How to use Influencer Marketing to Amplify my Small Business

Influencer marketing has become a mainstream marketing tool in recent years and can be a great, cost effective way to drive reach, credibility and conversions for your business.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing means working with social media content creators or ‘influencers’ to promote your business to their audience. Influencers generally have engaged audiences who see them as a reliable source of information and will trust their recommendations.

Should I use Influencers to market my brand?

The trick...and yes there is a trick...is to choose the RIGHT influencers for your brand and for your strategy. Depending on what business you are in, you may be approached by influencers wanting to endorse your brand, either in return for free product or for a fee. But how do you know if it’s a good idea to work with them?

What do you want your influencer marketing to deliver?

The first thing you need to do work out is what you want to achieve from your influencer campaign. If you have already written your marketing strategy, this should be quite straightforward. If you haven’t then, take a look at this handy guide.

In your marketing strategy, you will have identified your target market and set clear objectives which fit with your business plan. For example, if you are a young business you might have prioritized generation of brand awareness over immediate sales. As a quick aside, influencer marketing can be an effective tool right across the marketing funnel from awareness to conversion and even retention.

How do I find the right influencers for my business?

You then need to look at which influencers are most present for your target market and create a list of potential influencers that you might want to work with. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Search hashtags related to your offering and see which influencers are most present.

• Look for influencers who are tagging and or following your brand if they are already interested in your brand, they may be a good fit.

• Look at which influencers are promoting your competitors, bear in mind some of these may be contractually prohibited from promoting your offering.

• Look for influencers who are targeting as close to your audience demographic as possible otherwise you may end up paying for exposure that will never convert into sales
  

• There are influencer platforms that can help you navigate the plethora of influencers out there, for example Upfluence, Tribe, Grin among many others.
  

Narrow down your influencer shortlist

Now that you have a list of potential influencers, you need to see which ones you would like to work with. To do that you’ll need to see what value they can deliver and if they are a good fit with your brand.

• Genuine influencer? Perhaps the most important question is whether the influencer is genuine. Are their followers real organic followers or are they bought? You can use tools such as those mentioned above to check if influencers are genuine, but it is usually obvious fairly quickly by simply looking at their account. Do they have a huge number of followers but very low engagement, do they have a huge number of likes on their posts but very little interaction via comments? These kinds of red flags can signal that an influencer's followers are paid for and should be avoided.

• Number of followers while it might seem like the number of followers an influencer has is the most important number, actually the level of engagement of their audience is perhaps more important. Often those influencers with large audiences will demand larger fees, but if you look carefully you might be able to deliver greater return for less budget by using several influencers with smaller audiences because their engagement rates are often higher than their more visible peers.

• Engagement rates are levels of engagement (likes/comments/shares/views etc) divided by the number of followers. Average rates vary by platform and industry so you can google your industry benchmarks for a more tailored picture. But as a rule of thumb you want to see 2-3% engagement as a minimum to consider working with an influencer.

• Tone of Voice is another important factor to consider when narrowing down the influencers you want to work with. Do they align with your business’ values and mission? How do they interact with their audience, are they genuine and consistent in their engagement?

• Quality of Content created by an influencer is something that will reflect on your brand, so make sure you are happy with the style and finish of their assets before you consider working with them.

Approach your shortlist of influencers

Reach out to those influencers you are interested in working with and request a media pack. Tell them about your business and what it is you are hoping to achieve with your influencer campaign.

They will have a host of questions, take the time to answer these carefully. The better the understanding they have of what you want to achieve they more likely they are to deliver. At the very least, include the following:

• Campaign goals, timelines & budgets

• Brand guidelines (logo, colours, taglines, hashtags etc)

• Target market outlines

• Key messaging

• Reporting requirements

• Information on any ongoing campaigns
  

Once you have decided which influencer(s) you would like to use, it is good practice to make sure you have a contract in place to ensure that all parties are clear on what has been formally agreed.

Finally, and most importantly, MEASURE, MEASURE and MEASURE AGAIN!!

As a marketer, you will not always get it right, but it is essential to know how right (or wrong!) you got it. By consistently measuring all of your marketing efforts against your objectives you will see what works and what does not and you will be able to continually improve your return on investment.

If you would like some help to work with influencers, please do get in touch!