Influencer Marketing - How To Do It

For those of you who aren’t familiar with influencer marketing, the basic idea it pretty simple. If you could showcase your product or service in a favorable light, it might encourage people to try or even buy your product. The better your messaging, the bigger your bump in sales. The concept is sound; however the results can be all over the map. Choosing an influencer that mirrors your demographic is a starting point for a lot of campaigns. Some companies try to develop a character/spokesperson to great effect. Creating a 30 second “story” might sway your audience and so on. You can likely conjure up some examples of your own, but how do you choose?

First, it’s important to understand that the world of influencer marketing is usually divided into two camps: Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C). Although these terms may seem self-explanatory it’s worthwhile to cover their characteristics as they pertain to the on-line market.

B2B facilitates the selling of products from one business to another. Functionality, performance, availability and the ability to solve specific problems are usually the hallmark of these transactions. If this sounds like your kind of business, you will need to establish your specific goals in this context. You may be looking to strengthen your brand, expand product sales into new markets, or introduce a new product. When working in the B2B realm, things tend to move slower than the B2C world. This is often because buying decisions usually involve several people. Also the process is less driven by emotion and more by an established need.

When you look at B2C sales, these are more emotionally driven than B2B. Strategies include building a brand, grabbing a larger share of the market, or introducing a new type of product, as a few examples. You are also more likely to encounter niche market opportunities: DIY-ers, gardeners, sourdough bakers, knitters, and so on. Knowing the characteristics of your target market and having an idea of your objectives, it’s time to do a little research on who might be a good candidate as an influencer for your business.

There are a lot of variables in the influencer market, but one of the fundamental attributes that an influencer must have is an understanding of the market they are engaging with. Knowing that, there are two ways to proceed. The first is to do it yourself. Look for someone that has a podcast, or who does un-boxing videos, or who has an expertise and a following in your target market. The other way to proceed is to engage the services of a company who either is an agent that handles influencers, or provides a search service to help you focus in on and hire an influencer: examples include Influencity, Upfluence, or check out YouTube with keywords “How to find influencers for… .”, “The top ten Influencers in … Market”. Unless you have a background as a talent scout, you will likely have the most success with a professional who is experienced in defining and finding the right influencer.

Working with an experienced person will help you understand the context for evaluating an influencer to meet your objectives. They will help get you answers to questions like, how often does the person need to post to be effective and on which platforms? How many followers should they have and is that number increasing? How well do they really know the market? What are reasonable KPI’s? Are there any conflicts of interest, and so on and so forth.

Once a candidate (or two or three) has been identified, see what the influencer brings to the party. Is there a unique perspective? Has the candidate had success with similar products? If part of your strategy involves giveaways, will they need to manage that activity? As you are getting answers, you are also shaping the relationship and building the core elements to a contract. By the time you’ve interviewed the last candidate you will have a pretty clear idea of the expectations on both sides and you should be ready to put a contract in place.

This is just a rough outline of what it takes to approach influencer marketing. There are so many variables it’s hard to pin them all down. What’s certain is that it’s a growing part of the way in which people consume information and how they form impressions of companies. Getting the online relationship right can make a big difference in achieving your business goals and it shows that your company is approachable and easy to do business with. Since you can enter the influencer market at any one of a variety of price points and experience, it’s almost certain you’ll find a good match to your needs. So I’d say, go ahead and at least dip your toe in the online marketing pool. I hear the water’s fine.