Influencer Marketing Basics
A stunningly effective marketing campaign has the ability to take your product or service to new heights in terms of visibility, familiarity, and conversion. If you can pull that off, you’re home-free, right?
Sure, but it’s rarely that simple. You could have the perfect strategy, and still things don’t quite fall directly into place as they should.
But when you add the influence of someone with authority; someone who is respected in the market and has the power to promote trust in your brand, the result is priceless.
How do you put influencer marketing to work on your side?
What is Influencer Marketing?
The use of influencers in the market is an extremely effective strategy, and it works because it makes use of authority figures within your industry, regardless of what that industry is. It’s not reliant upon a chiseled, well-known yet unapproachable athlete.
That’s how it used to be. Traditionally, influencers were bloggers or celebrities with millions of fans. They had a huge reach because of their popularity. But as social media has evolved, it’s created the opportunity for more individuals to become influencers simply by providing platforms for them to connect with others and earn followers of their own.
Influencer marketing is a strategy to spread a brand’s message, relying on the power of real people. But these real people have thousands of followers that match your target audience. They’re well-respected industry leaders who often find fame through social media. By partnering with them, you’re granted access to all of their potential customers with very little effort on your part.
Why Use Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing has powerful reach. A 2016 study by TapInfluence and Nielsen Catalina Solutions showed that influencer marketing can generate 11 times the ROI of traditional digital marketing methods like SEO, PPC, social media, and the likes.
Think of it as a hybrid of old and new marketing tools. It’s sort of like taking that celebrity endorsement and popping it into a modern day content-driven marketing campaign. It’s a great addition to your overall strategy.
Things to Keep in Mind When Launching an Influencer Marketing Campaign
While you’ll be employing influencers to promote you, they each already have their own voice, methods, and audience. They probably already have their prefered platform. So in order for your relationship to work, treat them with the respect they deserve.
Follow these suggestions, and things should be smooth sailing:
Learn to Be Diverse
Chances are your influencers will already have a strong presence on one social network or another. While you may prefer one over the other, let your influencers work best where they’re comfortable. Broaden your horizons and let them do their work through both platforms. You’ll get a two-for-one for the deal and double your engagement.
Follow Their Branding Guidelines
Your influencers know what works best for their audience . . . . far better than you do. They’ve already developed a relationship with their audience. By forcing our partner to create content in a different style or brand voice will cause their readers to doubt the influencer’s credibility. If you try to pull too many of the strings, your influencer will be an obvious puppet and the public will see right through it and lose faith.
Let Them Do What They Do Best
Like we said, your influencers know how to do what they do. Let them promote your product or service in a way they feel most comfortable. Most tend to work best when you offer them flexibility. So have a little faith in your partner.
How Can You Use Influencer Marketing to Your Advantage?
When starting in influencer campaign, brands will generally provide influencers with the instructions, requirements, and resources that they will need to complete the assignment. Sometimes influencers will be asked to create original content of their own in the form of blog posts or Instagram photos with guidelines provided by the brand. Other times, they’ll just be asked to share brand content on social channels.
Putting influential marketing to use doesn’t have to be difficult.
- Formulate a goal plan. As with any good marketing plan, you’ve got to have an end goal in mind. What do you expect to get from the campaign? The more detailed you are, the more your partner will have to go on.
- Use the right influencers. With your goal in mind, you’ll need to find influencers who can help you achieve that goal. They should be both relevant to your brand and your goal. Tools like Mention’s influencer dashboard, BuzzSumo, Insightpool, or HYPR can locate the right influencers for you.
- Compensate your influencers fairly. Your budget may be small, so you’ll need to work out the details of a compensation model that’s beneficial for both you and them. A few models you can choose from include:
- Cost per engagement
- Cost per click
- Pay per post
- Free products/experiences
- Cost per acquisition
- Have your influencers create unique content. They’re influencers for a reason. They know how to create unique and engaging content that resonates with their audience. Give them your trust to tell your story in their own voice.
If that all sounds like a daunting task, then enlist the help of Clock Tower Insight to help you make sure you’re on the right track.