How To Grow Your Brand With Influencer Marketing

One of the pitfalls of marketing every brand experience is the mental wall prospects create when they feel you are about to sell them something.

Immediately they see a brand message, video, picture, they feel that the brand is about to sell them and they tune off.

The good news, however, is that there is a way to go around that – through influencer marketing.

This form of marketing gets someone whom your target market loves and trusts talking to them about your brand, instead of your brand.

All you need is an influencer and a campaign that will convert.

What is influencer marketing?

Let me start with who an influencer is.

An influencer is anyone who has the power to affect the decisions made by a group of people. In this case, your influencer is one that can trigger a buying decision from your target market.  This is possible because that person has power, authority, knowledge, and a relationship with the people he/she influences.

On social media, an influencer usually has between 1000 followers to a million followers and above. The main factor though is that they can influence buying decisions.

Influencer marketing is basically marketing with the help of influencers. It is tapping into that power of influence, by partnering with influencers to market your products and services.

Why influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a very authentic way of marketing. The audience does not see a brand trying to sell their product. Instead, they see a friend telling them how his/her life has become better just by using your product.

This form of marketing will help you:

• Reach a larger audience than you would on your own
• Enhance your social media presence
• Gain more customers
• Increase your brand authority
• Get people trusting your brand
• Get a high return on investment

Now with that being said….

How to grow your brand with influencer marketing?

1. Set your influencer marketing goals

Setting your goals is the very first thing to do.

Why are you considering influencer marketing and what do you intend to achieve after the campaign is over?

Do you want:

• An increase in the sales of your product or service?
• An increase in engagement levels of your visitors?
• Increased brand awareness?
• A boost in website traffic?
• An increase in your number of followers?
• To generate leads?

You should have this figured out before you begin anything. This will help you figure out how your campaign would be like.

2. Choose the right platform(s)

You do not need all the social media platforms; you need the right ones.

Which of the social media platforms do you get engagement the most? Where are your ideal customers at? You need to pick platforms that are most popular with your target market. Do not stop there. Also, consider where they are the most active.

If you chose the wrong platform, you might experience a reduction in ROI, and end up wasting time and resources.

You do not have to pick one platform. Choosing multiple platforms for your influencer marketing help with brand exposure and awareness.

3. Choose the right influencer

Just because you need an influencer doesn’t mean you reach out to just any influencer on the platform you have chosen.

There are two things you need to consider when choosing your influencer(s)

• The type of content that they post

This is very important.

The kind of content they share determines whether or not they have your ideal customers as their followers.

If you sell baby clothes, you cannot seek the help of an influencer who loves rock and roll music and his/her posts are related to that.

Their content must somehow complement your business. For the best results, you both need to share a similar target audience. This way, you know that the audience will be interested in your product or service.

• Their engagement rates

While we all get swayed by the number of followers an influencer has on social media, that is not enough.

You need to consider how well they engage with their followers and how much their followers engage with them in return.

It is easy to buy followers, and some people follow a page but never keep up with it. Engagement shows that there is a meaningful relationship onboard and your message will not be echoing in a silent room.

With these two criteria, you can pick out several influencers across the several platforms you have chosen to help spread the word of your brand.

4. Get your influencer interested in your brand

After you have picked out the right influencer, the next thing to do is make them interested in your brand.

To do this, you have to reach out to them. For businesses that have the funds, you can offer money in exchange for promoting your products/services on their page.

But if you can’t afford that, there are other ways to get your influencer’s attention. In this case, think about how your brand can help the influencer. What’s in it for your influencer?

You could give free samples of your product or offer free services to your influencer.

When reaching out to your influencer, keep it simple. Tell them you need their help and explain what you can offer in return.

Note, not every influencer you reach out to will give you a positive response, especially if you are a small business. But keep on reaching out to as many as possible.

Different campaigns to run for influencer marketing

Now that you have gotten your influencer, what’s next?

With influencer marketing, there are different campaign ideas you can try out. I will be listing out some below. Just pick one that suits your budget and your goals.

Here they are:

• Instead of going for the regular promotions, create a unique experience around your brand and invite the influencer to participate in it.

For example, if you own a hall people rent for occasions, you can throw a mask party, with ball costumes and masks. And ask your influencer to be a guest. By the end of the night, he/she will be filling up their stories about the experience they just had.

• Collaborate with influencers to support a cause.  People are more willing to buy from a brand when they know it is contributing something good to the society. Just make sure it is something your target audience will be interested in.
• Get the influencer creating unique and engaging content. This is very popular, especially among comedians. Instead of just talking about your brand, they create a comedy skit around the product or service you are selling.
• Give influencers a sneak peek into a product or service and get them to try it before anyone else. This will prompt exclusive reviews from the influencers.
• Get your influencer to promote a unique hashtag that relates to the product you want to sell. They will create a buzz around the hashtag and soon, their audience will be engaging with the hashtags.

These are just a few of many ideas you can consider when going into influencer marketing. Just make sure that whatever campaign you run is in line with your goals and is something your target market will be interested in.