Influencer marketing has grown significantly over the years. Knowing how to find the correct influencers that align with your business niche can help you drive relevant traffic to your website, reach new people, increase sales, and build brand awareness.
This guide will show you how to find the influencers who can best help you in your marketing strategies.
What are INFLUENCERS?
An influencer has an online following, and their followers listen and trust what the influencers say. The influencer’s followers trust them and formulate opinions based on the influencer’s perspectives. Influencers can be Bloggers, Celebrities, Social Media Personalities, Industry experts with a following, Thought leaders, Motivation Speakers, Lifestyle brands, and so on.
Some micro-influencers don’t have that huge a following, but their followers are often more royal, and the macro-influencers are those with a big following and audience.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Through influencer marketing, a brand can leverage the reach and authority of an influencer to increase their visuality, brand awareness, visibility, and loyalty. Brands can collaborate with influencers in various ways. Some of the methods include but are not limited to:
Collaborate with influencers and spread their brand name
Influencers often have a loyal fanbase, and when they share content from a brand or mention brands or their products, their audience is leaded towards that content, brand, or product.
Make an influencer a spokesperson for the brand
Brands can turn influencers into brand ambassadors for their products. This way, the influencer will mention the product or content somewhat regularly.
Finding Influencers
You must find the correct influencers to promote your brand. There are some tips that you can utilize to create a successful campaign.
- Have a goal before you start the campaign. Keep realistic expectations and have objectives that drive your actions.
- There are different types of influencer campaigns; you need to know what type of influencer campaign is right for you.
- Search for influencers within your niche or industry.
- Influencers that share your audience are also great options.
- Use websites like BuzzGuru to assess influencers and understand their authority.
Determine Goals
As you begin to start finding influencers, keep in mind that it’s not about the number of influencers you find but the quality of influencers that is right for your brand. The right ones are people who can help you increase your reach towards a relevant audience.
First, outline the main objective and ensure that your goals include things like Brand Awareness, Engagement, Sales, build brand identity, Audience building, Link Building, and Customer Loyalty.
Finding a Fitting Influencer Campaign
Finding a fitting campaign is essential as you are mapping out your influencer marketing plans. First, consider the campaigns that best suit your brand. Here are the types of campaigns you can consider:
- Guest Posting: An influencer who owns a block will allow you to write for the blog that they own.
- Gifting: Sending gifts to influencers to get some mentions and recognition.
- Sponsored Content: Influencers get paid to share content from a brand or create content that ties with the brand.
- Giveaways and Contests: Incentivizing influencers through giveaways and contests to get mentions.
- Brand Ambassadors: You can partner with influencers who will often regularly promote your brand in exchange for perks or discounts from your brand.
- Discount Codes: Collaborate with influencers and allow them to provide discount codes to their fans for your offerings.
- Affiliates: You can share affiliate codes so influencers can earn money when someone uses their referral link.
Finding Influencers Within your Niche
You should start with famous figures in your industry as industry influencers help a brand spread its messages while also building brand awareness. This is often an excellent place to start. You can choose to set up a Google alert for niche or industry-related terms, which will help you see who regularly writes content about important related topics in your industry.
Influencers Who Share the Same Audience
Sometimes you can forego finding influencers within the same industry. Influencers don’t necessarily have to be tied to the same industry as long as they share the same audience as you. These audiences can provide the same value as the ones that are directly linked to your industry. Often times this method may help you reach even more people as it creates an overlap of similar interests.
Assessing the Authority and Reach of an Influencer
When you have a list of influencers that you have short-listed, evaluate them and see if they are big enough, if they are still relevant and whether they will be able to meet your expectations. It is an integral part of doing a good influencer marketing campaign. Consider these factors:
- The number of followers an influencer has.
- The engagement rate compared to the follower number.
- Quality of the content.
- Alexa Ranking of the website (if they own a blog or a website).
