A proven way to strengthen your online presence and overall revenue is to put influencer marketing to work for you. Collaborations with influencers on social media can be a great way to get your brand in front of people who begin to trust your brand because of the endorsement of someone they trust.
What is influencer marketing?
As more and more individual social media users gain the trust and interest of followers, they become influencers. These influencers have communities who care about their thoughts on various topics, products, and services. Some of the top influencers in the world tend to focus on niche interests such as fashion, food, and fitness. Social media users tend to trust the input and opinions of influencers they follow. This makes influencer endorsements of a product or service very effective in increase sales and brand awareness.
Here are some quick stats from Influencer Marketing Hub you might find insightful:
Businesses are making $5.78 ROI for every $1 spent on influencer marketing making it a reliable way to increase revenue
90% of survey participants believe influencer marketing is effective
Nearly 70% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing
When executed properly, influencer marketing can provide a wealth of positive results for businesses. Influencer marketing requires work and time to get going but it can be employed to help any brand.
What you need to know about influencer marketing
It takes time to arrange deals/partnerships/collaborations: Depending on the rate of communication between you and an influencer, it can take 2 weeks or more to set up a collaboration. You have to negotiate terms, conditions, and even expectations for each party involved. Discuss what exactly what your goals and ask the influencer for his/her goals if you do go through with a deal. If product needs to be shipped, plan to have enough time for shipping and delivery. There’s no need to feel rushed if you plan ahead and give yourself time.
You need to invest time each week to develop an influencer marketing program: As stated in the previous point above, everything takes time. We recommend blocking off time each week to work on your influencer marketing program. This includes everything from building out lists of potential influencers you want to work with to email outreach. At the bare minimum, set aside an hour each week to take care of these tasks. The key is to be consistent so you can build and maintain and regular pipeline of influencers who can help you grow your business.
Posts featuring your product/service can be deleted: One thing that may catch you off guard is an influencer deleting the post about your brand after a period of time. Past posts can be deleted sometimes as soon as 24 hours after posting. If you’re wanting your posts to stay up, ask the influencers you’re working with what they plan to do with the posts featuring your brand. Always clarify expectations before solidifying a deal.
Not every influencer requires monetary compensation to work with them: Some influencers will post about your product or service in exchange for a chance to use your product or service for free. Not every influencer wants or needs payment for you to work with them. There are factors that play into this such as the value of what you have to offer and the influencer’s follower count as well as follower engagement. For example, an influencer with 5k followers and 3% engagement could be happy with you comping a $75 dinner experience. However, the same dinner experience valued at $75 may require additional payment to be appealing to an influencer who has 20k followers and 6% engagement.
Hopefully the insights shared above help you be more prepared as you move forward with your influencer marketing campaign! As you work with influencers, you’ll start to get a better understanding of how connect and make partnerships happen. Be patient with yourself and be willing to evolve and improve as you bring collaborations to life. Over time, you’ll grow your brand presence and increase your sales!
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