An Easy-to-Consume Guide to Influencer Marketing for Beginners

In 2020, most businesses, small and large, experimented with various digital platforms to boost their brand’s online presence. As a promoter of your business, you’ve probably given every trick in the book a shot to enhance the visibility and reach of your business online. However, with the never-ending lockdown and people staying at home for extended periods, some of the usual marketing tactics failed to reflect positively on your business’ growth. It would help if you had a fresh start with an Influencer driven Marketing Campaign.

How Powerful is Influence?

“Activate your followers, don’t just collect them like stamps.”
― Stacey Kehoe

Given the current marketing climate in 2021, marketing hacks need to flaunt an oomph factor to make an impact. Today, it’s all about being a few steps ahead of your standard game plan. Influencer Marketing is the key to achieving accelerated pace and power in gaining new engagements and increasing sales.

Influencer Marketing has been trending in the scene for a while. By adopting influencer marketing, your business stands a chance of effectively ingraining itself in the minds of niche audiences it has never explored before.

What Makes Influencers So Special?

“Never underestimate a person who is kind and sweet. They may have friends in high places or some other superpower. I have written a large company about some improvements and glitches they have which affected my and other authors’/partners’ sales. They did very little. Now they are being looked at by people in high places. – Strong by Kailin Gow about the Strength of Being an Influencer”
― Kailin Gow

Influencers are a dynamic force of nature. They are people of the internet, studded with a large pool of followers, fans, customers, and subscribers. From blog influencers to social media influencers, these individuals have a unique capability of “pulling strings” when it comes to advertising a business, popularising a brand, and spreading awareness among the masses.

Influencers are like role-models. They represent themselves as people one can relate to, look up to, and learn from. By initiating an Influencer Marketing campaign, you can push your business to newer highs with a little help from suitable, well-reputed influencers.

Among many, one of the critical elements to establishing a successful Influencer Marketing strategy is picking an influencer who is relevant to your business or niche. For example: If you’re trying to sell a pharmaceutical product, an influencer who specifically endorses health and fitness is your best pick.

What’s the Role of an Influencer?

“A picture is a reflection of the dreams, vision, missions, and goals hidden within. Look beyond what you see.”
― Proud Chocolate

As the quote aptly states, influencers enable your target audience to see and believe in more than what meets the eye. They recommend and introduce your products with style and subtlety.

Influencers spotlight your products and services by:

Linking

Besides uploading an image or video, influencers go that extra mile by including a link to your product, blog, or website to their website or social media page. The next time potential customers encounter an attractive post by an influencer, they will discover your products, services, intricate details, and influential reviews of your brand.

Spreading the Word

Word-of-mouth is an impactful tool of marketing. It strengthens the relatability and credibility factor of your business. Influencers highlight your products and services organically by talking about them at important events they attend. Sometimes, they carry your product to showcase it and discuss its benefits and usage with potential buyers.

Writing

Influencers can be great writers thanks to their knowledge of people and their desires. Influencers love attention, and they know how to gain it. If they write about your business in their blogs and social media posts, you can expect quick leads, rapid sales, and a whole lot of meaningful engagement.

Creating Videos

Influencers try your product or service and review it online through interactive and fun videos and podcasts. After using your products and services, they share their experiences, likes, and preferences with large audiences via videos in full detail.

Displaying

Influencers display your brand on their online forums. When customers purchase anything from an influencer’s marketplace, they will meet your brand there, and if the moment calls for it, they will engage with it.

Posting

Most Influencers are prominently active on social media. They can create posts about your products and services with pleasant imagery and pitching captions on Facebook and Instagram.

Tweeting

For Influencers, Twitter works like a charm. When they tweet about your business or brand, the word spreads like wildfire, and you can gain tremendous traction with just a simple tweet from your Influencer.

Where are all the Influencers?

Let’s touch upon the topic of relevance from earlier. You can’t just choose any famous person to endorse your business. Your marketing Influencer has to be someone whose essence and stature are in sync with your brand’s. The internet is overflowing with Influencers, and it’s often easy to take off on a tangent while picking one to represent your business. Start by learning about what’s out there.

Typically, Influencers are either:

• Celebrities
• Experts
• Public Figures
• Authorities
• Popular Social Media Users
• Bloggers
or
• PR wizards

These influencers work on different platforms like events, social media, or online discussion panels to cater to your business’s different yet specific needs. If you make your requirements clear to them, their efforts will revolve around uplifting your brand’s outlook.

