There are people who sometimes interchange word of mouth with some marketing strategies like influencer marketing or sometimes use them as if they are the same thing, well they have some differences that you should know about to get started with your influencer marketing journey. When we say influencer marketing, we are pertaining to the idea of engaging influential persons to maximize and use the influence they have to their family, friends, and followers. Now word of mouth marketing is when communication happens. Basically every type of influencer marketing would include word of mouth but not every word of mouth marketing would have influencer campaigns by their side because word of mouth could be present in a lot of different type of campaigns.
Basically, influencer marketing is the marketing strategy that has its focus on having the help of influencers or leaders to relay your brands message to the ideal audience. Instead of trying to market yourself to large audiences, you could hire influencers of the same audience to market your brand. Content marketing and social media work together with influencer marketing. Influencer campaigns usually have some type of social media element to complete it because influencers are likely to share the word through their social media channels. Content either made by your or your influencer would sometimes also be shared, but even if they both fit in this campaign, social media marketing and content marketing is not the same as influencer marketing.
Advocate marketing is also something different. To make it clear, advocate marketing is more focused on encouraging your customers that are already loyal to share your brand in exchange for incentives, note that the advocate is an already loyal customer. With influencers, they don’t really have to be customers, they are people that are possibly interested in your brand, and you hire them. And one more thing, when it comes to advocates, it’s not focused on paying them, sometimes there are incentives but there are also chances where customers just want to help because it’s more focused on brand loyalty. With influencer it’s more focused about paying.
Here are some components that you would need to know before you build your influencer campaign:
Let’s start by defining who influencers are, they are people on the internet with a large following, and has a huge influence on them. I have to emphasize on their influence on their followers because having a large following doesn’t mean they have a good influencing effect on them. The most important thing to achieve when doing influencer marketing is to work with influencers right for your brand. You should make sure they have a good reputation in the niche related to your brand. Imagine having a finance software and your influencer promotes beauty products, that isn’t likely to work, right? the key here is to make sure you’re relevant. If you are having a hard time, just make sure your work with someone that has been successful in promoting products that are similar to yours.
Influencers can help you in a lot of ways, but it mainly depends on what your goal is. They can introduce your brands to their followers in a lot of different ways. Influencers could go as far as attending an event to promote your products, if allowed they could speak about your brand, they could talk to potential customers about you, or they could wear clothing with your products and services written on it. Influencers also usually write a blog about your brand, the blog could be a lot of different things like a full review, a comparison with your brand as the winner, and a lot of other things. They could also mention you on a video that has related content share you on social media posts, and recommend you to their friends.
The theory that explains how why and at what rate new technology and ideas would spread is called diffusion of innovation. It also shows that there’s a different rate for other cultures and it doesn’t really happen all at the same time. For example, Facebook was basically used by college students alone when it started but it’s now used by almost everyone today. There’s 5 categories to make diffusion of innovation more clear:
It’s more common for marketing to be aimed for the mass market, or the early majority and late majority. Now there’s a problem with this idea, because it’s harder to get these people interested in your product. Early adopters and innovators are the people who are eager to learn about products that are new. Let’s put it this way, early adopters are those who would be excited to review a product on YouTube, while the early majority will wait till their phone is outdated. So if you are aiming for your ideas to spread, do your best to reach the innovators and early adopters in your niche. If you doubt what I’m saying, Apple is one person who can vouch for this as they have been practicing this for years.
Getting Kylie Jenner to endorse your blog to her millions of Instagram follower is not really ideal. Unless you have reasons why she’s the best influencer you could have, and her audience is your type of target audience that is. You have to plan ahead of tactics you’d be using in order to find the right influencer.
There are different type of influencers:
All of these influencers use different platforms to reach out to their audiences, they use events, forums, social medias, etc. And depending on what your goal is, you need to make sure that you have the influencer that suits your audience. If you’re a blogger, a good way to find blogs in your niche is by checking out which one is ranked well in search engines. You can also check out Google Latest news to find blogs that are authoritative in your niche. You could also use different type of tools and platforms to make the search easier. There are some that offers you to look for blogs in specific given topics in alphabetical order.
And if you want your audience to be introduced to a much bigger audience then search for social media influencers, check if they have a large following and if they’re on a platform where you expert your target audience to be. You could also maximize the use of influencers that are still starting who might have less followers but more engaged ones. Just keep in mind that they have to have the same impact on the platform where you need them to be. Why? Sometimes they could have more effect on Facebook than Twitter but no impact on Instagram, and you need them to be on Instagram. You can usually find social media influencers with the help of keywords and hashtags. If you search on Facebook, you could search public posts by using the search bar. You can focus your campaign on Facebook because it has the largest audience and additional advertising options.
You could also check LinkedIn top voices to see their yearly list of top influencers. Pinterest is another platform where you could look for influencers through their top pins. Whenever you come across ideal influencers don’t forget to bookmark their profile so you could use them in the future and you won’t get confused once they reply to you.
You could also check out those who are on the top of medias, you could search the top influencers on podcasts, videos, and other platforms by using iTunes and searching popular, there are also other platforms where you can do this if you can’t access iTunes like YouTube, you could filter your results bu top videos or top channels. Just always remember to bookmark whoever you contact.
When you finally have a solid list of influencers that are active across different platforms it’s definitely the time to try to reach out to the. The goal here is to make them fall in love with what your brand offers so that they would be willing to promote it. so make sure that you have a convincing pitch ready. Your pitch should encourage your influencer to want to use it, be excited enough to want to share it to their beloved audiences, it basically should be like a sales pitch without being too salesy.
Here’s a guide on how you could effectively and quickly do it:
Well, there might be some steps you won’t be able to accomplish within a single talk because this is a general guide, and for some it could take a series of emails sent back and forth. But no matter how much effort it might need, just think that at the end of the day it’ll all be worth it when you get a positive exposure from the influencer you are targeting.
When it comes to creating a relationship with your influencer, if you still have the time, you should consider interacting with them through the platforms that they use before going all out with your offer, again we don’t want to sound too salesy. You could try liking their posts, commenting on their posts, just remember not to be a stranger. And when they have noticed you and you have built a relationship, offer them to check out your products and email them your pitch.
Building a relationship with them makes it more better because in everything today, trust is important and they have a reputation to maintain. Now that we’re done with this ultimate guide, we hope that you understand how influencer marketing works. This guide will help you start your journey, as well as make sure that you know everything to make sure you go through the path of success! Enjoy your influencer marketing journey!
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