This Is How You Do Influencer Marketing Right and Why Everyone is Talking About Micro-Influencers Right Now!
Influencer marketing is one of those topics in advertising that we never stop talking about. We keep asking the same question - does it work and how to make use of it? Studies show that customers are influenced by recommendations from trusted sources when making purchasing decisions. Two most important conditions are that you’re reaching your buyer persona and that the influencers you’re partnering with have a trustworthy relationship with their audience. As a direct consequence of the quest for genuine engagement, we recognized micro-influencers as one of the leading 2019 trends.
Why Micro- and Nano-Influencers?
With smaller numbers, there’s more trust, both for users and for brands, that are trying to escape fake followers by paying for engagement rather than followers. Numbers show that engagement is higher and that micro-influencer campaigns are more efficient per engagement. Let’s start with one of the most prominent examples. Fashion and beauty micro-influencers post images from their “normal” day-to-day life wearing certain brands. They film makeup tutorials and shopping hauls featuring brands. This works more like word-of-mouth than straight forward advertising. Another thing is that with fewer followers, influencers are more likely to connect 1 on 1 with each person. The audience that’s following them and their recommendations feel like they’re coming from a friend rather than a celebrity. On the other hand, they tend to be easier to work with than the bigger ones, again because they are less “celebritized” (with exceptions of course).Finally, huge influencers are very hard to relate to for an average person. Micro-influencers lead ordinary lives and use products that regular people use. They are more likely to be careful about what they buy, therefore their recommendations are more valuable to a working-class individual.
Influencer Research
The influencer you end up choosing needs to be relevant for your industry and they have to have an audience similar to the buyer persona you previously defined. They also need to have a certain degree of knowledge when it comes to your industry. This person should also be well liked. Some influencers are followed and known for unsavory reasons and you definitely don’t want a controversial spokesperson for your brand (unless if you really do).If you’re going with micro-influencers, you’ll probably want to hire more than one. In case of collaborations, make sure that there’s an affinity between influencers you’re putting together.
Highly Defined Buyer Persona
While their audience is smaller, by recognizing the influencer’s main point of interests (or at least ones their content is about), this audience becomes highly definable. For example, the YouTube channels with prominent following tend to diversify their field of interest and while they started by making videos about, let’s say, role-playing games, with higher numbers, they start making videos about all kinds of games, TV shows, movies, books, etc. While you’re reaching a broader audience, their interests might be partial when it comes to the channel, and they might not be at all interested in the specific product you’re selling. In this case, if you’re selling a role-playing game, the control with the smaller channel is much more significant and you’re paying for the exact niche you’re trying to reach.
Creating Engaging Content
Any kind of sponsored content is usually less welcome with any audience because as soon as someone is paid to promote something, the trust is shaken. However, there are many ways to make a partnership with the influencer more creative by not taking the traditional approach. A lot of brands have in-house influencers that are part of their strategy. However, if you can’t afford this or if you’d rather work with outside influencers, that doesn’t mean that influencer marketing shouldn’t be a team effort. Putting on your thinking hats and brainstorming creative ways to partner up will make your partnership stronger and more natural-looking. For example, you can often see a youtuber promoting a brand by starting their video with “this is sponsored by…” and then offering a discount. On the other hand, in the videos where an artist uses a brand’s art supplies to create something or a gamer tries a new game on Twitch, the product is getting more exposure and feedback from the influencer. Sure, it won’t always be positive, but if it were all positive, it wouldn’t seem authentic.There are so many examples of out-of-the-box successful influencer marketing out there, and by putting together someone who knows their audience with experienced branded content experts, you’re sure to get the creative juices flowing!
Collecting Valuable Feedback
One of the points of influencer marketing is to get the conversation going. Influencers will talk about upsides and downsides of your product and followers will discuss in comments. It is crucial to collect all of their comments and questions, as you can repurpose this feedback to create FAQs and even realize which product features need improving. If you can reply to the comments as the brand or through influencers, that would be a great way to let them know that their feedback is valuable and taken seriously.One of the best ways to engage with followers is via live video. While it would take a considerable time to prep the influencer for them to be able to reply to questions about the brand or your product in live stream, that would be a perfect opportunity to engage the followers, as well as gain valuable footage of influencers discussing product features.
Reuse the Assets You Got
Once you gain all the amazing images, videos, comments, and questions make sure you’re using all this material toward other marketing strategies. With this material, you can improve your website and create custom content or banners including testimonials from influencers along with beautiful imagery.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing works. If you’re able to identify your perfect group of micro-influencers with niches that fit your buyer persona, make sure you’re creating engaging content and listening to the feedback you’re certainly going to get through this marketing strategy. In the end, the dollars that you’re putting towards influencer marketing are going to be saved on creative development for your other channels.
We keep asking the same question - does it work and how to make use of it? Studies show that customers are influenced by recommendations from trusted sources when making purchasing decisions. Two most important conditions are that you’re reaching your buyer persona and that the influencers you’re partnering with have a trustworthy relationship with their audience. As a direct consequence of the quest for genuine engagement, we recognized micro-influencers as one of the leading 2019 trends.
