Influencer Marketing is the New Key to Buyer Enablement
Love it or hate it, the fact is that people admire celebrities and want what they have. These days’ celebrities, including social media celebrities from YouTube or Instagram, are selling their “influence” to pitch brands and products. If an influencer recommends a product, people are more likely to trust that product when it comes to making a buying decision.
Brands use influencers to drive their message to a captive target audience and for this reason, brands are inclined to use influencers who have some credibility or cachet in their specific industry to push their objectives.
In several cases, superstar influencers have helped to clear shop’s shelves of inventory solely by what they wore on Instagram, or posted on Twitter.
Build a Strategy to Market Your Product
Using influencers as a strategy to grow a business has become widely accepted as companies realize how significant and receptive their audience reach is. Even an influencer with a smaller reach but with high credibility can create a pretty big ROI for a brand.
Kickstart your influencer strategy by setting expectations about what you want to accomplish with the campaign. Is the campaign solely meant to increase brand awareness, or to build a brand identity and generate leads? Defining your goals early on helps to shape a consistent strategy moving forward.
Before reaching out to an influencer, identify the influencers that best suit your brand, as well as the ones who can most successfully reach out to your target audience.
1. Celebrity Influencer
Celebrities act as genuine brand ambassadors and attract prospects primarily through popularity and have followers numbering in the millions.
These can be TV or film personalities, professional athletes, or pop-culture icons.
2. Macro-influencers
Macro-influencers also have a large-scale following and are known for being experts in their field.
3. Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers are scaled-down versions of macro-influencers and make up the bulk of all influencers. They are usually unknown outside their niche, but within their niche are usually recognized as experts.
Identify Your Buyer Persona
Before you identify who will help you reach out to your target audience, you need to know who your target audience is. Spend time outlining the specific details on who you want to connect with through your campaign, and what criteria aligns with your target audience.
Create a buyer persona that includes both demographic and psychographic segmentation.
Once you know this, it will be easier for you to identify the top people your audience follows and the channels they use.
Once these goals are set, start thinking about the type of influencers that will help you accomplish your goals.
Choose Your Channel or Source to Market Your Product
Once you have a solid idea about your goals and the influencer you want to use, it’s time to choose the channel that will best be able to get your brand the ROI you’re looking for.
Your marketing goal is going to be directly tied to the type of influencers you choose to work with. If your goal is bite-sized interactions, you should likely be working with influencers who are active on Twitter. If you want to emphasize the visual imagery of your product, you could probably utilize platforms like Instagram or Pinterest. If you aim to provide in-depth awareness of your product, you could opt to write blogs and have them posted on an influencer’s page or post a technical article on an industry blog and have influencers share a link to it.
Identify People or Communities with Large Fan bases Who Can Influence Your Brand
Influencers are basically specialists in a particular niche and would have already earned a high level of trust amongst their followers. Their fans trust their endorsements and wholeheartedly accept those products.
Influencers typically affiliate themselves with brands that reflect their values and that align closely with their interests so as not to alienate their fans and followers.
92% of consumers are more inclined to believe the people who are already in their circles – and influencers are a part of that circle.
Influencers enjoy a solid social media following and they do make an impact in their online community. They are also connected to a network of other individuals who are equally regarded as influencers. Their influence is authentic and because of that is more readily accepted by their followers.
Create an Accessible System to Drive Process – Barter or Monetary Functional Call
Influencers aren’t exactly like brand ambassadors or advocates, meaning they aren’t going to be providing their influence for free. It should always be expected that an influencer will be compensated in one or another. On the bright side, however, most influencers will only participate with brands and products that already align with their niche, or with brands, they already like or use. Irrespective of their love for the product, they primarily participate because of the financial incentive.
Incentives can be one of three different types:
- Barter: when an influencer agrees to endorse a brand, the brand may promote the influencer in return, further broadening their reach and exposure and increasing the odds they can procure another influencer deal.
- Money: High-profile influencers usually prefer to endorse a brand that has a monetary benefit.
- Free product: In this case, the brand usually provides the influencer with a product or service to try, review and promote.
Re-circulate Influencer Ads as Much as Possible to Get Maximum Exposure
Branding is all about making your customers talk about and remember your brand in the long run.
When they talk about your brand, they doing the business of marketing for you – becoming your marketing agents through word of mouth.
By circulating your influencer campaign far and wide, you increase the chance that a prospective customer is going to have your brand in mind when they decide to make a purchase. The end goal is to have your brand become synonymous with your industry.
Reach Out to the Right Influencer with Flobile
Flobile does the hard work of customer analysis and omnichannel research to make sure we connect your business with the right influencer to reach your targets.
Flobile allows businesses to build a meaningful relationship with their target audiences and create effective buyer journeys through omnichannel experiences.
B2B Buyer Journey
Brand Strategy
Buyer Enablement
Influencer Marketing
Inside Sales Prospecting