Influencer marketing: 10 tips for successful influencer marketing

If you haven’t heard of influencer marketing before, you might assume it is simply another form of marketing and PR work. However, influencer marketing is more than that. Today, it represents an important method for publicly presenting your products and services online. Compared to other marketing campaigns, influencer marketing also offers an excellent return. As a study by Tomoson shows, companies earned an average of $6.50 for every US dollar spent on influencer marketing in 2016.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is one of those rare terms where the name literally means what it describes. In the case of influencer marketing, it means that a company works with people who have influence and are therefore able to help market products and services. Influencer marketing aims to identify the most important and influential people in your industry or niche. These individuals are then approached directly with the goal of having them help you market your products.

Who or what is an influencer?

An influencer is someone who has an impact on other people’s purchase decisions or is able to influence and change those decisions. An influencer can do this because they possess authority. In addition, they have extensive expertise and often hold a special position within their target audience. In many cases, there is also a special relationship with that audience. Typically, an influencer is someone who has a large number of followers in their niche and actively engages with them. How many followers an influencer has—or should have—depends, among other things, on the industry or niche.

Influencer marketing originated from celebrity marketing. Well-known and famous personalities have been endorsing products for many years. Think of Michael Schumacher, Boris Becker, or Steffi Graf appearing in TV commercials or on the radio. Participating in such campaigns naturally involves a substantial fee for the celebrity. Online celebrity marketing is still comparable to influencer marketing today, but modern influencer marketing is much more than a star appearing on television or radio without having a real base of followers.

SodaStream produces a home-use sparkling water maker. Until recently, the target audience was primarily families. However, after sales data showed that the product is especially popular among people without children, the company launched its “Join a Revolution” influencer campaign. The campaign uses a scene from Game of Thrones and “The Mountain,” a character from the series played by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.

Each influencer has built up a reputation. They are considered experts in their niche or industry. Many even run their own blog on the respective topic, and it is not uncommon for influencers to have a YouTube channel and create their own videos. In any case, most influencers are active on social networks. They maintain well-known accounts, comment, discuss, and give advice. All influencers spend a lot of time building an extensive network with a cultivated audience around their topic.

If influencers are able to see how your product or service can help their own followers, they may be willing to collaborate with you. In this case, they provide you with their good reputation, their name, as well as their experience and audience. They also help you market your project to the influencer’s followers and increase its visibility. However, there is a catch: influencer marketing only works if you develop and launch a high-quality product. If your product is poor, vague, or inferior to comparable products from competitors, influencers will not be willing to support your project. And even if they do, success would not be achieved.

Why do you need influencer marketing?

When was the last time you consciously looked at a banner or an ad online? You probably can’t remember. Most people today don’t even notice such ads and banners. Those who do notice them are usually annoyed, install an ad blocker, and prevent ads from being displayed at all. Perhaps you have also tried social media. That has potential, as many people today spend a significant amount of time browsing various social media profiles. However, there is a major problem: who actually sees your posts and publications on social networks? Unless you have a huge network of fans with many contacts, the reach of such campaigns is limited.

To make matters worse, social media platforms no longer make it as easy as they did a few years ago. Companies like Facebook want to profit from their products and encourage you to run paid advertising on their platforms. As a result, it is difficult to succeed with free organic posts. The latest changes on Facebook make this clear: the News Feed now prioritizes updates from friends and family. Fan pages and business pages have dropped in priority and now have only limited reach.

Most people have a few hundred friends on social networks. However, the reach is very broad. Friends and family make up an important part, but also colleagues, classmates, acquaintances, and so on. Some people are friends with actors, others with people who simply share the same interests, or just because they know someone who is friends with that person. Facebook in particular suggests people who are friends of your friends. From a marketing perspective, this is impractical. You essentially have no fixed target audience or clear idea of who you are actually reaching. Influencers are different: they have a carefully cultivated circle of friends with the same interests. This base can be large, and in many cases, even huge. With influencers, you know exactly what you are getting.

Influencer marketing is highly effective. Sony created the first Zoom on Instagram (#InstazoomZ5) to show users how impressive the smartphone’s camera is. They took a high-resolution photo with the Z5 using a high zoom and divided it into hundreds of smaller shots across five layers. The company then created more than 100 Instagram accounts that were connected through tags. This made it possible to zoom in on each area of the photo and discover more than 50 surprises. Finally, Sony used 30 influencers to share the photos as part of a contest. The goal: to find the secret code.

