5 Things Brands Should Do When Approaching Influencers

Social influence marketing has become a vital part of most social media marketing campaigns over the past few years. A report by Tomoson found that businesses are making $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. The report also showed that influencer marketing not only provides such a significant ROI, but also earns higher quality customers than brands acquire through other marketing tactics. Marketers rate influencer marketing more powerful and more useful than both email and organic search marketing.

For these reasons, it’s important to create strong relationships with the influencers your brand aligns with. Here are five key takeaways when it comes to approaching your ideal influencers:

1. Dig deep to find the best possible influencers in your niche

An influencer campaign produces the highest ROI when it is targeted to the best possible audience. An influencer you are considering approaching might seem like a great addition to the campaign on the surface - but doing strong research upfront will ensure they are the right fit for your product.

For example, if you’re reaching out to the biggest food bloggers in the country about a product with gluten in the ingredients, you will want to ensure they are not known for celebrating the gluten-free lifestyle. It’s always good practice to confirm that their voice, tone, visual aesthetics, and taste is a perfect match for your brand before reaching out.

2. Think outside the celebrity endorsement box

Having a celebrity behind your brand is always a huge win for a campaign if your target audience is young. However, older audiences aren’t as easily swayed by such an endorsement. You will need a very creative idea to make your influencer marketing works for your brand.

Take the case of Tyson Foods’s holiday campaign, for example. They invited dozens' of mom bloggers to turn chicken nuggets into fun, holiday creations for their kids and to share pictures online. This is one of the ideas that seem risky at first: moms get involved in influencer marketing. The campaign turned out to be a great success: it went viral and Tyson garnered 8.8 million impressions across social media and emptied their holiday’s nugget stock within just a few weeks.

Tyson Food's Campaign “Why Should Cookies Have All The Fun?

Via Raynforest

3. Get personal and build a rapport

While a busy marketing manager might see the benefit to their time in sending out one email Bcc’d to all potential influencers on a particular campaign, taking the time to individually connect with each influencer will create a sense of mutual respect. Chat with them at events, tweet with them, and even give them a call to ask their thoughts on the campaign and how it could be done even better. That personal connection will ensure the influencer is eager to work with your brands again in the future.

4. Be smart with your budget    

Since companies have discovered the power of this form of marketing and increased influence budgets significantly, it’s easier than ever to work with the biggest influencers in the world. But it’s always imperative to get as much out of every marketing dollar as you can.

When approaching an influencer, you can initially offer up the compensation that you have budgeted for the campaign - or you can first ask them what their rate is. If their price is lower than your budget, you can save that cost to work with another influencer and expand the campaign’s reach even further.

5. Share their content on your socials

According to a study from Augure, 55% of influencers consider the exposure to a wider audience to be their main reason for working with a brand.

A good practice to have built into your influencer marketing strategy is to share the content you’ve asked the influencers to create on the company social media profiles and website. The best influencers will create engaging and interesting content that your own followers will enjoy. Sharing it is a win for both parties - it gives you fresh content to keep the feed interesting, and it creates a stronger relationship with the influencer - whose number one reason for working with a brand might go beyond compensation.

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Social influence marketing has the largest impact when both the brand and the influencer are aligned in their message, and the influencer is genuinely passionate about the product and company being promoted.

Finding the right group of influencers has the potential to skyrocket your product to an entirely new audience - creating revenue that will last for years to come.