

type.

• Perception

How do your audience see and relate to the people around them? It is important to have

the ability to craft your story in such a way that your audience can relate and resonate.

• Empathy

You want to write or create where your audience wants to associate with you. Its not

enough to just be a good storyteller but also understand the mind, how it thinks and being

authentically human.

• Evocative language

Sounds in words or sentences help us imagine better. It helps establish mood and build

expectations, with this is that it immerses the viewers, readers or audience into the story

by detailing vivid descriptions. To do this ensure the language is tactile and sensory

driven. Otherwise, enhance the vividness of the language. Here’s an example:

“As the blue, cloudy-mist birds move in choreographed melody, drawing such buoyant

hues. Those wings in the sky became a reminder to lift me off my ground in this wave of

sweet earthly joy”

• Newsjacking

It always a wise idea to time your story at a good time, where it’s likely to be picked up by

media outlets making your content likely to go viral. It could be during a time where there’s

hot topics, or a sudden surge in people discussing a particular topic, whatever the issue

it’s smart to be agile and respond quickly and creatively.





The skeleton of a story should always contain the following (whatever the medium is,

written post, a spoken story on video, a digital interactive video or animation, an audio

recording):

1. Characters:

Who are the characters? This is so that the audience can put themselves in the characters

shoes and likely to be influenced by their actions.

2. Conflict:

This is the most important part, where it moves the audience through relatable challenges.

Remember, it is also about how you are conveying this part.

3. Resolution:

Whether it’s a good or bad ending it should wrap up in such a way that your audience is

likely to take an action whether that’s to explore your website or watch another video.

5. Neuromarketing





Understand your customers psychology is key to creating effective campaigns. It

ultimately means understanding the real needs and want, understanding their

motivations, desires, influences, biases, fears, challenges in order to ensure that

advertising isn’t wasted. It is about ensuring the campaigns related by understanding the

neuroscience of consumers (or the brain activity which leads to a desired behaviour (i.e.

converting or purchasing an affiliate product) and facilitating that authentically. There are

different types of scientific studies which will help you to efficiently create compelling

content. For example;

• Avoiding decision making paralysis

When there are too many choice, it can deter prospects from making a decision (and this

is especially true where there are so many competitors). By using a variety of setups or

options it can help audiences to stop and think.

• Anchoring

The headline or first piece of information your audience sees is the most important as it

becomes the tone for their purchasing behaviour. As humans, we evaluate the value of

something based on its intrinsic worth instead of comparing it with other options.

Therefore, it is wise to take advantage of the “anchoring effect” which means for example,

when looking at two VCR technologies, and one offers a free video, the audience are

more likely to go with what’s free rather than explore more details or quality of the

products.

• Reward and punishment

Our brain increases levels of dopamine in the brain when it is associated with pleasure

and positive associations – this can increase the desired actions. With the opposite, it can

decrease this when they feel disappointed or lack of pleasure. Hence, it is good to learn

about psychological principles embedded in design or systems to increase the chances

of positive behaviour or actions.

• Some other ways you can use positive psychology in your affiliate marketing are:

• Relating to your audience





• Use games, quizzes or challenges to interact and reward your target audience

• Use novelty to capture attention

• Facilitate their decision making with rational steps

• Speak in a personal, friendly way

• Use third party reviews or anecdotes to build trust

6. Copywriting

This is an art form, whereby with practice it can be perfected and as you have noticed, it

is an essential part which embodies your content creation from writing exciting

headlines, to engaging captions. In order to hook audience or stand out from the crowd,

it is important to know how to use keywords effectively to reach audiences with their

message on various platforms.It’s not easy and a heck of a job. For everything to be

successful it requires words in the form of social media posts, blog articles and website

content and so on to inspire actions.

Do you make a good copywriter? These are what you should master in order to succeed

in 2022:



https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/90-11-tips-for-writing-ad-copy-that-sells-like-hotcakes

https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/90-11-tips-for-writing-ad-copy-that-sells-like-hotcakes



• Strong grammar

Grammar seems trivial matter, something that often comes at bottom of priority list.

Poor grammar can tarnish one’s credibility and suggests sloppiness and can put off your

audience. Always make sure you take the time to review any typos, or grammatical errors

before hitting live. Tools such as Copysmith and Writesonic help.

• Acquire deep knowledge

It is important to do deep research to gain knowledge that would be of value to your

audience. Or even say something in a completely new way. Deepening you

understanding of a topic, will make it better for your audience. Plus, it’s important to

simplify that information so its easy to digest, and the main points are conveyed well.

