Just like with anything else, your first order of business is to determine your goals. Typically, influencer marketing is used to discover new audiences and target new customers. About 35% of marketers use influencers precisely in this sense. 31% will focus on increasing product consideration, and 26% will focus on increasing their sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can go for any goal you want, but influencer marketing is generally excellent at finding warm or hot audiences and spreading the word about your brand. Naturally, depending on your goal, you would want to consider different types of audiences. To drive sales, you must consider micro- or nano-influencers, as they have much higher conversion rates than macro- or mega-influencers. On the other hand, if you want to invest in brand awareness, mega influencers are the best choice, as they will add immense value to your brand. Still, macro influencers can significantly impact a narrow audience, which may eventually lead to sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Know Who You Are Influencing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n After determining your goal, it’s time to consider your target audience. Each influencer has an audience with specific interests. For example, suppose you strike a deal with GCN, one of the biggest cycling YouTube channels. In that case, you can be sure that advertising motorbike components won’t go as smoothly as they would if you partner with Chaos Causes, despite GCN having a 10 times bigger audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing your audience will lead you to the right influencers and weed out those who sound good on paper but won’t help you achieve your goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, you must consider how much of the influencer’s audience overlaps with yours. You don’t want to pay for messaging customers you can already reach on your own. Make sure your influencer choice will expand your reach. So consider whether you want to hit a different demographic, new geo-location, or just spread the word to an entirely new audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Make Your Shortlist<\/h3>\n\n\n\n After deciding on your target audience, it’s time to make your shortlist. Start weeding out potential influencers based on how much of your audience overlaps with theirs, how much your audience respects the influencer, how niche the influencer is, and other factors. The most important factor is the trust the influencer inspires. It will be pointless to pay someone if they can’t convey a trustworthy message to their audience, let alone new audiences. The influencer’s credibility is best reflected in their engagement. If they have a lot of negative comments or a lack of dislikes, you would want to skip this influencer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Engagements will also confirm the follower count, since some influencers boost their numbers with bots and fake accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, consider the tone. Find someone with a voice similar to your brand voice. This will seamlessly blend the influencer’s content into your channels, giving you extra value for your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Research the Three Rs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Once your shortlist is complete, you can narrow it further by thoroughly researching the three Rs of influence: Relevance<\/strong>, Reach<\/strong>, and Resonance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA relevant influencer will create content relevant to your business niche or industry. If you want to broaden your reach, you want to find someone whose work is not entirely within your own niche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, the influencer must have a significant reach. This means they must have a significant subscriber number and relatively consistent viewing numbers. You don’t want an influencer with one viral video while all their other work has significantly lower views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, there’s the resonance. A huge follower and viewer count is meaningless without engagement and connections with the audience. So follow closely the influencer’s engagements – comments, likes, and shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Know the Influencer\u2019s Workflow Before You Reach Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\n By now, you probably have up to five candidates for your influencer marketing campaign. It’s time to dive a bit deeper into their work. Research their workflow and how often they publish new content. This is essential to your scheduling, as you won’t see results immediately. Moreover, if the influencer posts thoroughly researched videos only once a month but is in the middle of promoting a new product, you can’t wait another month or two for their next video. The same goes for seasonal products. So, learn how often they publish, how long it takes them to create new content, and any specifics about their work. For example, do they do product reviews, include advertising in the middle of their videos as part of their content, or add product placement to their content?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Reach Out Personally and Privately<\/h3>\n\n\n\n There are two ways to go about buying a partnership. The first is strictly business, where you extend a direct offer. Still, if you have the time, starting slow is a good idea. Like their content, comment when appropriate, and show interest in their posts. You can even share some of their work on your own page if it’s relevant to your industry. When you are ready to enter into a relationship, a DM is the perfect place to start. Make the DM personal and not business-like. This will show you are serious about your partnership. Moreover, influencers also choose the businesses they will work with, as they also have a brand to protect. So, sharing some of their content and acting like a genuine fan of their work will bring you closer to a partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In your initial message, be blunt about your intentions. Provide as much information about your business and yourself as possible, and make clear how the influencer will benefit from your partnership beyond the payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
7. Clarify Your Goals and Terms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n During your conversation, you must clarify your KPIs, expectations, and in what cases you will pull out your support. For example, when Kanye West went on an anti-Semitic rant, many of his sponsors dropped him. If they hadn’t placed such clauses in a contract, Kanye would have had the chance to go to court and most probably win. So, make sure to clarify that you won’t tolerate behavior that will antagonize your core customer base. After all, the point is to enlarge your audience, not shrink it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most importantly, do not try to micromanage or dictate their work. You are partnering up with a content creator, and they are fanatic about their work and creative freedom. Any input should be delivered as a suggestion, not a demand. This is the biggest problem with influencer marketing. You have little to no control over how your brand will be represented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, many influencers will refuse to work with you if you insist on them making fabricated reviews. This goes double for reviewer influencers, who build their audience precisely by giving honest opinions. So either play their game or just don’t waste your time trying to sway them otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n