Imagine how many interesting and relevant people you can reach with a single influencer—compared to other, more random marketing methods! Some companies are so successful at creating an online identity that they become influencers themselves. Red Bull, for example, has taken success with social networks to the extreme. For most companies, however, this remains an unattainable dream.

It is usually much easier to find influencers and work with their audience than to create a comparable audience yourself and actively engage with it. Influencer marketing differs from traditional advertising. One of the main differences lies in the type of relationship you need to build with an influencer. Many companies—especially large corporations—traditionally try to maintain a lot of control and influence over their brand and marketing. This approach is only partially effective in influencer marketing.

Influencers already have prestige and established relationships before your company even comes into play. Even if you have a relatively successful and well-known brand, you cannot expect to have full control over your influencers. You may pay them well, but they are not your employees! Followers want to hear what the influencer has to say—not the message your company wants to convey. They are not looking for your opportunity! This is precisely the biggest difference between traditional outbound marketing and the new inbound marketing. In inbound marketing—including influencer marketing—customers come to you. You cannot set conditions as was traditionally done. Companies that try to exert too much control over their influencers typically achieve disappointing results with this form of PR.

The key to successful influencer marketing is trust. And the reality is that consumers trust influencers—more than they trust you or your brand! Successful influencer marketing creates a win-win situation for you and everyone involved.

Dunkin’ Donuts and the agency Trilia wanted to raise awareness for National Donut Day. To achieve this, they partnered with the digital network and entertainment studio Collab. The goal: a national Snapchat campaign showcasing visually appealing content. At the same time, Dunkin’ Donuts introduced a special offer for that day. Collab selected lifestyle creators to share both the content and the special offer on Snapchat. For the project, they chose eight successful influencers to distribute teaser content as well as the special offer. In this way, the campaign reached more than three million people—a huge success!

1. The Beginning – Getting Started

There is no reason—and it is quite pointless—to choose influencer marketing just because someone told you it is currently trendy or very successful. You need to pursue a goal and purpose with your campaign! This is probably no different from other areas of a business. Ask the people responsible for any successful business about their recipe for success, and they will tell you that goals played an important, even decisive role. We will look at this topic in more detail in Chapter Two.

For an influencer marketing campaign to be successful, you need high-quality content of excellent standard. A simple 500-word blog post written to meet SEO criteria is very unlikely to attract the interest of an influencer.

For people to notice your content, it must meet the following requirements:

• It must be accessible.

• It must encourage action and be interactive.

• It must be visually modern and appealing.

• You must provide your reader with real added value.

Here are some examples of content you can use:

• Expert reports and opinions

• Interviews

• Listicles

• Ask your favorite influencer for a quote and use it in an infographic or SlideShare.

• Ask for expert tips and publish them together in a blog post.

The most popular places or platforms where influencers build their reputation are:

Blogs – Blogging influencers have often spent a long time (sometimes years) creating a successful, popular blog in a specific industry or niche. Even though many other platforms and networks are available today that influencers use, most owe their success to their blogs. You can collaborate with quality bloggers in the following ways:

• Guest posts on the influencer’s blog

• Try to convince the influencer to mention your brand on their blog

• Arrange a product review

• Sponsoring paid blog posts

Social media – Many influencers (even those who have high-quality blogs) are active on social networks and have a large base of followers with whom they actively engage. Your goals here could include:

• Receiving positive mentions in social media posts

• Retweets or shares of your social media posts

• Posts showing how the influencer uses your product, e.g., an unboxing or demonstration video on the influencer’s YouTube channel

• Creative posts promoting your project or product

A major and important decision you must make before starting influencer marketing is choosing a method to find the right influencers. You have three options for this:

• Organic – You search internally for influencers and build relationships with them. This is the cheapest way, but it is also very time-consuming.

• Platforms – You pay for the services of specialized online platforms to find influencers. Many of these portals have systems that make managing your influencer campaigns much easier.

• Agencies – You hire an agency specialized in influencer marketing. They help you find and manage influencers.

2. Set Your Goals

There is a well-known saying: “Fail to Plan and Plan to Fail.” Translated, it means: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This statement also applies to influencer marketing! It makes little sense to search for an influencer or start a campaign if you have not already set goals beforehand. In this context, it would be interesting to know how many of the 18% of companies that failed with influencer marketing simply forgot to define goals in advance. You need to know WHY you are choosing an influencer campaign. This directly affects the success of the campaign and, almost certainly, even influences which influencers you decide to work with.