• Align the content to user journey

It is important to ensure that the potential customers go through a marketing funnel, from

awareness to interest to consideration, to intent and evaluation. When writing ensure its

tailored to that touchpoint of the journey. For example, it could be on a social media post

(awareness related topic – introducing an affiliate product) and on a blog article it could

also be focused on the consideration phase where the readers are able to find out more

about the product and see if there are any deals. To make your writing even more high

converting, is to ensure that you are moving the prospect from one part of the funnel to

the next. For example, an Instagram image and caption which demonstrates awareness,

this leads on to consideration phase by adding long form post about the benefits and

features of the products. And then ends with a Call To Action to click on a website affiliate

link for those who have desire to buy.

<li

>Make the ordinary interesting</li

•

Avoid sub-par content, when there’s dull writing it will mean losing their attention. Capture

them in engaging ways, strike curiosity by asking intriguing questions, share startling

statistics, an amusing anecdote, a metaphor to liken to something else. A well crafted



https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/85-top-10-copywriting-tools-for-affiliate-marketing-success



copy is able to make something sound like the best thing. To make sure your really stand

out as a copywriter, you need to masted this technique.

• Natural Language Processing

A big part of that is appealing to Google’s algorithms, with natural language processing.

The AI behind Google has advanced to understand the semantics, syntax and other

natural language beyond just keywords added to optimize for Google rankings. Artificial

Intelligence now is able to synthesize data in combinations to help understand the spoken

and written human language. So our point is? To write naturally, like humans and don’t

fret over fitting in the right keywords in your content. For example, someone could search

“why’s my boots damaged” could infer to “What caused by boot to be damaged?”.

7. Content strategy

The actual meat of the matter; your content strategy will help dominate your space if done

well. This is where you plan your topics tactfully so it is sent out at the right time and

place, with quality output. What would be of value to your audience? A starting point is to

use social listening, to monitor the questions, thought processes and concerns your





audience hold and how you can invest your resources wisely to serve their needs

creatively and tactfully. Once brainstormed you breakdown each piece and plan ahead

when you will be writing, filming, photographing, editing and publishing – so there is a

consistent flow of works.

• Interactive content

One of the fastest growing digital marketing trends is interactive content. We are now

seeing more and more content styles which are dynamic and immersive for the audience.

From quizzes and polls to augmented reality experiences and even 360 videos. It is now

becoming more about the experiences you create for your audience.

• Immersive technologies

It is predicted more brands, marketers and affiliates will be experimenting with immersive

technologies. Namely Virtual Reality (VR) which is great at enhancing the audience

experience as more of their senses are engaged in another form of reality that is designed

and built by the productions. Ikea for example has built their own AR app; IKEA Place

and MADE has also created something similar where you are able to move a product

around your home to see how it looks or fits in your home.

8. Design and UX





For affiliates wanting to attract their target market, a well-designed digital environment is

crucial especially when wanting to convert them. User experience (UX) is the combination

of design, seamless navigation, simple purchasing journey and all those elements making

the journey positive. It is the interaction between your digital platform and the moments

of delight for the user. This not only encourages positive user behavior but also helps

impact SEO.

The UX or design elements influence behaviour as they enhance their satisfaction or

experience. In a study, an increase in customer satisfaction by 20% can lift revenue by

up to 15%.

9. Marketing analytics





This is vital for all affiliates. Its where you gather information from all your channels and

consolidate it to gauge the strengths and weaknesses and any opportunities or threats.

It’s where you can monitor if your campaigns are on target to reach your goal or vision

and most importantly, is it showing signs of return on investment? With data, it can provide

you answers to many questions from what should your priorities be to how are your

competitors doing?

• The world of analytics

Without doubt, this is a maths based discipline which employs predictive modelling,

machine learning, statistics all in an effort to reveal insights from user behaviour to

impressions and reach of a campaign. However, whilst you delve in to seek patterns and

trends, avoiding data paralysis is paramount, too much information could make it a

challenge to make real actions in an effort to improve and progress your current

campaigns (especially when there will be too many interactions between different

variables). Also, its good to stay goal-oriented to think of the right questions to help you

find the answers you need. For example;

• How did the CPC in my PPC campaign compare to the CPC in my Facebook ad campaign?

• Are there any differences in purchase across segments i.e. demographics?

