Influencer marketing is on the rise. More brands are using this strategy to get closer to their consumer base. Why wouldn’t they? When an influencer says something positive about a brand, that brand can expect to reach its marketing goals and, by extension, its business goals.
But to achieve these goals, you need to connect with the right influencers in the first place. The right influencers are not just those who will promote your business with the same creative vision. They are the ones who understand your brand and reach out to your same audience.
So how should you go about connecting with the right influencers? Let’s look at just that in this article. But let’s back up a bit. Why is influencer marketing important nowadays?
Why Is Influencer Marketing Important?
The rise of influencer marketing is a direct consequence of the rise of social media. As more people joined social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, some of them began showcasing creativity and became content creators themselves. They began gaining instagram followers, prompting brands to take notice.
Source: Nicolette Mason Instagram
The result? In 2021, the influencer marketing industry reached a whopping value of $13.8 billion, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.
But why has influencer marketing achieved such tremendous growth? The simple answer is, because it works. Influencers have two things that make them so effective at getting brand messages across: authority in a niche and a massive following.
This enables brands to do the following:
- Improve brand awareness
- Increase social media following
- Generate leads
- Increase conversions
In other words, thanks to influencer marketing, brands can reap all sorts of benefits. If you’re not partnering with influencers to get your brand messages across just yet, you’re definitely missing out.
How to Run an Influencer Marketing Campaign
Before we discuss how you can connect with influencers in your niche, let’s talk about the basic steps of running an influencer marketing campaign. Follow these three steps for your influencer marketing campaign to generate results.
Define Your Objectives
Before you launch your influencer campaign, you need to define your objectives first. That will help you determine how to go about your campaign. Your objectives will also help you determine what your key performance indicators (more on this later) are. The KPIs will help you determine later on whether or not your campaign was a success in the first place.
But what are these objectives?
We know influencer marketing can help you achieve your marketing goals and, by extension, your business goals. When launching an influencer marketing campaign, though, to be effective, you can’t specify those as your goals. They’re just too broad.
According to Medium, your objectives need to be specific. In fact, they need to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
Source: Talkwalker
That said, here are some possible influencer marketing objectives for your campaign:
- Build brand awareness
- Increase leads
- Generate conversions
- Increase followers
- Boost engagement
You can have more than one objective. The more specific the objectives, the better.
Create a Compelling Proposal
Once you specify your objectives, it’s time to create that compelling proposal.
You might be tempted to use that outreach template you see online and send it to potential influencers you’d like to partner with. I strongly suggest against doing that, though. Remember, the only way you’ll get the attention of your prospect is by standing out. Using an outreach template that other brands are possibly also using won’t help you.
Instead, create a personalized message for each of your prospects. According to Wishpond, here are other things you should bear in mind when creating that proposal:
- Be a giver not a taker: Highlight the fact that both of you will benefit from the partnership. For instance, you increase brand awareness. Your prospect, on the other hand, will be the very first to gain access to your product should they choose to accept your offer.
- Speak their language: The only way you’ll get your prospect to say yes to your offer is if you make them feel like they can relate to you.
- Keep it short: No one likes to read long messages. Plus, influencers are very busy people. They just don’t have the time to read a five-page long proposal.
- Proofread: This is a no-brainer. If you send a proposal with too many glaring spelling mistakes, you can say goodbye to your prospect reading it and replying to you. You didn’t even bother to proofread your proposal before sending it. Why should they bother reading it and responding to you?
That said, here’s a sample proposal you can send:
“Hi, my name is (YOUR NAME). I’ve been reading your content for a while now and I have to say I love the way you handled the (BRAND) campaign. I have a product I think your audience will love. Would you be interested in writing about it? You’d be the very first person to try it out.
Do let me know what you think.
Cheers!
(YOUR NAME)”
Don’t send your proposal using the platform your prospect is on. Think about it. Influencers have many followers. A Facebook influencer is probably receiving hundreds if not thousands of messages on Facebook. I suggest emailing the proposal instead, then. It’s easy to create a new gmail account if you don’t have a professional-sounding email.
Track Your Campaign
Congratulations! You’ve come to an agreement with your prospect, and your influencer marketing campaign is up and running.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you no longer have work to do. You need to monitor your campaign to determine whether or not it’s on track to meeting your campaign objectives. This is where your KPIs come in.
Some possible KPIs for your influencer marketing campaign include total page views, new visitors, time on-site, email sign-ups, likes, shares, among others.
You don’t have to have all of those as your KPIs. As I said earlier, your KPIs depend on your campaign objectives. So if you want to boost engagement, your KPIs could be the number of shares and likes of your influencer’s post. If you want to generate leads, then your KPIs could be your page views and website traffic.
