Influencer marketing has been around for quite some time. While it wasn’t as useful back in the day, the dawn of social media has certainly changed that for the better. Nowadays, modern people do not pay attention or consume the traditional means of marketing.
Over 5 billion people use social media, with this number growing every single day. Therefore, the prime objective behind influencer marketing is to target the users on social media, attracting a greater audience. And of course, a bigger audience means more sales. Hence, here is our list of effective influencer marketing strategies.
Brand-Sponsored Blogs
Blogs are an excellent utility for marketing a brand. Users consider blogs to be the most reliable source of information. The customer conversion rate of marketing through blog posts is at an all-time high. Apart from social media influencers, sponsoring influencer bloggers is also a viable option. Pay the influencer, and they will write a post either about the brand or your product on their blog.
While there are two types of brand-sponsored blogs, both share the same objective: writing about your brand and increasing its awareness. One of the options includes posts that are focused entirely on your brand. The blog discusses the products you sell, as well as share discount codes in these posts. The other variation includes mentioning your work alongside other products of the same category.
Guest Blogging
Similar to sponsored blogs, guest blogging is an effectual method of promoting a brand by partnering with blogging influencers. The procedure is very straightforward. You will have to begin by looking for bloggers writing on your niche of work and confirm if they are writing and accepting posts. Though before proceeding any further, you must have planned out multiple blog post ideas to capitalize on the opportunity.
Increase Traffic And Awareness
One of the methods for guest blogging is to accept posts, from other bloggers, on your blog. The technique will prove beneficial for both parties. The blogger posting on your blog will undoubtedly share the post on their blog. which in turn will increase your traffic and awareness.
The second way for guest blogging is to do the opposite. Instead of accepting other blog posts, collaborate with other bloggers, and request them to publish your post on their blog. You are likely to gain followers of different niches, increasing your credibility and exposure to the potential your brand holds.
Giveaway Campaigns
Compared to other influencer marketing schemes, giveaways are the most widely known. These campaigns prove mutually advantageous to both parties. Hosting giveaways allow influencers and the brand to increase their social media standing. Actions such as likes, comments, and followers, all equally prove beneficial.
However, the main benefit of giveaways is that it significantly increases brand awareness.Moreover, hosting giveaway campaigns is relatively straightforward. The partnered influencer asks the fanbase for simple tasks such as providing their emails and following them. After some time, a lucky draw is conducted, where the winner is selected randomly. A good strategy would be to ask the followers to tag their friends to join the giveaway. Doing so would boost brand awareness significantly.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing refers to partnering with an influencer and commissioning them for promoting your products. The influencer can promote your products on the product site or their socials. If a sale occurs through the influencer’s link, the partner gets paid, and the influencer collects a commission from the revenue generated.
The strategy serves as a means for earning an income for both: the influencer and the brand. The method will also help attract other influencers, helping you boost your product sales exponentially. Moreover, the influencers also take great interest in the sales, since they obtain a fraction of the amount.
Sending Gifts
Another form of influencer marketing is where the brand sends a gift to the influencer in hopes of free advertising. Social media influencers, especially YouTubers, are likely to record their reaction when unboxing the gift. Considering the excitement the influencers have, the product-reveal and their opinions may assist in boosting the sales of your business. The reviews presented by these influencers and the reaction of the audience will also give you an idea if your product will succeed or not.
Taking the negative feedback as constructive criticism can point you in the right direction for further improving your product. Additionally, you can provide the influencers with coupons and discount codes similar to affiliate marketing.
Social Media Sponsorships
Despite having top-notch content to share on social media and get your share of traffic, it can easily get drowned by other content. Therefore, sponsoring content creators and influencers to promote your products on social media is undeniably a great option. The influences are responsible for creating content regarding your brand to promote it on social media platforms. Moreover, confer your guidelines and requirements with the influence about the content you desire to have promoted.
After the content is ready to be posted, you can initiate the launch of the campaign on several suitable social media platforms.
The influencers can get compensation with direct payment or through other campaign options, such as discount codes. Furthermore, requesting influencers to write about upcoming events. You can also go the extra mile and invite the influence to the event. The fan-base is likely to find this more convincing to attend the event.
Brand Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are individuals who have admired your products for a long time. What this means is the influencer will likely show more enthusiasm towards your brand, promoting it without even being asked.
Such marketing is valuable to attract the followers of the influencer since most fanbases follow their influencers to even adopting their appearances. Hence, this is by far the easiest way of getting more attention and sales. Brand ambassadors share images and videos regarding the brand, as well as their experience with certain products.
There are numerous examples of such marketing plans. For instance, the YouTube influence PewDiePie is the brand ambassador for a drink named G-Fuel. He promotes the product by consuming it in all his videos and streams and recommending it on other platforms, on his own accord.
Conclusion
The fundamental idea behind this marketing tactic is to collaborate with influences and engage with their audience. While the non-following clients will continue purchasing your products, the influence fan-base is likely to increase your customer base exponentially.
Additionally, the influences themselves can serve as a great way of testing and reviewing your product. Lastly, influence marketing is perhaps the best way to introduce your brand on social media.