Some influencers connect with blog-driven audiences, while some are exclusively Instagram-oriented. The question is: Which type of Influencer is best suited for your brand, and where can you find them?

Blogs

It’s common practice to ask influencers, who engage with a large pool of users, write about your product or service on their blog site. The aptest way to find a Blogging Influencer is to seek out the blogs you consider popular or successful in your expertise area. If you look for the blogs that rank high on Google and have the most views, responses, likes, and comments, you fill come across – Blogging Influencers. Use apps like Evernote, WordPress, Lifewire, and Google Analytics, to find viral blogs in your niche, written by authors/influencers, doing what they do best — Influencing!

Social Media

It is nearly impossible to find anyone who isn’t on social media these days. In such a media-savvy world, you want an influencer who’s Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter profiles are stacked with countless followers. Use HypeAuditor — a tool that will help you find the best influencers on Instagram. Run a search of keywords to spot the most trendy, mainstream posts on any of these networks. The talent driving the success of these posts are your potential marketing assets — Social Media Influencers.

Interactive Media

Use Player to find the most sough-after podcasts and videos by influencers who create your niche or industry-related content. iTunes is another common place for well-renowned podcasts and videos. YouTube is a preeminent hub for upcoming and talented influencers, and it’s effortless to find them here. Run a search with some filters, and you could identify just what your campaign needs — Media Influencers.

Networks and Forums

The best reviewers make the best Discussion Influencers. With witty posts, comments, reviews, and Q&A responses, such influencers have a skillful knack for persuading audiences to convert to other brands or indulge in new services. The famous one of all, Quora, is a one-stop station for influencers of this kind.

Events and Webinars

A good speaker is highly influential. You could find influential speakers by going through the pages of the event. Every event always highlights its speakers. Glance over at the Speaker’s list, and there you have it, your future — Event Influencer.

Influencer Marketing Tools

Apart from running Key Word Searches and skimming through content to find the best Influencer in the business, you could also use many tools that make finding an influencer just that much easier. You could tap use:

Influence.co – a marketplace for Social Media and Media Influencers
Alltop – a great place for Blogging Influencers
Podbay.fm – a powerhouse of Podcast Influencers
Upfluence – a search engine for Influencers
Discover.ly – a networking engine for Influencers
Social Crawlytics – a content tracking tool
HypeAuditor – a ranking tool for Instagram Influencers
Tweetdeck – a search engine for popular tweets
AspireIQ – a directory of content creators across the globe
Post for Rent – an ideal place to find influencer reviews and references

What’s the best way to work with an Influencer?

“When it comes to persuasion, emotions usually trump intellect.”
― Will Peters

Once you’ve discovered and shortlisted influencers in your niche, the next move is to appoint them for the job. Ideally, you want them to appreciate and support your product or service to such an extent that they feel naturally compelled to endorse it. For this to happen, you to have a strong and persuasive pitch.

Make a note of two significant motives while pitching your brand to your potential Influencer.

1. Whatever you say must accentuate the fact that your product or service is beneficial to them.
2. Your pitch should appeal to them in such a way that they relate entirely to your product and feel excited about sharing it with their engaged followers.

The idea is to make them realise how useful and profitable your product. Its concept and qualities should be authentic enough for them to like your product genuinely.

Offer your target Influencer a free-trial of your product or a free-avail of your service. Be open to feedback and offer the assistance you can.

Take the time to demonstrate how your product can benefit them and explain its advantages.

Influencer marketing is teamwork. Work with your influencers on strategies that enhance the promotion of your brand.

Your Influencer Marketing Campaign is Up and Running. What Happens Next?

Once you’ve got the ball rolling and your influencers have met the campaign’s needs, it’s your turn to assist your influencers’ efforts.
They will write about your business, create posts about it, talk about it, and even exhibit it in some ways, but influences can’t always speak on your behalf.

You know best about your business, and there may be some questions and queries only you can appropriately and adequately answer.

So, this is what you do next. You take on the role of a supporting pillar that stands behind every Influencing tactic to strengthen and polish it whenever required.

What’s in The Name, anyway?

In the marketing world, a name is everything. Make it an influential one, and your business can reach the stars. As working individuals, we are always looking for inspiration and motivation. Influencers do everything in their power to empower your business. Set in motion a state-of-the-art Influencer Marketing plan, and it’s only rewarding from then on.

For more information on Influencer Marketing and other Marketing Requirements, please call us at 1300 254 973