Influencer marketing has never been more prominent, but many marketers still don’t understand how to effectively use it.
Influencers driven project can’t be a regular thing and you can’t build your whole brand on their collaboration. The cost would be just too expensive plus influencers don’t usually want all their time taken up with one thing.
Here are some examples of how influencer marketing can improve your income, traffic and email list.
Product Stack
A lot of influencers have their own products or brand. All of them will want to promote their own sales and give themselves more exposure.
The idea of product stack is reaching out to a group of influencers and invite them to give away their product as part of a one buy stack. The influencer will get an affiliate link which they will share on their social media accounts and email lists. The customers get a discounted product and the influencer are paid for the customers they bring.
This technique will engage influence by giving them a reason to promote your collective image. There is also an opportunity to bring influencers and your brand together to co-create something.
Product stacking or bundling can be difficult, especially if you’re not educated in it. There is a lot of effort involved in reaching out to influencers, producing offers, tracking sales and payments. For tracking affiliate sales try the WordPress plugin Affiliate WP, it’s easy to set up and offers a wide selection of integrations.
Identify KPI
Before you start influencer marketing you need to access the key performance indicators (KPIs). These indicators will allow you to measure the results and goals of the campaigns. The types of questions you need to be asking is; What is your targeting audience? What traffic are you expecting? What platforms should I use?
“Identifying KPI’s can be a good way of creating specific influencer marketing goals. Think about how you want your social media to grow, think about what type of media you want engaging in your product and how much you want your website traffic to grow,” says Dustin Gregson, an influencer marketer at Essayroo.
Surveys
Surveys have become an industry knowledge hub. Influencer assisted surveys to expand your reach to their followers, allowing your brand to have many more opportunities. A well-implemented survey makes a great linkable asset and will encourage more influencer partnerships.
A good survey, which allows you to learn from, features both graphs and quote. Question research is crucial so investigate keywords and questions that will help you with your content and landing pages. Tools like Survey Monkey can be integrated into WordPress.
Content Writing Tools
An influencer nor a customer will be very interested if your content is badly written, badly formatted with typos. There are many tools out there that will help with these errors.
- State of Writing and Grammar Checker are great grammar guides for both experts and newbies.
- UKWritings and Write My Paper are editing tools, recommended as some of the best by Simple Grad in Boom Essays review.
- Via Writing and My Writing Way are useful writing blogs.
- Oxessays and Academized are world class, Huffington Post recommended proofreading tools.
- Cite It In and Word Counter are great tools to help get that professional yet concise piece.
Budget
Find out how much you are willing to spend. Often, in an initiated collaborative, there is no payment because it was a mutually beneficial relationship. The bigger and more prolific the influencer is they higher the price.
Make sure you budget for your campaign so you understand how many influencers you can hire and how much you can spend on each one. Don’t forget to take into account the free stock and discounts you will have to provide to each influencer. If you are working on a tight budget make sure you don’t waste a single penny.
If your budget is too low products can be used as compensation, but this is only relevant if they like your product. Research and choose the likes and dislikes of an influencer so you can identify who will like your product, it will make the marketing more effective if they can genuine about it.
Micro Influencers
If you are working on a small budget it’s more cost effective to choose micro influencers as they will charge less. Many smaller influencers will be happy to receive a gift in exchange for promoting the brand, but never presume this so always discuss the compensation before engaging in business.
Micro influencers may not seem as appealing because they have a smaller follower count but actually their followers have a higher engagement. Their followers are more likely to comment, engage and trust the influencer.
Check hashtags for your brand on social media, your most loyal fans could be your new partners. Check your followers list and find people with substantial followings and high-quality content, it will be easier to hire them if they are already fans of your brand.
Reputation
Make sure that your money isn’t wasted on cleaning up your reputation after hiring the wrong person. Make sure you choose influencers who don’t contradict your own brand’s values and that they won’t undermine your brand.
A little background check will help you check that an influencer has a good reputation and not a hidden, unsavory, past. Also research brands they have previously work with and how they interacted with this brand, no one wants to work with someone who badmouths a brand seconds after the contract ends.
Monitor Progress
Track and monitor your campaign’s progress, no matter what the budget. These insights will not only help this current campaign but future campaigns. Keep tabs on how the influencers are meeting their targets and don’t be afraid to make adjustments.
Be realistic in these targets, hiring an influencer won’t do miracles but it will add potential to your brand. Concentrate more on building your branding rather than making money from sales. Try to make a contract that allows you to terminate the partnerships if you believe you aren’t getting the results worth of your time, money and energy.
