Marketing

Influencer Marketing: How Partnerships Can Help Reach New Audiences

When contemplating what your marketing efforts are going to look like, we’re willing to bet that utilizing influencer marketing didn’t cross your mind. Influencer marketing is a highly valuable form of marketing that, when done properly, can get your business name out in front of a target audience that you may not normally reach. So, let’s get started by going through how you can find influencers to work with.

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How To Find an Influencer

When looking for influencers, keep in mind that you don’t need to focus on influencers with massive followings like the Kardashians. Instead, look for micro influencers with followings between 5,000-100,000. Be sure to check out their engagement by dividing the amount of likes on a post by their number of followers. It’s important to check this because you need to see if their audience is active, or if they’ve simply bought followers. Micro influencers are also a better option compared to mega influencers because they tend to have more interested followers, and can achieve 22.2x more conversions than average.

You can also look for local blogs and check instagram location hashtags to find influencers in your area. Try looking for influencers within niches like home and lifestyle. You’ll want to make sure that their follower demographics align with your target customers. If they have a media kit available, that should contain all the information on their audience. You can also do a quick google search with “your city name + influencers” to get the ball rolling. For some guidelines on how to reach out to influencers, take a look at this resource.

For the trade industry, we’d recommend looking at trade influencers in your niche. For example, if you own and operate a plumbing business, you could reach out to influencers like @conradtheplumber. Also, look for popular podcasts within your niche, and reach out to the hosts to see if they’d be interested in a partnership. They may accept the offer, or they may decline, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask.

How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Product

Guest Posting

A guest post occurs when an influencer allows you to post content on their account or ‘take over’ for a predetermined amount of time.

Social Media Mentions

This occurs when an influencer repeatedly calls out or ‘mentions’ you to their followers via their platform.

Affiliate

An affiliate partnership occurs when the influencer will receive a commission on every customer they bring you.

Networking Events

You can also ask the influencer to do a collaboration networking event, such as a sponsored meet and greet.

PR Events

You can utilize influencers for PR events by working together to create newsworthy events and content that would interest media outlets.

Merchandise

If you’ve taken the time to create company branded merchandise that can be purchased on your website, you can ask the influencer to promote your merchandise to their audience.

How To Compensate

Normally, influencers prefer monetary compensation for their efforts, but sometimes, depending on what type of influencer they are, they may accept a different form of compensation. A blogger, for example, is very different from an Instagram influencer.

Social media influencers like Instagram personalities tend to rely on sponsorships and brand deals and manage their own brands. A blogger, meanwhile, often has other forms of revenue like affiliate programs and advertising on their site. So, they may be more open to other forms of payments, like an affiliate partnership where they get paid per sale, or simply obtaining high quality blog content that will provide value to their audience and can help them obtain traffic and bring in more ad revenue.

Feel free to get creative with your compensation method. You can offer them something exclusive like a free service and ask for an honest review. Don’t just blatantly ask for a review – give them a real life experience of your business. The more interactive and enticing the offer is, the more likely the influencer/audience will be to take it. If it’s an interesting enough experience (e.g. maybe you remodel part of their kitchen for free), you can then go and pitch the experience to a media outlet. Always be sure to make your offer unique, valuable, and shareable.

Contacting Influencers

Don’t go in cold asking for something. When possible, always make a connection with influencers first. Check our networking guide for suggestions.

Then, when you first start chatting with influencers about a pitch, you’ll need to explain the benefits to both the influencer and their audience in terms of traffic, influence, money, or gifts. We’d recommend that you start out with a direct message or an email to contact influencers.

In the body of your email, you’ll want to either talk about exclusive content you’re providing them, or inform them about a campaign you want them to be involved with. These campaigns can be anything from service or product giveaways, to discounts or commissions on every sale.

How To Manage Influencers

We’ll be honest, when it comes to working with influencers, be prepared to be kind and patient. These people are often approached by companies daily and it may take a few times to get their attention and start building that relationship.

Interacting with influencers is all about balance. You want to give them a clear direction, but you also want to give them enough creative freedom to make the message their own. An unclear objective can lead to a result that doesn’t fit your needs, but strict scripts can come across as inauthentic to their audience. We’d also recommend creating deadlines to help keep your partnership on track.

And just like that, we’ve covered the basics of what you’ll need to know when pursuing influencer marketing efforts. For some help getting started with your influencer outreach emails, take a look at some of the helpful pitch and media kit templates we’ve created. Now, let’s continue growing your public relations knowledge by heading back to our guide to PR.

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