These days, when you click that colourful icon on your phone, you might find a video of a girl showing you some kind of beauty product before applying on biggest shoe brands in the world.
Influencer Marketing is a marketing technique where brands use influential people to promote their brands. Influencers are the people whose voice matters to people. People are believed to be listening to them, which is why brands wish to collaborate/associate with them.
Before hiring influencers, you must know the hottest trend in the market. But the first and foremost thing is to learn Marketing Trends. Below are some marketing techniques that will help you understand how to take the optimum advantage of influencer marketing.
10 Influencer Marketing Techniques
- Find the correct influencer:
- Asses the Budget
- Reach out to them privately.
- Discuss the Strategies Together
- Keep Experimenting
- Suggestions/Allowing Creative Freedom
- Decide the theme
- Tell a story
- Increased Followers are just one of the benefits.
- Make it look effortless.
Influencer marketing takes strategies, planning and proper execution to get the best results. Thus, time, money, and energy need to be appropriately invested. Here is how you can do it right:
1. Find the Correct Influencer
It is easy to find and contact influencers. There are two types of influencers – one solely dedicated to a particular product category, like a beauty product or fashion apparel, and there are influencers who promote everything. You can hire one person for your brand, or you can go for numerous influencers. Discuss your brand’s needs with your team and move forward.
2. Asses the Budget
Influencers have packages you can go for and understand how they are willing to associate with you. You need not have a high budget to collaborate with influencers. Also, influencer marketing does not reap results overnight, so you must be willing to invest for the long term to seek the desired result.
3. Reach Out to Them Privately
Do not post partnership offers in comments under their images or videos. Reach out to them privately. That is considered courteous. So that in case it doesn’t work out, none of the parties should feel embarrassed or ashamed.
4. Discuss the Strategies Together
Sometimes influencers have better ideas for the promotion of the brand than the experts themselves. Hear out what they say about your brand and how they can promote it. When artists are given free flow, they work better and pour their hearts and soul into it. More constrictions lead to average results.
5. Keep Experimenting
It is good to experiment with what works out and what doesn’t. Sometimes partnership doesn’t work out, and that is okay. Leave the influencer on a good term and give them a clear and straight answer. They may not be perfect for one product of yours but can be considered for other products. Similarly, they might not be okay with your offer; in that case, ask them to be straight with you.
6. Suggestions/Allowing Creative Freedom
Bring in suggestions politely when needed. Even if you have a suggestion with an ongoing campaign, introduce it politely and make it look like a suggestion that can be thought upon. Creative fields often have varying views, discuss it all and move further. Find a middle ground and work it all out. When influencers are given creative freedom to do whatever they wish to, they come up with an interesting idea that could actually work out in the favor of your brand. Hence, bring it as much creativity as you can.
7. Decide the Theme
While talking about influencer marketing, it is crucial to decide upon the theme. Influencers sometimes go by the theme, and the same applies to the brand. Hence, for example, if you own an apparel brand, decide the theme with the influencer as to which department would suit them and what theme they would like to go for. Make your demands clear with them and see what they can contribute. Similarly, if an influencer is used to going by a particular color theme or having some aspects in their videos, see how you can turn that in your brand’s favor.
8. Tell a Story
Storytelling methods might have changed over the years, but like courtesy, it has never lost its charm. Storytelling through various mediums like written blogs or series of mini vlogs or interviews will not just build trust in the brand but also make social media feel clean and consistent. Thus, see if you can weave a story with the help of an influencer for your brand. Give the audience a reason to look up to your brand, influencers a reason to associate with you, and your brand a reason to sustain longer.
9. Increased Followers = Just One of the Benefits
Do not keep increased followers as your primary goal but try sustaining those followers and converting them into loyal customers. It is easy, though it might take a little longer. But the results are always better than having useless followers who do not add to the value.
10. Make It Look Effortless.
Sometimes it looks like influencers are trying too hard to sell your product to your target audience. That might not work in your favor, and everything can go downhill. When someone tries too hard, people are unimpressed, and they might change their loyalty toward your competitors. Thus, make the influencer marketing collaboration look effortless and flawless.
Bonus: Examine the Campaign During and After
It is necessary to keep examining how the campaign is working out. Whether it has the desired impact on people or not, when you discuss the results on a day-to-day basis of your campaign, you can figure out what needs to Keep the same and make changes as necessary.. This way, your brand doesn’t have to wait until the end of the campaign to determine what worked out in your favor and what can be changed to obtain even better results.
Wrapping Up
Most people purchase a product or service after seeing it recommended by influencers. Instead of traditional marketing, brands have started investing in influencers; it is time; you should do the same. People have adapted to modern changes, and if your brand accepts the modern marketing approach, it will stay on the surface of the Earth. Hence, start figuring out how influencer marketing will work in your favor before it is too late.