If you’ve spent any time trying to engage with your ideal audience on social media, you may have noticed something: it’s crowded out there. The number of social media users is growing and social media marketing is becoming a more integral part of businesses’ advertising strategies each year. It makes sense that organic engagement across industries has dropped while the cost of social ads has risen – the fight for attention is real. But what if you could team up with someone who already has your audience’s ear and use their social capital to bypass the noise? With influencer marketing, you can. Here are the four steps you can take to build an influencer marketing strategy that works for your business.
Determine Your Parameters
Define who you’d like to reach with your campaign and what you’d like the outcome to be. As with almost anything in marketing, it’s hard to know if something is working the way you want it to unless you set metrics for success. There are many ways that influencers can add value to your business, from brand awareness and audience engagement to sales and more. The goals and audiences you want to reach will determine the metrics you’ll want to watch, what you’re looking for in an influencer, and the amount you’re willing to give or spend to make a deal work. Define in clear terms what you’re willing to give or pay an influencer and what you’d like to receive in return, and create a plan to communicate that vision clearly.
Find Your Influencers
Once you know what you hope to accomplish with influencer marketing and who you’d like to reach, you can begin to narrow down which influencers might be able to help you accomplish those goals. Find influencers who are aligned with your brand’s vision and whose followers overlap with your ideal audience. There are plenty of tools available to help you narrow your search (for a small fee of course), but one of the best ways to find influencers and content creators who fit your requirements is to look for people who are already talking about relevant topics in your industry. By searching hashtags and googling keywords, a clear picture should start to emerge about who has your audience’s ear.
Nurture Your Relationships
Not only are you trying to build a relationship with your ideal audience; you’re trying to build a relationship with your ideal influencers, too. Follow your ideal influencers closely and begin engaging with them. Almost no one appreciates a cold-call, and influencer marketing is no different. Building relationships will make the eventual ask much easier – and make getting a ‘yes’ much more likely. Look at things from their perspective. What are their needs and goals and how can a partnership with your brand help them along that path? What will make your influencers say yes?
Put Your Contract in Place
Once you and your influencer are on the same page with the logistics of your exchange, make sure you put a signed contract in place. It doesn’t need to be fancy, and you don’t need a lawyer to draw one up, you can find an influencer contract template here. Having all of the pertinent details from payment to distribution to the timeline you expect each party to abide by will keep everything clear for you and your influencers and help you avoid any unnecessary hiccups along the way.
6 in 10 YouTube subscribers would follow advice on what to buy from their favorite creator over their favorite TV or movie personality.
Do you need help finding and overseeing influencers? Our team works as an extension of your team to carefully develop and manage influencer marketing strategies that accomplish your business goals.
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