Almost one-third of the marketing directors consider partnering with an influencer is the fastest way to gain new customers and an increasingly popular way to extend your brand’s reach or sell products.
According to Joel Goldstein’s article published over Forbes “How social media influencers can drive sales for your business” In which he mention a research
“Fully 82% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes read online customer ratings or reviews before purchasing items for the first time.”
According to a recent Twitter poll, 40% people saying they made a purchase as a result of an influencer tweet, and you get a trending. It, therefore, seemed wise to us to establish a list of advice for those who decide to take this route in order to consolidate their brand building.
Define Your Goals
No doubt influencers, well, influence people, and make them act a certain way. Before forming a partnership, or approaching the most prominent content creators, indicate the motivations and goals of your influencer marketing campaign.
Does it aim to strengthen brand awareness? To increase your traffic? To increase the awareness of your product, service or brand among a specific audience? Your goals will define your strategy, your influencer outreach plan, and the success of your campaign.
Pick the Right Influencer Audience
When choosing an influencer for brand awareness or to boost your online presence, be sure to select the right target market. Does it make sense to reach out to someone who has a Millennial audience if your product is aimed at seniors? Should you engage with a mommy blog if your target market is mostly single professionals?
You also need to make sure you choose someone who is appreciated and respected by their followers and the general public.
Don’t pick someone famous just because they are “celebrity” in your ranks. It’s very important to find out who really has influence over your audience, not necessarily the one with the most likes or followers.
Build Relationships
Influencers don’t have to be celebrities. They just need to be followed by a large base of followers who trust their recommendations. When you found a right influencer with the right audience, now how can you be sure they’re the right person and build a solid relationship with them to differentiate yourself?
If you’ve set your sights on a specific person because they’re already a fan of your brand, you’ve already done half the work. But whether or not your influencers are already fans, choose the interactions you set up wisely. These people are popular for good reason, and any suspicion of inauthentic interaction or inappropriate proselytizing is likely to drive their followers away.
Develop a relationship by inviting him/her to visit your office, asking them to cooperate in a worthy cause, or inviting them by sending tickets to your next event. Again, the idea here is to differentiate your business from other brands in the industry, most of them without a soft touch.
Demonstrate the Value of Your Association to the Influencer
What do I have to gain from this? Is probably the phrase we hear the most often.
Highly sought-after influencers are particularly difficult to convince if they feel that a product or service is not their own brand. You need to make it clear to everyone that you are approaching what they stand to gain from this partnership.
Do you offer money, free products, a prestigious name to put theirs on, or a way for their audience to solve a problem?
The value you are offering doesn’t have to be marketable. Here’s a great example: Gary Stevens, founder of the community- based research group HostingCanada.org, shipped maple syrup to over 100 journalists and PRs across Canada to generate stories about his community.
As you know, influencers are inundated with relatively aggressive sales pitches. Light-hearted strategies like Stevens’ are a way to break the ice and show them that you want to build a relationship, not just make money.
