Develop ties with decision-makers ( business marketing)
This is a crucial phase in influencer marketing that is sometimes missed. ( business marketing)
Many marketers approach influencers as if they were packaged service providers, sending an email to say they want to buy X amount of shoutouts and Y number of social media posts per month and that’s it.
There are a few drawbacks to this strategy: ( business marketing)
Even if you offer to help an influencer monetize their audience, there’s still a chance they won’t accept your offer.
Quality influencers only promote things that they are confident in recommending to their audience. Recommending substandard products tarnishes their brand and may cause their audience to decrease rather than expand.
An influencer will almost always want to try your product or service for a while before offering to promote it.
Advocacy that has been purchased is untrustworthy. Authenticity is the lifeblood of social media.
As a result, people on social media tend to dismiss inauthentic suggestions and information.
Even the best salespeople will struggle to just pick up a product and make their endorsement sound sincere.
The moral of the story is that you’ll need to cultivate influencer relationships. When you reach out to them, it’s also a good idea to offer to let them use your things for free.
Here’s a basic framework for cultivating influencer relationships and eventually approaching them with a marketing offer.
– On social media, follow the influencers you identified as suitable fits for your company.
– Participate in their material.
Make thoughtful comments on their posts and ask insightful questions. Share their content with others. You can include them in your own posts by tagging them.
If you utilise products that they already recommend, tell them about your experiences with them. You could even take it a step farther. Purchase and use anything that they advocate. Then tell them how you feel about it.
This is purely optional, but it’s a terrific way to get people’s attention.
The goal here is to establish enough of a presence on their feed that they recognise you when you reach out to them directly.
– Contact them directly and give them a free trial of your product or service in exchange for a review or feedback.
The safest option is to ask them to document and discuss their experience with you.
There’s no actual harm done to your reputation if people give you negative feedback, and you don’t destroy any bridges. You can always ask the influencer for comments on other goods that would be a good fit for them.
If you request a public review, though, you may receive a negative response.
Because influencers value honesty, they’ll often be brutally honest in their reviews if your product isn’t up to par.
If an influencer has already stomped on anything you provided, it could be difficult to reach out to them about another product or service.
So only request a public review if you’re confident in your product or service’s ability to deliver and the influencer’s suitability for your company.
– Use their comments or review of your product or service to determine how interested they are in collaborating with you.
This can assist you avoid any bullets from influencers who aren’t enthusiastic about what you’re selling. You can simply thank them for their time and move on with minor losses if their input isn’t so positive.
— Make a counter-offer.
This is the point at which you approach them and offer to pay them for access to their audience.
They should have your product in their hands and will hopefully be utilising it at this time, allowing them to be a genuine champion for your company on social media, which is precisely what you want.
Obviously, this is a lengthy procedure. You can place influencers in a holding pattern around stage two of the process if you’re an agency trying to keep them in the wings for new accounts.
Simply keep interacting with them on social media until you have a product or service to give them as a trial run.
If you maintain active influencer contacts, you should be able to obtain influencer marketing almost instantly.
Agree on a marketing package with influencers.
Establishing clear standards for the marketing collateral you receive from each influencer is another typical stumbling block on the route to influencer marketing.
It’s best if you can be as specific as possible.
As you construct your influencer marketing agreement, keep the following in mind:
– The number of times your brand is mentioned on social media in a given day, week, or month.
– Per day, week, or month, the number of videos, stories, IGTV episodes, Facebook Live postings, or other types of content that reference your brand.
– When and where will your brand appear in their content?
Will they announce it at the start or at the end of the videos?
Could it be both?
Will they use your brand’s hashtag or tag your firm in their posts?
– The number of content items devoted solely to your product or service.
The most popular type of content piece is a review.
However, product updates, press releases, and even behind-the-scenes footage such as office or factory visits can be included.
– Deliverables that influencers are looking for from you.
These can be things like logos, sound bites, scripts, or anything else that influencers couldn’t generate themselves to properly represent your business.
It is not the goal of going over all of this to micromanage influencers. The goal is to get an agreement with very specific success criteria.
It is easier for you and the influencer if you have a very specific agreement.
The influencer understands exactly what needs to be done to meet the standards.
It’s also simpler to spot influencers who aren’t keeping their half of the bargain.
So, while negotiating, be courteous, but be explicit. In the long term, it’ll make your influencer marketing life a lot easier.
