01 Nov Benefits of Finding Influencers in your Industry
The face of marketing is continuously changing. With the advent of social media, marketing has become affordable and more accessible. There are so many advertisements that most people have become selectively blind to product and service advertisements. Research has shown using respected brand influencers will significantly boost sales in your industry.
So how do brand influencers affect your business?
Improve Your Search Ranking
Brand ambassadors and influencers are people who have the power to change or alter someone’s opinion on someone or something. They can cause changes without directly forcing them to happen. Brand influencers may be people with a high following on social media sites like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.
If a blogger or influencer in your market receives a lot of traffic or have a high SEO ranking, then working with them could also boost your website ranking. It’s like someone influential putting in a good word for you to the relevant authority. Brand influencers help build high-quality links to drive website traffic. Those who follow your influencers will likely be interested, and if your site links are on their platforms, the followers have the potential to become customers. One of the main assets Groupon uses for its businesses is it’s SEO benefit. Because Groupon.com is a high authoritative site, it will boost the websites shared on their platform.
Build good relationships with influencers in your market.
- Send them free samples to try out.
- Ask them to write reviews or talk about them on their blogs, vlogs, or websites.
- Build relationships that are equally beneficial for both parties.
Influencers can educate their following about your products or your site.
Drive conversations
Brand influencers can spark conversation and with talk, sparks interest. Millennials are more likely to try something after their favorite celebrities promote it. Some people turn to friends and family for purchase decision making. Some turn to their favorite bloggers.
Many people in today’s information age are more like to search for reviews, recommendations, and endorsements before purchasing a product or service. If a consumer is considering buying from your brand, the influencer can be the deciding factor. Their support for your product can be the reason they pick you over your competitor.
As a business, you should give prospects a reason to take action by providing exclusive discount codes to your influencers to promote your product or service better.
Businesses credibility will increase from an influencer’s positive word of mouth about a product offering.
Save time
By allowing the influencer to take front and center in promoting your brand, you’ll save a lot in many areas such as alternative advertising. Working with the influencer, they are allowing you to borrow their audience to promote your brand. As the saying goes, hit two birds with one stone. Partnering with an influencer gives you easy access to an audience likely to become consumers of your product. Rather than focusing efforts on multiple areas, by focusing on an influencer, you target several regions at once.
Working with influencers is a very efficient way to get your brand noticed and placed on a more significant platform. Boost your brand’s visibility. Put more focus on customizing strategies to fit individual influencer’s niche markets rather than the mass audience.
Not sure where to start?
Make a list of the top categories you need to focus on for your business. That can range from the buyers, media editors, to merchandisers.
Who are your local influences within your typical buyer? They can be local fashion bloggers or a well-known sports personalities or even a tech guru. Who are the more popular leading industry influencers? They are those influencers who are well-known nationwide. They may be famous bloggers, radio hosts, newspaper or magazine editors, etc.
Make a list contacts for each and start reaching out. Send out your product samples and ask them what they think. If they like it, ask them if they would be interested in being your brand ambassador or sharing a product review. If they agree, set up meetings and you will eventually start branching out towards the folks willing to work with you.
Brand influencers promote a two-way conversation between the business and their clientele. Which according to research is very important to the millennial generation. Seventy percent of millennial women think of shopping as entertainment. Brand influencers can make shopping fun, interactive and entertaining, no matter the medium. They can tell their own story and their own experiences when using the product making it a friendlier personal feel rather than the impersonal advertisements that we see on various mass media platforms.
Approaches towards attracting more influencers:
- Create loyalty programs
- Hire an editorial publication with connections to celebrities in your industry
- Hire a Public Relations Agency to build credibility and ties to local and international influencers
- Hire a Marketing Agency to find and build your influences as well as create an infrastructure for your business to flourish
- Reach out to influencers locally through email, Twitter, Instagram or their personal agents
- Sponsor or create an event where local influencers would be inclined to attend
- Network to find possible influencers around your area and build relationships
- Send out news-worthy press releases about your business to influencers as well as news outlets
Offline Influencers:
Often times there are outside influences that have large social circles. These influences are not as easy to spot such as likes on a Facebook fan page, however should be noted. Give these select individuals praise and support for assisting in getting the word out about your business. Great offline referral influencers are often hair stylists, barbers, socialites, and even in places you may not suspect. Always ask new customers where they heard about you, and take notice.