Small businesses can leverage social media by tapping into the power of influencers to reach similar audiences to the ones they already have. Identifying the right personalities to represent a brand requires a bit of detective work and practice. With the right preparation, even the smallest companies can create a marketing toolkit for their brand that shows influencers the tone and message it is trying to convey.
Set Goals for Influencer Marketing
Building a brand image and grabbing users' trust is crucial to building a strong business model. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, around 69% of consumers trust influencers when they recommend a product. In addition, around 75% of people turn to social media for advice on purchases. Before adding influencer marketing to the mix, enterprises should set some goals for what they wish to achieve through efforts.
These should be specific and measurable. For example, a small local warehouse that sells items to convenience stores may want to expand its reach to local liquor stores and social clubs. The business owners could set a goal of reaching 10 new clients through influencer marketing by the end of the year. Even if it only gets halfway to ots goal, setting some objectives to reach for will be a good indicator of whether influencer marketing impacts the bottom line.
What Should Go in Brand Guidelines?
The press kit and other details sent to a social media personality should clearly outline expectations. Authenticity and consistency are vital to gaining user trust and developing lifelong relationships with buyers. Some of the details to include in brand guidelines are the following.
Target Audience Definition
Write out who the business’s target audience or audiences is. The more detailed leadership can be about the type of customer who typically buys from them, the easier it will be for the influencer to make content that’s a good match.
If a business wishes to reach young, single, professional Gen Zers, it would want an influencer in the area who attracts the same type of people. It should not team up with someone who attracts Boomers if it intends to reach Zoomers. However, influencers are sometimes the ones to say it isn’t a good fit. Adding the target audience ensures both sides double-check that the collaboration will work.
Compensation Details
The brand guidelines should outline the ways the enterprise intends to work with influencers. How much money — if any — will leadership pay for compensation? While specifics can be ironed out in the agreement between the influencers and the brand, having a ballpark idea helps the other party see if the relationship is one they wish to pursue.
Within the first five years of new businesses starting, around 45% fail. Some of the problems arise from cash flow issues. Finding inexpensive but effective marketing is crucial to continued and healthy growth that overcomes the failure rates. Get creative with compensation in the early days by offering free products or other affordable options.
Rules for Using Logo and Name
When a company uses an influencer, it trusts the person to represent it wisely. If any issues might cause current customers to grow offended, the marketing department should address the problem areas in the guidelines so the influencer is aware.
Where and how the logo is used can be a trademark protection issue. Marketing can offer influencers a press kit with specific downloads to be used in various places. Touching base with the influencer to ensure they understand usage standards is also helpful.
Share Details on Brand History and Messaging
The better an online personality understands where the firm started, how far it's come and its core mission, the better they can work with it to promote it to their followers. Brand guidelines should include a timeline of events, information about the founders and big success stories.
How to Connect With the Right Influencers
Selecting the right influencers has a tremendous impact on how successful a marketing campaign is. Leaders should start by listing the traits they need from a promotional partner. For example, a beauty salon in Seattle, Washington, might have these requirements:
- An audience made up of mostly women living in Seattle
- People interested in beauty
- Micro audience of people living in a certain part of Seattle
- Users who’ve interacted with information on similar brands, such as spas, massage professionals and nail technicians
How Can You Find Influencers?
Marketing professionals can find the right influencers once they have a description of the perfect collaborator. They can search social media platforms to find influencers meeting the details of a dream partner.
Also, they can look at who competitors used. For example, the beauty salon owner might see another establishment in the area uses a local beauty guru to tout their entry hairstyle sessions.
The beauty salon's marketing person looks up the name of the influencer the other business used and adds the word “competition.” The enterprise should keep a list of all the names that pop up and then dig into them a little deeper to see if they match the description for a promotional partner.
Once the marketing team identifies a few possible matches, rank them in order of preference. Start with the top choice, engage with their posts and eventually ask them to represent the product.
Do You Need a Contract With an Influencer?
Yes! A contract ensures both parties understand expectations and helps maintain a positive relationship, even through lackluster results. It also pinpoints campaign dates so the firm can adjust any special offers or pricing easily without missing deadlines.
What to Do During an Influencer Campaign
Once a brand finds the perfect influencer and nails down a contract, it’s time to manage the campaign itself. Some of the things to keep in mind include the following.
1. Select Key Metrics
Knowing how to measure the campaign before it starts helps businesses gauge whether the return on investment (ROI) is worth it. If they make less revenue than it costs to hire the influencer, it can wind up costing them a lot of money with little to show for it. Some of the things to consider measuring are:
- Engagement rates
- Cash ROI
- Brand image exposure
- Clickthrough rate from the person’s posts
Businesses must also factor in cost of acquisition compared to customer lifetime value and how long it takes a campaign to pay for itself.
2. Choose Influencer Software
One way to see an improvement in key performance indicators across the board is utilizing software and other tools. Millennials and Gen Z turn to digital shopping to find unique products to solve their pain points. Around 34% of digital users shopped online following an influencer’s recommendation — a trend experts predict will increase with time.
With advances in artificial intelligence, more tools are available to improve personalization and track the effectiveness of influencer campaigns. Adding some automated user-generated content can also save money and create buzz around an enterprise.
3. Engage With the Influencer and Their Audience
To get the most out of an influencer campaign, companies should use the opportunity to engage the influencer and interact with their audience. Ask if they are open to a representative commenting on their social media posts to share additional details or answer questions.
On some platforms, users can drive engagement up by adding comments. More discussion means the post gets pushed to the top of people’s feeds. The more interaction, the higher the ranking goes. Appoint a member from the team to comment and interact with others.
Build the Perfect Toolkit and Work It
In a world where everyone seems connected in some way and people are online more than ever, finding ways to connect with influencers and those who follow them is a wise strategy. Build an amazing toolkit to showcase the brand. Then, put it into action by engaging audiences and working closely alongside the influencer to get the most possible from the effort.
Devin Partida writes about topics concerning tech and the internet. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of ReHack.com.
