How to Work with Influencers to Boost your Brand Exposure
Word-of-mouth has always been a very persuasive marketing technique. Throughout the years as marketing trends have come and gone, a recommendation from someone we trust is still tremendously influential.
Today, social media and communication tech via the Internet has meant more connection between human beings. In response, this has given rise to YouTubers, bloggers, and influencers – categories of people that never existed prior. By partnering with relevant influencers in these areas and others, there’s the potential to tap into word-of-mouth marketing in a very contemporary way.
Influencer marketing is essentially about using an influencer to recommend your product, service, or brand to their audience. Despite how good this sounds, there are plenty of ways to do this ineffectively. Therefore, finding the right influencers is key to maximizing your marketing dollar.
The first rule of working with influencers to boost brand exposure is to bring your influencer some value. Few people are going to want to do any sort of influencer promotion for free. Consider offering them a product or service for free, or a dollar mount. That way, you can express your thanks for their assistance and give them something to be excited about. This also gets them invested in the promotions process, creating a want in them to do right by you.
The second thing you want to keep in mind is you want to find an influencer that’s the right fit. Asking an influencer with no relevant relationship to your brand, products, or services to promote is unlikely to get you any new customers. By picking any influencer on their own, you’ll just be wasting their time and your money. Forego a low return on investment by doing your research and finding the right influencers relevant to your marketplace.
The last thing we want to suggest regarding influencer marketing is to consider how many followers an influencer has and, more importantly, to examine their engagement levels. There are plenty of social media accounts out there with hundreds of thousands of followers who receive very low engagement. For example, would you prefer someone with 400,000 followers and 600 likes per post, or someone with 10,000 followers and 2,000 likes per post – the answer should be clear. Always go for engagement numbers over followers. Just because someone has built a following, this doesn’t mean their engagement is high.
When influencer marketing is successful, brand exposure can be expanded rather quickly. Influencer marketing is not uncommon either so contacting an influencer should not be unexpected on their end.
So remember to make them an influencer an offer with some value attached, to ensure you’ve found the right influencer for your target market, and to consider their level of engagement on social media posts. This year, everyone from small businesses to major multi-national corporations will tap into influencer marketing. Studies have shown influencer marketing to be successful at boosting brand awareness, reaching new audiences, and improving brand advocacy. There’s no reason you shouldn’t afford your brand the same advantages that so many others have.
For more information on the absolute essentials of influencer marketing, speak with a representative at Unlimited Exposure. As a premiere digital marketing agency, we would be more than happy to establish key marketing relationships to advance your brand in the local marketplace.