Spare Your Money For Influencer Marketing. Make Your Customers The Influencers.
Marketing strategy
Influencers are becoming the new marketing weapon that caught the attention of more and more brands, even in B2B industries. In fact, it’s expected that the total ad spends on influencer marketing will be between $5 billion to $10 billion by 2020.
Real quick, what do we mean by influencer marketing? Years back, influencer marketing was limited to the A-list stars. Now, scary enough, everyone can be an influencer.
At a fundamental level, influencer marketing is just another form of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from these so-called influencers–the experts in a certain niche who have a high number of dedicated followers. Influencer marketing works well for a lot of brands, as these experts do an important job for the brand: they offer trust to the potential buyers. They become social proof that the product works.
Make sure the influencer is your target persona
Do not make the mistake of offering your product to someone who just has a high reach and are willing to endorse anything. Be very clear on the goal and the message that you would like to get across.
Does the influencer already post about products like yours? For example, if you’re a new beauty brand and you want to promote a new product, you should be looking for influencers who regularly post about beauty and skincare routines, make-up, etc.
What is their tone of voice? Does it match your company’s?
Are they endorsing any of your competitors? If yes, then forget it. Trust can be dissipated if these influencers are just contradicting themselves about which band is their favorite.
Persona match – this is absolutely vital if your brand has very strong values. You are a sustainable fashion brand and your influencer has shared a brand new crock leather Hermes a few posts back. No, go!
Now let’s turn it on its head
You keep on buying a chunk of social influence on the Insta on a famous person. They will use your product for literally two minutes, while the photos or funky gif are done. Then it’s all over – no follow-up, no brand consistency.
Some influencers do not stand by the brands they represent. Influencers need to make money too, so they will have to accept not the best brands out there or brands they actually use.
Sometimes, it all looks so fake. You know that video that says “Oh my god this is the lipstick of the century?” And then 3 posts later, a new lipstick took over.
You can use influencers to accelerate your business and raise awareness like no other channel. It can work wonders for fast-growing sales. But, if not done right and properly researched, it can do your brand disfavor. Also, it is not genuine – it’s just a forced acceleration mechanism.
But let’s find out who is influential for your product. How about the people who are already using your product?
Customers are your most legit micro-influencers. They are honest influencers who are actually using your product. They can give you the good and the bad about your product.
Leverage your customers to get your brand across. Use referrals code, hashtag win a prize or any other incentive that works best for your brand or your customer influencer.
