What is the best way to promote your business in 2019? One of the best ways to promote your business is influencer marketing. Unlike old marketing methods that require repetitive marketing tasks, influencer marketing utilizes influencers as a means to promote a product or service. It works because influencers have already built their user base for you. They have followers who are ready to buy your products and services.
However, influencer marketing is not as easy as approaching an influencer and asking them to promote you. You may have done that already. If you did, you'd find that most influencers will ignore your messages unless you give them a reason to do you a favor. In this article, you'll learn some ways on how you can launch an influencer marketing program that is designed for success.
Step 1: Find the Right Influencers
Launching a successful influencer marketing program starts with finding the right influencers. You cannot promote your brand to just anyone. If you do that, you'll find that your promotion will not always convert in the way you want it.
First, the influencer must be relevant to your niche or the influencer must belong to a niche that is highly relevant to your business. It doesn't have to be in the same niche. They must only work in a relevant market. For example, a fitness influencer is compatible for nutrition products. But he is also compatible with vegan or animal-friendly products. Ultimately, it depends on the nature of the followers of the influencer. This will dictate whether or not the influencer is a perfect fit for the business.
Second, you should learn to assess the influence level of the influencer. You see, not every influencer can 'influence'. Some of them are just there to share their content as their artwork. What you'll need are influencers that are able to encourage their market into action. This can be done in two ways. First, the influencer can directly recommend a product. This is where you share your product with the influencer and ask them for their review. The second approach is to ask them to promote the product subtly. They can do this by incorporating your products into their daily routine. In my experience, product placements are more effective. This is because it doesn't overly promote the product and allow the audience to decide if they want to buy.
Finding the right influencers require some research. For this, you'll need the right tools. You'll need three tools. A search engine, a contact database, and an email confirmer and retriever. The search engine will be your platform for uncovering influencers in your niche. This can be as simple as Google or an influencer marketing tool. It is important to choose an influencer not only based on their position in the search results but also based on the quality of their content. You also want to check how responsive they are to their target market. You'll know how well their market responds to them based on the engagements on their website and social media profiles. The contact database is for storing all the contacts you have researched. This can be a simple Excel or Google Sheets file or it can be integrated with an influencer marketing tool like Ninja Outreach. Lastly, you'll need an email confirmer and retriever. One of the brands that I found for this is FindThatLead.
Step 2: Start with Some Objectives
You will not know what you want to get out of influencer marketing unless you have an objective. It is very important to define what you want right from the start. Do you want more traffic? Do you want to increase your sales? Do you want more brand exposure? If you're going to increase one of these, you have to be very specific. For example, instead of saying that you want more traffic, you should say that you want to get 100,000 more people into your website by the end of your influencer marketing promotion. Similarly, you can also set your goal in terms of sales. Instead of saying that you want to increase your sales, you can say that you want to increase your sales by $10,000 by the end of the promotion. Specific numbers are better.
Why do you need to set an objective? Well, think of it as your north star. It gives you direction. It will set the path for you. Since you know where you are going, you'll know the roads that you have to take. So if your target is to increase sales, you will not be easily swayed by a spike in traffic. You know that you are still far from your goal.
Later, you'll learn how to measure results. This will dictate whether or not you can meet the objectives that you have set for yourself.
NOTE: You can set multiple objectives. However, be sure to set one as the priority. This way, you'll be able to measure your success based on that one objective.
Step 3: Have Something Worth Sharing
Once you get started on influencer marketing, you'll find that one of the hardest things to do is to get influencers on board. One approach that influencer marketing tools use is the template-based approach. This is where you send one template-based email to all the influencers in your list. While this approach may work, it will not work all the time. Influencers know if you are only sending them another email template. A good workaround is to have something worth sharing. This can be more than your products and services. It can also be the uniqueness of your brand or the professional customer service that you provide. In any case, it should be something worth the attention of your target market. If it is interesting, influencers will naturally be attracted to it and share it on their own.
PRO TIP: Want an influencer to promote your product for you? Ask for their review instead. You can do this by sending them a free product and giving them a chance to review it. The key is to have a superior product. With this, you don't have to require the influencer to post a review. They will automatically do it.
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