If evolving marketing trends have taught us anything over the past few decades, it is that nothing beats good old word of mouth. Businesses across different industries invest big bucks to ensure shiny ratings and reviews, authentic customer testimonials, and attractive referral marketing offers.
Now more than ever, having the recommendation of a trusted source is of the utmost importance. An influencer marketing campaign carries with it the potential for building a powerful brand with a network of loyal customers and skyrocketing your revenue.
Modern scrollers get overwhelmed with ads and product placements, and it is hard enough to get their attention. This is why an unoriginal and transactional influencer campaign can backfire, pushing your intended audience further away from what you’re selling.
In this article, we will go through the key factors to keeping your influencer campaign authentic and worth the investment. Let’s get started.
Find Out Who Your Audience Trusts
Sometimes the right influencers for your brand to partner up with are not the ones with the widest reach. Social media users follow public personas for different reasons–to stay informed, to be in the loop with their activities, to laugh at their jokes…
What you need to determine is who has the best standing reputation and is most trustworthy in the eyes of followers. For example, if you have software to sell to product managers, find out who are the most prominent content creators on relevant platforms such as LinkedIn, and get those experts to test your product and recommend it if they are happy with it.
To be on the safe side, you can also hire a SaaS marketing agency to help you with your business-to-business (B2B) marketing campaign. Whenever you have second thoughts on the next steps in creating a solid marketing strategy, it is better to reach out to the experts than waste your resources on campaigns with no return on investment (ROI).
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Personalize Your Outreach Campaigns
The first step in creating a solid partnership with reputable influencers is reaching out to them with a proposal. To keep the marketing campaign authentic, influencer partnerships should not be built solely as a transaction.
In the example above, if you are using LinkedIn message automation to establish the first contact with desired influencers, avoid sending cold messages that sound like a shady offer.
Instead, create a personalized template that reaches out to each individual and doesn’t look like generic text. For example, use such a script:
Hello [First Name]!
This is [Your Name] from [Company Name].
I recently discovered your profile and I appreciate your posts about [Your Niche]. They are very insightful and interesting to read!
I’d be happy to connect!
Develop Personal Relationships with Your Influencers
A partnership with an influencer is not only about your brand. They put a lot of time, work, and creativity into building a personal brand that speaks to their own audience, and the relationship you are developing needs to be based on mutual respect.
Furthermore, ensure that the influencers are not signing the deal just for the sake of profit. Target creators who genuinely like and use your products. That way, their placements will be more natural, and their recommendations personal and experience-based.
Let the Influencers Tell the Story
User-generated content (UGC) is a reliable strategy to sell more products online, but it only works if the experience is genuine and the story is non-scripted. A UGC creator needs the freedom to express creativity and stay true to the style of already published content.
This is why it is important to avoid scripted placements. Ask for the influencers to create their own version and circle back with you for the final approval. Keep the content real, and ensure it aligns with the vision of your brand as well as the niche of the influencer.
Get in Touch with Microinfluencers
The ROI of an influencer campaign doesn’t depend on the reach of the personality but on the engagement and trust of the audience. This is why microinfluencers present a pool of opportunities for your brand to benefit from.
Microinfluencers are influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers. They can even be emerging content creators with only 30k followers and a very engaged and loyal audience.
Partnerships with microinfluencers can sometimes be more rewarding than having your brand promoted by a social media superstar. One of the reasons why these campaigns are so effective is because the product placements come even more naturally in this case since these creators are more real and down to earth.
When launching a global campaign, microinfluencers are your go-to partners when translating marketing content is required to win a new marketplace. Their own words, in their native language, will resonate with the audience way better than any paid advertisement could.
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Build Your Influencer Marketing Campaign
No marketing campaign is as effective as getting positive reviews, referrals, and recommendations from satisfied customers.
In the land of social media, having your brand personally recommended by the creators who your audience trusts is the ultimate way to the hearts of new customers and your future brand ambassadors.
If you want to learn how to leverage influencers for your ecommerce business, explore our Start & Scale free training course.
