The online marketplace is overcrowded, and this makes it difficult for a product to reach its fans. However, that doesn’t mean you should give up. Pushing a boulder up a hill is not the way the digital market works. Marketers may try brute force without any resources and fall flat.
So, what is the best way to connect to the market that you want? What if you could connect with a person who has access to your targeted customers? What if just an email could open a world of new opportunities for your business? Better still, what if the individual has more access to your targeted customers than you do? They could also have a trustworthy reputation for driving sales faster. These people are the influencers. Today, the art of growing a business is governed by those who either influence marketing or use some influencer outreach strategy.
How can you do it? That is what we are going to discuss in this post. Let’s have a glimpse of how you can boost your business with an effective influencer outreach strategy.
Influence Marketing or Influencer Outreach – What is it?
Influence marketing is a typical form of marketing that mainly focuses on using key market leaders or influencers for driving the message of a brand to a larger market.
With the increasing popularity of social media websites, this strategy is widely popular among companies wanting to make their products and services visible to a wider group of people and reaching a greater audience.
In today’s scenario, if you do not consider engaging influencers as a part of the marketing strategy, you are definitely going to miss out. This method is not only incredibly useful but also easy to execute.
What more? You can make use of our advanced analytics solution to obtain meaningful statistics about the users and optimize the data. It is a wonderful tool to have a comprehensive idea of how the sales funnel is performing, while you run your influencer outreach campaign.
Why should you consider Influencer Outreach?
Statistics and facts show that influencer marketing is the best way to grow your business.
- 32% of US influencers state that Facebook is the best platform. 24% choose Instagram
- 7% of US marketing budgets were allocated to social media in 2017; an incredible leap from 3.5% in 2009
- 47% of online customers use ad block plug-ins; you can only reach them by providing trustworthy content, which includes social media influencers
- 70% of YouTube subscribers are teenagers who believe in influencer opinions over the opinions of their favorite stars or celebs
Studies reveal that influencer marketing is the fastest and most effective tactic to help businesses acquire online customers. However, your campaign can only succeed if you find the right influencers and connect. Your target is the ones having a decent number of followers with a high rate of engagement that aligns with your product or services.
So, how should you create an effective influence marketing strategy?
1: Set the right reasons
Make sure you choose the right reasons to get optimum results from an influencer campaign. Most companies jump into this marketing strategy simply because it is trending. You must ask yourself – Why am I starting this? The answer to this question is a determinant factor.
Ideally, your answer should cite valid reasons to promote your products and services through influencer marketing. You may want to reach more people, get more traffic, and so on. You should have clear goals to achieve the results you want.
2: Find the perfect influencer for your niche market
Once you decide your purpose, you have to proceed to the next step – identify your perfect influencer. You cannot just pick a random influencer because that person has many followers. Rather, you must opt for an influencer who can represent your brand and reach your target market and way beyond. For instance, if your business is a clothing brand, you cannot choose a food blogger as your influencer. Before defining the right influencer for your business, here’s what you should know:
- You are looking for brand-specific social engagement
- The scale of social influence is very important
- Quality of content development is crucial
- Ensure the frequency of content development
- Age is a key factor
- Consider gender
Remember, it is not only about the number of followers, but also about the blogger’s ability to engage readers.
3: Prepare an influencers list and edit it
Now that you know the characteristics of ideal influencers, you must find as many as possible. Avoid picking the first person you encounter.
Continue your search for influencers matching your criteria, create a detailed list, and keep prioritizing. Single out some influencers whom you think are reliable, subscribe to their blogs, social media profiles, or channels, and monitor their posts and audience engagement.
Ensure you edit the list consistently eliminating those that do not fit the bill. Keep only those who represent your brand well.
4: Build a strong relationship with influencers
The only successful influencer marketing strategy is the one with healthy relationships. A strong bond and correlation with the influencers work. Do not consider them as mere marketing tools to promote your brand. Do not order them to write a post that you want.
Always bear in mind that earning an influencer status took a lot of time, hard work, and effort. These people actually have followers who trust them and like seeing some solid content. So, rather than compelling them to write what you want, allow them to create their content mentioning your brand.
Moreover, influencers are not free workers. They get paid, free merchandise, and much more. Hence, it is crucial to establish a healthy relationship with an influencer as it also affects your influencer marketing campaign. Just the way you want your potential customers to believe in your brand, the influencer you choose should feel safe and trusted.
5: Disclosure is important
In order to ensure that your influencer campaign succeeds, you must educate yourself as well as your influencer on how they should disclosure your partnership with the company. This is crucial because there are certain guidelines issued by states for this kind of marketing strategy. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission monitors such alliances closely.
Therefore, you should follow these rules. After all, you would not want your brand to be listed with the ones that do not follow the mandatory guidelines, right?
Therefore, your disclosure should be clear, using unequivocal langue, decent color and font to make it legible, and so on. As influencer campaigns are getting popular day by day, the FTC is trying to ensure everyone is playing safe and fair. You are bound to explain to your influencer that using proper disclosure is a norm and make sure he/she follows it.
6: Use the latest influencer outreach tools
In order to make influencer marketing easier and faster, you must use the latest tools and strategies. For example, if you do not have enough time for creating a list of influencers, prioritizing them and monitoring them closely, you can use the latest software or even work with businesses that have an influencer or a bloggers outreach process.
Effective content marketing is the key to success of any influencer outreach strategy. Quality content brings 3x more leads and is 62% less expensive than any other form of outbound marketing.
To help you with great content, use powerful tools that have professionally written scripts that you can customize to suit your business. Create high-converting sales copy in no time, leveraging the most out of your influencer marketing investments.
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7: Do not forget micro-influencers
Wondering what this means?
Micro-influencers are essential for any influencer campaign today. They are usually your customers, or individuals working in a specialized niche and sharing their likes with others. They may not have thousands of followers like influencers, but they have a higher rate of engagement, a more targeted audience, and they are more authentic and affordable, too.
For an ideal influencer marketing process, you should combine influencers and micro-influencers because they fit perfectly. Micro-influencers represent exactly what customers like to see or expect from a brand. On the other hand, influencers help to make a brand visible.
8: Master Advanced Search Queries by Google
Brush up your Google skills to make the most out of influencer marketing. Adding a few parameters to a query can actually help you cut through search results and come to the exact point you are looking for. It is a faster and more to-the-point result.
For instance, you can use the advanced search query to locate influencers contributing to a relevant publication. To do that, you have to identify top publications in your niche industry, find their blogs and proceed.
It is the best way to find a goldmine of influencers writing authoritative content about your specific industry.
Tap into the power of Influencer Marketing
Noted below are a few things you can try to enact influencer marketing yourself:
- Find the right influencers using social listing tools, social media stalking, and Google advanced search queries
- Build a detailed list of contacts with influencer contact information and work details
- Use a CRM platform to track and monitor contact information and conversation
- Create a sequential email campaign introducing your brand and building a relationship
- Schedule multiple follow-up times before hearing back from your target audience; make sure you use an automated CRM process.
- Tracking and analyzing email metrics is essential to measure your results and refine the strategy for the future
Final word
Influencer outreach campaigns are successful only when you are organized and conducting an influencer outreach campaign properly. You must track the influencers contacted and the ones shortlisted. In addition, you must follow-up by sending emails and keeping track of the ones who responded. This will be immensely helpful for planning outreach activities.
Bring your influencers onboard, build a long-lasting relationship with them and ensure mutual benefits. If your influencers feel valued, they will take a stake in your success as well.