If by the end of your campaign you reach your KPIs, then you can consider it a success. If you don’t, you’ll know how not to run an influencer marketing campaign the next time around.
In other words, tracking your campaign will help you determine its weaknesses and strengths so the next time around, you’ll run a better one.
How to Connect with Influencers Right for Your Brand
Now that you know the basics of running an influencer marketing campaign, let’s talk about how to find those influencers who are right for your brand. The right influencer should have three characteristics: They should have your same audience base, should be in your niche, and should have the reach you’re looking for.
Use Influencer Marketing Platforms
Source: Intellifluence
There are platforms you can use to get in touch with potential influencers for your campaign. An influencer marketplace, as it is called, allows brands to connect with influencers of a specific industry or a social media platform. Most of the platforms give you access to influencer profiles that include details about their followers such as their age, location, and other demographics.
They also make it easy for you to search for your ideal influencer. You can use hashtag searches or search based on filters. Some platforms even allow you to run your campaigns right after you find the influencer you’d like to partner with.
According to Peer to Peer Marketing, these are some of the best influencer platforms you can use:
- Intellifluence
- Influencity
- Heepsy
- Publicfast
- Fourstarzz Media
- HypeAuditor
- Neoreach
You’d have to pay a fee depending on the platform plan you choose. For example, for $69 a month, you can get access to 8 million influencers on its database. The amount you shell out is usually worth it since you wouldn’t have to spend too much time researching each potential influencer for your campaign. You’d have everything there is to know about a potential influencer with just a few clicks.
Alternatively, you can use Instagram analytics tools such as trendHERO to understand your influencers better. Once you’ve found a few influencers, you can analyze their audience and follower growth through this platform to figure out if it’s worth partnering with them. And the best part about this tool is that it can also spot fake followers and sudden inflations in the number of followers.
Use Social Media Monitoring Tools
Social media monitoring tools are great precisely for that: for monitoring social media. When you monitor social media, you gain insights into what other people are saying about your brand. When you know what they think about you, you can make the necessary adjustments to improve.
Source: Google Alerts
But that’s not all you can do with social media monitoring tools. Since they allow you to hear what influencers are saying on social media platforms, too, they can help you determine which influencer is the best fit for your campaign as well. Tools like Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and even Google Alerts can point you in the direction of influencers who already know your brand and who already speak highly of you.
That’s the beauty of connecting with influencers who are already fond of your brand. When you send them your proposal, they are likely to say yes to a partnership with you.
Ask For Recommendations
If you’re not the type who likes to use tools, why not look for that perfect influencer the traditional way? By asking.
But don’t just ask anyone off the top of your head. You have to make sure you get recommendations from the right people so they can point you in the right direction. Who are those right people? Simple. The people in your industry.
If you can ask marketers who have a direct hand in running influencer marketing campaigns, better. Once you have your list based on your recommendations, though, make sure you still do your due diligence. Research about each influencer on your list so you can pick the best for your campaign. In other words, treat their recommendations as just a starting point for your more exhaustive research.
Look at the Influencers Popular With Your Audience
The influencer you pick for your campaign should be able to persuade your target audience. So why not look for those influencers who already influence your target audience even when the campaign isn’t running just yet?
This isn’t so hard to do. Just go to your social media accounts and check your followers’ social media activities. Maybe some of them are already in the habit of sharing a specific influencer’s posts. Or maybe some of them are already leaving positive comments on a specific influencer’s page. The good thing is, if you choose these influencers for your campaign, you’ll know whatever they post will resonate with your target audience because they already idolize them.
Make sure, though, that these influencers are in your niche and meet the other criteria for a good influencer for your campaign.
The Bottom Line
Influencer marketing can help you achieve your marketing goals and, by extension, your business goals. But you need to do it the right way in the first place.
For example, you need to follow the three basic steps in running an influencer marketing campaign: define your objectives, send your compelling proposal, and track your campaign.
You also need to connect with the right influencer in the first place. You can connect with them either through influencer marketing platforms or social media monitoring tools. You can also opt for the traditional way by asking for recommendations from people in your industry. Another way is to look for the influencers who are already popular with your audience even before you launch the campaign.
The strategies and tools you need are all outlined in this article.
All you need to do is put in the hard work and invest the time. You’ll see how your next influencer marketing campaign will generate those results you’re looking for.
Bio: David Campbell is a digital marketing specialist at Ramp Ventures. He helps manage the content marketing team at Right Inbox. When he’s not working, he enjoys traveling and trying to learn Spanish.