Your goals for an influencer campaign could, for example, include:

• Increasing the number of visitors to your website by a certain percentage

• Increasing the number of social media followers

• Improving brand visibility for the target audience

• Increasing sales by a specific percentage or amount

Audible is an Amazon company that offers monthly subscriptions for audiobooks and podcasts. The company’s marketing team regularly collaborates with celebrities and influencers of all sizes, including micro-influencers. On Instagram, the photographer Jesse Driftwood (@jessiedriftwood) once shared how he uses Audible to learn more about business management and productivity.

Your goals will influence the decision of which influencer you ultimately collaborate with. If your goal is quick interaction and communication with people, you will likely choose an influencer who is active on Twitter. If, on the other hand, the focus is on appearance or photos, influencers with experience and an audience on Instagram or Pinterest are more suitable. Alternatively, a blog or a technical magazine may be a better fit if your goal is in-depth specialist articles or targeting the B2B market.

It is important that each of your goals can be tied to a specific performance indicator. How else could you determine the success or failure of your campaign? For example, if your goal is to increase sales, you should have the current sales figures before and after the campaign. If your goal is to increase the number of newsletter subscribers, you need a clear KPI to compare and track the numbers.

Additionally, it is important to approach the selection of your goals intelligently and strategically. Each goal must be specific, measurable, realistic, and achievable. It must also have a defined timeframe. A simple goal like improving product awareness is too vague—you have no way to measure success. A goal such as increasing Instagram followers by 20% in March, on the other hand, is intelligent. You can determine exactly whether the influencer achieved the goal and how successful they were overall.

3. Define Your Target Audience

It is completely impossible to find a suitable influencer if you don’t know which target audience you want to reach. You may already know your ideal customer. If that’s the case, keep this person in mind when searching for the right influencer. If you have previously worked with PPC or paid Facebook ads, examine exactly which audiences you targeted and how successful those campaigns were.

For an influencer to be effective, you need to work with influencers who impact your desired target audience. For example, imagine you have a huge marketing budget and could work with Justin Bieber as an influencer in your campaign. If your product is aimed at young teenage girls, Justin Bieber would likely be a perfect choice. The star has over 100 million followers on Twitter and a Klout score of 92. However, if your product deals with restoring old furniture, it is very unlikely that Justin Bieber could persuade many of his 100 million followers to be interested in your product. In this case, the influencer’s audience is simply not compatible with your product. The more you can narrow down your target market and audience, the easier it will be to find a suitable influencer.

4. Define the Best Type of Influencer for Your Brand

This is where most companies make the biggest mistakes. Many firms fail to put enough effort and work into selecting the right influencers for their brand or business. A study shows that more than 67% of the companies surveyed struggle with this. They claim that finding a suitable influencer is the hardest part of the campaign. This was likely also the greatest weakness of traditional celebrity marketing. Although there were certainly some successes, most people still ask: “What does the celebrity know about my lifestyle and taste? Celebrities live in a different world!” This shows that you need to choose an influencer whose audience aligns with your target group.

Celebrity Influencers

Celebrity influence is the oldest form of influencer marketing. Companies hire (and pay) famous personalities to promote a product, brand, or project. Prominent examples include Vodafone with Mika Häkkinen or Krombacher with Michael Schumacher. Even today, some celebrity campaigns have real potential for success. However, working with celebrities often also creates problems, particularly regarding costs. Additionally, many consumers quickly become skeptical when someone advertises something they do not actually use themselves.

Macro Influencer

Macro influencers have a huge number of followers. People regard them as experts in their industry or niche. It is not uncommon for them to have many millions of followers on social networks. The difference between a macro influencer and a celebrity is that, unlike a celebrity, the influencer is known for being knowledgeable about the product. An expert in the field?

Micro Influencer

The majority of influencers are micro influencers. They are a smaller tier, a smaller version of the huge macro influencers. Unlike celebrities, these individuals are usually completely unknown outside their industry or niche. However, people within the scene regard them as experts. Alternatively, micro influencers can simply be specialists in a particular field or topic. In any case, they typically operate at the lower end of the scale compared to macro influencers.

For your influencer marketing campaign, micro influencers are often the best choice. They have a very specific audience, the necessary experience, and a good reputation within the industry. On the other hand, they are not so big that they are too busy, and the chances of being declined are lower. Unlike huge macro influencers or celebrities, micro influencers rely on income and are generally more willing to work with you (without demanding extreme sums).