• What are the social media post engagement like across all platforms?





• Quality data

To ensure that your data works well for you, it is necessary that it is error free, relevant

and precise. It can be easy to manipulate data to fit your needs or show your campaigns

are working, however, it will add no value in terms of your actual performance especially

in the long run. Therefore, make sure when looking at data that it is accurate and relevant

to your needs.

• Big data

As 2022 unfolds, big data will continue to grow exponentially. Bid data helps simplify an

analysts (you) task as it is more efficient in collating and matching data saving time for

affiliates, marketers and brands. The benefits are endless, as it helps them to innovate

faster, be more efficient and make designs faster too. We predict there will be an uptake

of this in the near future. Predictive analytics is a great area, where it assists you decision

making as it helps to look into past trends and specific data to determine if your campaigns

would have better results if placed elsewhere or will more money invested make better

ROI?

10. GDPR





When a visitor lands on your website, they want to make sure they are safe within

seconds. Otherwise, an increased bounce rate which is bad for your SEO or ranking

signal. We all know that personal data is always being collected and our digital footprints

are becoming the new currency. Companies use these to store personal data to help

enhance their communications such as advertising.

However the misuse or leak of data over the years has been a concern. And therefore,

there is a growing mistrust in consumers of brands if they are handling their data

responsibly. It is impediment to communicate to all your website visitors how you wish to

use their data and ask for their permission. Generally, they look like pop up boxes, where

visitors have the choice to opt in to their data being collected for example. This is

especially important in email marketing and without confirmation it can lead to fines.

Hence, it is important to regularly educate oneself on the changes of the GDPR rules to

avoid costly mistakes.





11. Virality

What sets affiliates apart are their growth mindset. What can be better than watching your

affiliate campaigns or brand’s growth explode and seize popularity. There is no real magic

“growth hacking” formula however there are tried and tested methods which increased

the likelihood of something going viral.

• Growth hacking

Growth hacking is characterized by using the least possible resources to see exponential

growth. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with hair tools or finance products all of these

undergo creative experiments where rules don’t always apply, it is creativity that remains

in the driver seat. This is a hack that you should find and when it works, it is unlikely to

work for another product. It is basically letting your creativity juices run free as the first

step.

The other side to it is to have a series of continuous iterative experiments, just like the

dominoes effect one comes after another and they are measured and analysed as they

perform. Also, to maximise the performance of each campaign, it is important to manage

and track how they are performing and make relevant changes in real time. Therefore,

agile is key. And hence an agile environment will help your lean experiment flourish.





If you want to see some growth hacking case studies or some secret formulas, read this

blog now.

12. Conversational apps and chatbots

Conversational apps and chatbots are a fun and innovative way to converse with your

website visitors or audiences. In the recent years, we have seen a rise in custom made

social media messaging apps, innovative chatbots and other forms of conversational

apps all designed to connect with audiences and serve their needs efficiently. And when

done right, it gives you a powerful database of popular questions which will help enhance

and tailor solutions.

• Personalised experiences

It has become easier for non-developers to create conversational apps and chatbots,

choosing many elements from design, the decision making map, carousels, buttons,

images, payments and authentications. The text can also be designed to be

conversational. There are countless benefits for these, from making interactions faster

and relevant to making the design experience better. It can be developed to provide a

rich, humanlike conversation which engages users and deliver a seamless customer



https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/101-how-to-make-your-content-go-viral-tips-from-successful-campaigns

https://www.revglue.com/blog-detail/101-how-to-make-your-content-go-viral-tips-from-successful-campaigns



experience (especially as it removes any frictions which can be experienced on a

website). It is known to facilitate conversions much more easily.

Our tip for building the app would be to anticipate the end users’ needs, so that you can

create a well-structured conversation. It is always worth noting, that they want answers

or actions done as fast as possible. At the same time, it’s best to design the conversations

so that it facilitates the customers to move closer to your objectives.

Summary

Whilst the digital space is constantly change, making it more challenging for affiliates and

publishes to keep up, innovation will remain utmost important in order to stand out. In a

nutshell, unique immersive experiences for audiences will be a great way to gain their

attention and convert them, plus with the rapid developments of AI, more uptake in

technologies such as conversational apps and predictive analysis will be seen as

competition tries to delve deeper into understanding the mindset of their audience. So,

are you ready to build your skills? Check out our blogs to help you gain deeper knowledge

in each of these areas all designed to help you do affiliate marketing well.

