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In 2021, the most successful brands are utilizing influencer marketing. Why? It's an amazing way to get the word out about your products by using real people who already have trusted audiences.
As social media evolves, the best influencer marketing strategies change, too. In this guide, we will break down the benefits of influencer marketing and the best strategies for your brand right now.
If you're looking to boost your brand in an authentic way that actually works, this article is for you. Let's dive in.
What Are Influencers?
Let's start with the basics:
Influencers are social media figures with a large presence and following. They are typically personal bloggers, YouTubers, and entrepreneurs that people like to watch.
They've built a strong following of people who trust what they say, which influences their buying habits.
For instance, when a beauty influencer promotes a new mascara, people trust them and buy that mascara.
You can utilize the trust between an influencer and their following to boost your brand. The benefits of influencer marketing include:
- If you don't have a large following, you can still get in front of many customers.
- You get authentic reviews of your product or services
- It boosts your brand awareness and recognition
- It's a cost-effective marketing strategy with a great return on investment
- It's all done online, which is where your customers are in 2021
Let's break down the best influencer strategy into six steps next.
1. Find the Right Influencers in Your Niche
Influencer marketing can go south quickly if you use influencers whose audience is not your target audience.
For instance, if you are a fishing gear brand, you likely will not have much success partnering with a fashion and beauty influencer.
Don't just choose an influencer because they have a large following. Do your research and find the right influencers so that your marketing strategy is effective.
When you're getting started, take some time to identify your target audience. Who is your ideal customer?
Now, find an influencer whose following is made up of your target customers.
For a fishing gear brand, partnering with an outdoor survivalist influencer will be a much better fit. That influencer's following will be full of potential customers for you.
2. Set the Right Goals
To determine how effective a marketing strategy is, you need goals to measure it against. Before you start working with an influencer, decide what you want your partnership to accomplish.
Do you want to increase the sales of a specific product?
Do you want more people to sign up for your email list?
Do you want more traffic on your website?
Determine your goals so that you can craft the campaign around them. Then, after the campaign launches, track your goals to figure out the return on your investment.
3. Look for Quality Over Quantity
In a perfect world, the influencer with the most followers would give you the best results. In reality, that's not how it works.
Social media apps judge success based on engagement, not the number of followers.
An influencer would have a million followers, but if only five percent of them actually engage with their content, it won't generate a ton of sales for you.
To judge engagement, look past the likes and see how many comments an influencer gets. An influencer with an engaged audience means they are building a real community that trusts them.
If you follow potential influencers for a few weeks, you will tell whether or not they have an engaged audience or are speaking into a void.
An influencer with 5,000 engaged followers is more beneficial to you than an influencer with 100,000 disengaged followers.
4. Choose the Right Platform
You also need to figure out where your ideal customers spend most of their time. Are they on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or somewhere else?
It could be a combination of all the most popular social media sites. Either way, you need to decide if you will spend all of your money on one platform or divide it onto multiple platforms.
5. Approach Influencers the Right Way
Now that you've identified who you want to work with, you need to approach them the right way.
Whatever you do, do not pop into their direct messages and offer them many free products if they post about your brand.
This tactic is spammy and gets blocked right away. If you want to run a professional influencer marketing campaign, you need to approach them professionally.
Most influencers have their professional email on their profile or websites. They may even have a specific address that they want brands to use.
6. Give It Time
Marketing with influencers is a long game.
For instance, if you send products to an influencer to try out and review for their audience, you need to give them a few weeks actually to use the product before they post about it.
You want influencer marketing to feel as genuine as possible, so it's worth waiting for an authentic positive review. The more authentic they are, the more their audience will buy in.
You may also have to adjust your tactics, target audience, and campaigns along the way. However, if you choose the right influencers and are patient, your strategy will be effective.
Final Thoughts on Influencer Marketing Strategies
Influencer marketing strategies aren't just a great way to sell more products and boost your brand.
It also gives you free market research. You get to evaluate your ideal clients through influencers, which can help you target them effectively.
Bottom line: every brand needs a good influencer marketing strategy in 2021.
Want to get the most out of your influencer strategy?
Book a free strategy session with Hello Convo today to get started.