33% of UK consumers are now shopping through digital media, providing a wealth of opportunity for digital creators – from enterprising influencers to the biggest media brands – to monetise their content via affiliate links.
To give you some idea of the size of the prize, eCommerce Affiliate Revenue is now the single biggest income stream for media powerhouse, Future Media, accounting for £216.2m of its £606.8m FY21 results.
Recognising the opportunity, media companies are now employing whole teams of eCommerce writers to craft shoppable content across their websites and social media platforms. The more clicks on an article that result in a sale, the more they earn. This has led to online press being set a host of targets, ranging from how many articles they publish a day to how much commission is generated via link clicks.
And how do media get more eyes on this potentially lucrative content? In order to attract readers, content must rank highly in terms of SEO and be shared heavily, meaning it must be of the exact moment.
Keeping abreast of the hot topics of conversation is essential in today’s media, influencing why our old friend, Future Plc has recently acquired Waive – a data-insight platform using machine-based learning to provide intelligence on emerging content.
Another convenient tool, readily available to anyone and everyone in marketing and PR, is Google Trends. Reporting multiple times a day, the service provides real-time updates of what its users are looking for, based on location.
Financial Times How To Spend It
While the power of the press release remains, bespoke pitching to journalists is crucial in today’s PR landscape, making a client’s product or messaging relevant (and useful!) to press by adding a noteworthy spin on it. Scouring everything from key social media feeds to the newspapers; having influential lifestyle titles at your fingertips and checking Google Trends every morning makes it simple to news hitchhike on trends, events and current affairs as they arise. Just imagine having a PR and social media agency that did all that to offer an incredibly nimble approach. [Clue: that’s us!]
For example, Bridgerton has just hit the small screen again: the perfect opportunity to pitch Ariat’s riding boots for Regency fashion pieces or Victoria + Albert’s roll top baths for decadent interiors features.
Phoebe Dynevor and Jonathan Bailey in Netflix’s Bridgerton
1.3 million Brits bought a bike during 2020’s lockdown so what did we do? Launched urban visibility brand, Bookman to the media, securing 51 hits during a five-month project.
Tracking and analysing these trends is key in understanding how an audience thinks or acts, and therefore planning an outreach strategy. 2021’s trends continued to be fairly dominated by Covid, while “Is Facebook down?” and “Is Whatsapp down?” were the most asked questions of last year by our social media dependent society.
As a nation of TV and film lovers, it’s no surprise Squid Game, The Serpent and No Time To Die all frequently featured, too. Naturally we jumped on these trends with Serpent-style sunglasses and Bond-inspired gadgets.
Jenna Coleman in BBC’s The Serpent
The final aspect to consider in this fast-evolving, purchase-driven world, is the retail end of the equation: ensuring a product is well-stocked at outlets (including own-brand eCommerce stores) that offer affiliate revenue opportunities to media and creators can be an increasingly important coverage driver.