A typical micro influencer does not have a huge number of followers. Normally, their follower count ranges from 500 to 10,000. However, micro influencers are very active, communicate regularly with their followers, and are considered specialists and experts among them. Followers of micro influencers are often very loyal and dedicated fans. Additionally, most micro influencers have a strong interest in purchasing products themselves, which results in a significantly higher conversion rate.

It is not always necessary to spend a lot of money on influencer marketing. The manufacturer of hygiene products, Tom’s of Maine, specializes in products made entirely from natural ingredients. The company wanted to increase awareness of its products among health-conscious people by encouraging them to try the products and then share their experiences on social media. For this purpose, Tom’s relied on micro influencers. These influencers motivated their followers to create and share their own posts. In this way, the company achieved a snowball effect, reaching 4.4 million potential customers within the first three months of the campaign.

5. How to Find the Right Influencers

You probably know the names of all the prominent figures in your industry or field. In most cases, however, these individuals are more likely macro influencers rather than true celebrities. The first step on the path to your influencer campaign should be to identify which influential people you should actually contact.

A good starting point is to search Google for articles in your industry or niche. Look at the first few pages that appear at the top of the search results. Is there a particular name that appears regularly? While you’re at it, you should also check the most well-known blog results and see which authors appear consistently. It is also worth looking for references to other blogs or guest articles—perhaps even specific guidelines for guest writers.

On the other hand, you should ignore very general sites that cover many products or industries at once. Very large websites like Wikipedia can also usually be ignored. Once you’ve completed this first step, you can use tools like BuzzSumo to find key influencers in your niche or industry. This will give you an initial point of reference. Some examples of such tools are listed at the end of the article. Another alternative is to search using relevant hashtags on social media.

6. Influencer outreach

Once you have created a list of potential influencers for your brand, the influencer outreach process begins—the initial contact and inquiry. This requires several important steps to establish contact and build a relationship.

Subscribe to your influencer’s newsletter and become a follower.

All crowdfunding platforms have their own fees and costs associated with the respective provider. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the best-known of these websites. Reward crowdfunding, where backers are rewarded for their support, is the most well-known form of fundraising. Such platforms do not charge backers any fees. On the contrary—they even receive something in return for their support. To cover costs and generate the necessary revenue, platforms like Kickstarter charge fees that the project creator must pay. These are usually due at the end of the campaign and consist of general fees, payment processing fees, and, if applicable, additional costs. Let’s take a closer look at the costs and fees charged by the different providers.

Respond to introductory emails that influencers send you.

When you subscribe to a newsletter or follow a blog, you often receive an introductory email. You should respond to such messages, introduce yourself, and, if appropriate, ask a question. It is possible that your email will be ignored, as such messages are often sent automatically. However, there is also a chance that someone will notice you—and, more importantly, what you wrote. In this case, you make your name visible to the influencer. You become someone who stands out from the crowd.

Share the influencer’s posts.

For the next few months (this process can take up to six months or longer), you should share and like the influencer’s posts. When you share a post, don’t forget to tag the influencer (@influencer). This way, they will receive a notification that you have shared their post!

Respond to questions that the influencer asks their followers.

It is not uncommon for an influencer to communicate with their community and ask questions. When you see such questions, make sure to respond immediately.

Link to your influencer’s posts.

You should be especially careful with this at the beginning—unless the influencer posts something so interesting that you believe your own followers would benefit from it. In general, you should only take this step once the relationship between you and the influencer has progressed to the point where they have reached out to you or at least acknowledge your presence.

Your goal should be to create a natural link that benefits your influencer. For example, you could write a blog post on a topic similar to that of your influencer and then include a link to the relevant influencer post. Once you have published the article with the link, email the influencer to inform them about the publication. Tell them which article you linked and how it fits into your content. Important: Do not ask for anything in return! If appropriate, you can also mention the influencer in social media posts (@mention) to promote your article and notify them that you have linked their post.

Whenever you contact an influencer, keep the following in mind:

• Explain the benefits: Influencers are no different from other marketing channels. You must be able to clearly explain the benefits of your product or service and the cooperation.

• Be specific: Influencers do not want extra work. If you want the influencer to help you, you need to be specific. For example, if you want them to publish a guest post, you must provide details about the topic, when it should be completed, and so on.

• Set deadlines: Without a deadline, the influencer will likely set your project aside and forget about it. It is much better to create a sense of urgency. If the influencer believes your proposal is beneficial to them, they will readily agree to a realistic deadline.

Conclusion and Summary

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