If you own a business, you may have heard of influencer marketing and wondered if it’s the right choice for your company. Influencer marketing refers to using social media stars to reach out to customers and generate brand awareness. However, it’s still relatively unknown compared to more traditional marketing means, such as television commercials. However, with so many people getting their news and information from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, influencer marketing can effectively and authentically promote your brand. Here’s how to create a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Identify Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is critical when it comes to influencer marketing. Who is most likely to purchase your product or use your service? What kind of content will they enjoy? What kind of language are they most likely to respond best too?
The key here is thinking about how you can connect with people on an emotional level and make them more open to purchasing from you. If possible, find a way to connect with influencers that have audiences similar to your target audience to reach as many people as possible. For example, if you’re selling skincare products, try connecting with beauty bloggers with similar followings to your target market. Not only do these influencers typically have large social media followings, but their followers tend to be interested in similar topics. Having common ground means your messaging won’t get lost in translation.
Find and Reach Out to Potential Collaborators
Most influencer marketing is building relationships with your customers and potential collaborators. As such, start by researching which social media channels are best for your business and who you should target there. Then reach out and connect with these people—follow them on Twitter, like their Instagram posts, or add them as friends on Facebook. The more you can interact with your target audience, the better.
Once you’ve built up some rapport (and hopefully gotten some shout-outs), it’s time to get down to business. You might want to send an email about how you admire their work and would love to collaborate on something in exchange for product placement, free products, or even cash payments.
Get the Content Right
You can have all of your influencers tweet, pin, or post on Facebook—but if your content isn’t engaging and resonates with your audience, they’ll quickly lose interest. When creating any marketing campaign, your goal is to inform your target demographic in a way that sparks discussion and encourages engagement. Use proven techniques, including open-ended questions and infographics, to catch and keep their attention.
Remember: One well-placed piece of content could be worth more than dozens of influencers shouting into an empty room.
Engage with Your Community
You might not be able to afford celebrity social media followers (or maybe you can, but that’s another story), but anyone can build relationships with influencers in their community. Start by reaching out on social media—if someone has an audience you want to access, they’re more than likely willing to help you get your start. And if they aren’t, why would you like them as followers anyway? They probably won’t appreciate your engagement. This is one of my favorite ways to find and connect with people interested in what I have to say. If I were starting over again today, I’d put a lot more effort into building my network and connecting with potential customers online.
Track Your Results
You’ve just launched your influencer marketing campaign and are starting to see success. Before you pat yourself on the back, you must track everything for future reference. Keep track of all your results—from conversions to engagement rate—in one place so you can use them as benchmarks for future campaigns. If you’re using an analytics tool like Google Analytics, then now is an excellent time to start familiarizing yourself with it. If not, plenty of free tools out there will do the trick (like KISSmetrics).
Successful influencer marketing campaigns are built on trust and authenticity. If you want to grow your business through influencer marketing campaigns, you’ve come to the right place! At Digital Shout, we know that finding trustworthy influencers who will deliver excellent results can be challenging. We have a team of experts dedicated to helping businesses find and work with the best influencers out there. We’ll find the perfect fit for your brand based on budget, goals, and audience demographics so that you get the most ROI possible.
