Posted by What is influencer marketing, why is everyone doing it, should I use it for my brand? This is a series of questions that comes in the mind of most businesses. Marketing tactics can drive even the best of entrepreneurs up the wall. Figuring out what may work for you, which platforms to choose, and how to target your audience can be a real challenge.
Now you may think that you have to tackle it all on your own, but this is where influencer marketing comes in. What most people thought as a mere trend has now become one of the most powerful tools to connect with your audience.
Over the past few years, influencer marketing has become an essential part of the marketing and promotion landscape. It’s quite a powerful marketing approach that allows you to reach your target audience in an authentic yet unique way.
The numbers may sound too good to be true, but on average, if a business spends $1 on influencer marketing, it makes $18 in return.
You have probably heard a lot about influencer marketing, but if you are still not sure what the buzz is all about, we have written a complete guide for you in this article. Without further ado, here is how to work with Social Media Influencers.
What’s New?
Social media is evolving continuously, so it is not easy to stand out from your competitors and engage with your followers. This is why a solid social media strategy and keeping up with the latest trends helps businesses to stay ahead of their game. Here are two types of influencer campaigns that will rule in 2020:
Affiliate Marketing & Discount Codes
Affiliate marketing is an excellent tactic for any business to use social media influencers. I affiliate marketing, the influencer gets a commission on every product they can sell through. The influencers are more likely to promote your product better if they are getting something out of it, REGULARLY! Many businesses are now offering discounts on influencer’s code as well. A win-win for both parties!
Giveaways & Contests
If you are looking to explore an excellent avenue of creating buzz around your product and driving engagement for your website, competitions, giveaways, and contests are a great way to do so. Make room in your budget to give away a handful of products to social media influencers.
Unboxing videos are a great way to shine a spotlight on your product and also to prove the quality and authenticity of your product because most influencers open and review them right then and there in their videos.
How to Find the Right Influencer
Remember, not everyone can be the right ambassador for your product. You have to put in work and effort to find out which influencer fits your brand the best. When you start hunting, use these tips to guide you:
The Three R’s of Influence
Influence is all about Reach, Relevance, and Resonance.
Start with observing the reach of your office and the volume of people you could tap on using the influencer’s fan base. Next up, observe if their audience aligns with yours and whether they would be able to share the relevant content to your industry. Lastly, check the level of engagement an influencer can generate for your business.
Know your Target Audience
A good starting point is to look at the kind of people you are targeting and which influencer’s ideology matches what you are looking for. Look for influencers who complement or overlap your industry. Understand the needs of your audience and their online behaviour, so every penny spent on campaigns is worthwhile.
Plan Your Budget
Running a campaign, and especially a successful one requires planning, analysis, and monitoring. So, make sure you know the standard rates for the influencer you are targeting and set the budget accordingly.
Creating Influencer Marketing Strategy
List down KPIs & Goals
What is it that you want to achieve? Is your goal to create brand awareness? Audience building? Generating leads? Kick-off your strategy by setting clear and realistic goals for your campaign and documenting key performance indicators.
The main goals may include building brand awareness, attracting a new market or lead generation, and more sales. Once you have set your goals, shift your attention to how you will measure the Return on Investment. Knowing which partnership is working and which is not will help you get the most out of your strategy.
Choose your target Influencers Wisely
To get a better direction on who is the right influencer for you, a good way is to look for those who support the same niche as your brand. Track the influencers on Instagram, Facebook, and review their engagement and content before you shortlist. The best way to shortlist is by assessing their authority. How can you do it? Consider their follower count, engagement, domain, and quality of content.
Leverage Tools to Reach Out Influencers
According to a survey, determining the Rate of Investment is the biggest challenge of an influencer marketing program. To overcome these barriers, it’s crucial to leverage the right tools, whether you are hiring a software development company to create customized ones for you, or whether you use the existing ones. You can find influencers through platforms such as Buzzsumo that allow you to search for relevant people.
To make the quickest outreach campaign possible, you can rely on tools such as Mailshake that allow you to send bulk emails using their templates and follow-up automatically as well.
Using Micro-Influencers
As much as there is competition among brands, there is competition in influencers as well. We now see greater diversity in the influencers as well – ranging from high-follower count elites to low-follower newcomers. Tapping into micro-influencers will help you specialize and target a specific niche and market segment.
Building Long-Term Relationships
Working with an influencer only once and calling it a day may get you the desired results once, but building a relationship with the influencer pays dividends in the long run. To get some gangbuster results, you need to build long term relationships with them. This can be done by asking them for their input, considering their feedback, collaborating with them, and allowing them to use their skills.
Rewarding the Influencer
Gone are the days when people hesitated to invest in influencer marketing or when influencers would give you a shout out without asking for any compensation. Now, the influencers have ramped up their budget for campaigns, but they are also sometimes happy to receiving gifts and exclusive products to showcase on their platform.
Measure Results
The last step is associated with the first one – to check whether you succeeded in achieving the goals you set in the first step. Measuring the qualitative and quantitative outcomes is the key. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How many viewers did you get?
- What was the increase in engagement?
- Has the campaign impacted your sales?
Wrapping Up
Social media has become a permanent part of people’s routine now – the last thing they use before sleeping, and the first thing they check in the morning. So, there’s a huge chance your customer spends a good amount of time researching products, and they take the word of an influencer to guide their decision.
Hence, if you have not evaluated influencer marketing as a part of your marketing strategy yet, now is a great time to start. It’s time to share your brand’s story with the audience in a powerful way!
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