For the uninitiated, Influencer Marketing(IM) is form of marketing that focuses on using influential people (other than celebrities and well known people). All the marketing activities are channelized around these influencers as they have a great influence over potential customers.
An influencer could be anyone- a blogger, a fashion photographer, a marketing executive or anybody else from your industry. All you need to do is to find them! An ideal influencer would be the one having a few thousands of followers on social media handles such as Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube etc.
No. Don’t get it wrong, Influencer Marketing is not going to replace social media marketing, it definitely cannot exist without them. It is just that, IM is great way to connect with your target audience and build a better relationship with them. This will help your business scale to a great extent.
How to achieve it?
Firstly, plan a budget, have a strategy in place and spend enough time doing thorough research and be patient to see the results. It may take some time to achieve the desired results through IM. So , patience is the key. Here are some tips that will help you get maximum benefits from IM.
1. Find your influencer on Instagram
You really did not think Instagram to be a great platform for influencer marketing right? Well, you are wrong! A survey revealed that Instagram was the NUMBER 1 platform for influencers in 2017. While it is likely to remain a favourite for some more time, it is recommended that you also look at other channels such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube.
Most influencers base their pricing depending on their number of followers, demand and engagement. Also, if they are receiving offers from other brands to promote their brand, they are likely to increase their price owing to their value. However, the same influencer may not have a great following on Snapchat or Pinterest. As a result, the influencer may charge you only for Instagram and not other handles. That is why influencer marketing can be a win-win situation for both.
You could also look at other ‘overlooked’ social media handles to work with influencers. While you may not be able to target a large audience like Instagram, you may have a chance to get better ROI by paying less and getting more conversions.
2. Use influencer marketing tools
Finding influencers and building a relationship with them is huge task.
The easiest way to achieve this is:
Browse through various social media handles to find a suitable influencer
Send them an email or DM
Negotiate your terms and reach an agreement
Send the payment to the influencer and wait for him to execute the plan
Track your partnership
Apart from this, you could use tools such as Tapinfluence and Upfluence to find and manage influencers.
You could also explore other marketing tools to help you create workflows and processes for your campaigns. All these tools will not only help you save time but also help measure performance.
3. Know if IM is really profitable
There’s no doubt that an influencer can add a great value to your brand, you can still track the revenue IM brings in.
The most basic way to get started is to use UTM parameters. You may assign certain parameters to your influencers and track the activity of every visitor on your website.
Another way to track your revenue is by providing your influencers with promo codes. That way, every time a customer uses the code, you can be sure that it is through the influencer.
4. Use compelling content instead of ads
Simply asking your influencers to hold your products and clicking photos of it with punch-lines will not bring in the desired results. It’s 2018 and you simply cannot fool your customers into buying your products through such boring ads!
With so many players in the industry, you have to do something innovative to stand out.
The best way is to use compelling content. Entertain, educate and invoke emotions in your target audience with the help of content marketing.
Most brands tend to overlook it, you don’t!
5. A pool of influencers
Today, people feel that being an ‘influencer‘ is a lucrative profession and several people are considering it as a career option. This means you have an option to choose from many influencers.
Remember, influencers having the most number of followers need not necessarily mean that he/she is the best. You could choose a social media influencer having less than 10k followers and still have a better conversion rate.
Influencer marketing is surely getting popular by the day as it is one of the best ways to engage with your target audience. However, do remember that it does not come with any guarantees. It may take some time before you see the result or your Brand may see overnight success, at the end it depends on your product or service.