Influencer Marketing – Weighing The Do’s and Don’ts
Influencer marketing has become a go to digital marketing solution. However, influencer marketing has its pros and cons. Here are a few do’s and don’ts, so that you don’t make a mistake when it comes to influencer marketing. We’ll also explain the reasons behind each of these general guidelines.
Do Your Homework Before You Partner With An Influencer
The fact that their audience demographics fit your target audience is irrelevant if the influencer’s behavior hurts your brand. PewDiePie’s fall from grace and the impact on his sponsors is a mistake you don’t want to make because you picked influencers based on traffic and demographics, without looking into the person’s personality or behavior.
Don’t Just Give The Influencer The Product
The influencer’s expertise is their own niche, though knowing how to engage their audience is a close second. If you’re giving someone a new tech product to try out, you need to give them a hands-on demonstration and detailed instructions. An influencer struggling to use your product and making mistakes with it is negative publicity.
Do Consider The Authenticity of The Influencer
A beauty blogger creating an unboxing video with your products inside is a perfect fit if you sell beauty products, while health products may or may not be positively received by that person’s audience. Mommy bloggers talking about baby products and convenient lifestyle products like meal kits go over well with their audience and you’ll likely see a spike in sales. Give the same Mommy blogger a tool kit that’s better seen in Dad’s hands, and their endorsement won’t matter because it doesn’t fit their interests.
Don’t Compete Over Top Tier Influencers
While this seems counter intuitive, the reality is that the power of influencer marketing is based on its return on investment. Bidding up the brand name influencer and paying them for a brief promotion isn’t worth it compared to investing in several smaller influencers with a combined audience you can reach for a lot less money. And if there is overlap between their audiences, you’ll put several well received mentions in front of these individuals and nearly guarantee they buy from you.
Do Follow Up With Influencers
If an influencer’s audience has reported problems with the product, create a second video discussing how to use the product correctly, or announcing the software update fixing the bug. If the influencer gave a mixed review of one of your products, ask them to review a similar, but better product from you.
Additional Advice
Don’t just throw products at an influencer, but make sure to track your sales figures. Do the analysis to see how the influencer’s influence impacted various keywords and which market segments saw the biggest increase in sales. Do this type of analysis for each influencer you work with, so you know which influencers influence your customer segments to the greatest degree. Work with professionals like eventige.com if you don’t know how to do this data analysis yourself.
Influencer marketing can be a success or a bust depending on how you approach it. Don’t jump in head first, and make sure that you understand how to get influencer marketing to work for you.
