Influencer marketing is a popular strategy that many businesses use to promote their services and products. In a nutshell, influencer marketing is a mutually beneficial partnership between a brand and a third party. In exchange for goods, services, or monetary fees, the influencer will promote a brand to their own, loyal audience. Although this type of marketing can help your business expand your customer base, there are a few things you should know before deciding if influencer marketing is right for you.
Cost of Partnerships
Not all partnerships require payment. Many influencers will endorse a brand in exchange for free products or services. Many beauty brands send product samples to their influencers in exchange for testimonials, reviews, and organic posts on their best social media accounts. Service-based brands will provide influencers an experience that they can share on their social channels and within their blogs. If affiliate links are a part of your strategy, you can also provide these specific links to your influencers to use when driving traffic to your website.
Types of Influencers
Influencers come in many shapes and sizes. The main types of influencers include micro, macro, mega, and employee.
Micro Influencers: These influencers have followings of 1K to 100K and generally have higher engagement because of their niche audiences. These users are considered experts in their community, and their followers are most likely to engage with sponsored content. This level of influencer is also the best choice for businesses with a modest budget.
Macro Influencers: These users have followings of 100K to one million on their social channels. Many of these influencers include reality stars and expect payment for any type of endorsements. Although they have a large following, these influencers generally are working with many brands at one time. As a result, your brand could get lost in the sea of sponsored content that fills their profile.
Mega Influencers: These influencers are major celebrities or people in the public eye that have over one million followers. Contracts with these influencers are very expensive. If you have a large budget to work with and are looking for quick follows and increases in awareness, mega influencers may be right for your strategy. It’s important to note that relationships with these influencers are short-lived and may not result in as high of a conversion rate as partnerships with smaller influencers.
Employees: Many businesses overlook the power of using employees as their influencers. Your teams may already be sharing how great your business is and advocating on your behalf. You can utilize their content on your channels and encourage them to continue sharing about your brand with their audiences.
Marketing Strategy
Before reaching out to potential influencers, you need to create an influencer marketing strategy. In this strategy, it’s important to include your goals, your expectations for influencers, what metrics you will track, and any specific messaging that should be used in the content. Although much of this strategy will be used internally, messaging and influencer expectations need to be communicated directly with users you will be working with. Are there specific deadlines you would like to receive assets by? Are there specific hashtags or keywords that should be used in all content? What is the length and goal of the partnership? Before pitching to potential influencers, start by answering all of these questions and creating a solid plan your whole team can follow.
Influencer marketing can be a successful way for you to connect with a whole new audience. Whether your goal is sales, awareness, or reach, it’s important to create a solid strategy to use and identify the best influencers for your brand.
49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations to make a purchase.
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