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Did you know that 84% of marketers said they find influencer marketing to be effective? In fact, 67% of them said that they were planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets.
Influencer marketing is hot. Which is not surprising considering the plethora of benefits it brings for brands. It can influence the purchase decisions of potential customers and boost sales. Even in terms of increasing brand awareness, influencer marketing can do wonders.
But running a successful influencer marketing campaign requires a lot of research and planning. The first step is to find relevant key influencers to collaborate with.
Key influencers refer to those bloggers or celebrities who are already capturing the attention of your target audience.
For instance, if you are in the fitness industry, Emily Skye can be a key influencer for you. She is known to be a lifestyle, beauty, and fitness enthusiast. Her followers look up to her for recommendations in these domains.
The biggest advantage of working with key influencers is that you gain access to their audience. This can help you successfully grow your brand more quickly.
In the world of influencer marketing, you need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. There are hundreds of key influencers out there who claim to have huge followings on social media. But what if a majority of them are fake followers?
Before you zero in on an influencer to collaborate with, you need to do intensive research. It’s a time-consuming and cumbersome process, but it is also an absolute necessity.
Run a simple Google search looking for the best bloggers or influencers in your niche. Also look at popular publications, photographers, and videographers who target a similar audience.
Make a list of all the key influencers that you would like to collaborate with. Once you have made the list, you need to familiarize yourself with each of those key influencers.
For this, you should check out their posts on social media. If they have a website, read the blog posts on it. Doing this will give you a better idea of the content that they create and the tone that they use.
It’s also a good idea to check if they’ve received any coverage from the press before. That will help you ascertain if they have a good reputation or not.
Keep an eye on the number of followers they have and the kind of engagement that their posts get. These metrics will give you a better idea of the kind of results you can expect from a collaboration.
Another way of finding relevant key influencers is through keywords or hashtags. Make a list for keywords or hashtags that are relevant to your industry and niche.
Search for those hashtags on various social media platforms. For keywords, you can use tools like KWFinder to find other posts in which the same keywords are used. Using the links you find in the results, you can find influencer content in your niche.
That being said, you don’t need to only consider collaborating with key influencers in your niche. Key influencers from other niches who cater to a similar target audience can also help you grow your brand.
For example, if you want to promote travel accessories, the obvious choice for collaboration would be travel influencers. At the same time, you could also work with models, actors, or sports people who travel a lot. All of these key influencers may be able to create content that resonates well with the target audience.
You’ve done your research. So, what’s the next step? Reach out and let them know that you’d like to collaborate with them.
Some key influencers have specific guidelines for contacting them. Check their social media profiles to see if they have a specific way they prefer to be contacted.
You may have to fill out a form or send a message on their press page directly. If they have not mentioned anything, you can try one of the following strategies to get in touch with them.
Reaching out to key influencers via social media is sometimes the easiest way to contact them. You don’t need to be too formal when you send a direct message on social media. Just introduce yourself and your brand.
Tell them that you’d like to collaborate with them and why you think they are a good fit for your brand. For further details, you can suggest an in-person or telephone meeting.
However, keep in mind that key influencers likely receive hundreds of messages (or more) on their social media accounts. Your message may get lost in the chaos of their inbox. They may even miss your message or forget to respond to it.
To increase your chances of getting a response from them, engage with their posts on social media. Liking and comments on their posts can help put on the radar.
Many influencers are present on multiple social media platforms. If you don’t receive a reply on Facebook, you can send them a message on Instagram. You can try using all available channels to get in touch with them.
Emails are a more professional way of reaching out to influencers. Just like social media messages, influencers also receive a lot of emails every day.
If your email goes unanswered for a couple of days, you should send them a follow up email. However, avoid being pushy and resist the temptation to send them emails every day. By doing that, you risk your chances of collaborating with them.
While writing an email to key influencers, make it a point to add a personal touch to it. Instead of starting off your email with “Dear Blogger/Influencer,” address them by their name. You can begin your pitch by mentioning what you like about the content that they create.
Your first email should aim to take the conversation further. There is no need to discuss the specifics of the campaign. Just let them know you’re interested in collaborating with them.
Give a brief introduction to your brand and the values that you stand for. You could also mention a previous campaign that you have worked on. Highlight how collaborating with your brand can be beneficial to them.
Collaborating with key influencers can immensely boost your brand’s reputation. Not just that, it can also help you increase brand awareness and sales.
Finding the right key influencer to work with is the challenging part. If you want to launch a successful influencer marketing campaign with the best key influencers, be prepared to conduct thorough research and be persistent in your efforts.
Learn more about influencer marketing: Influencer Marketing 101
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