How To Grow Your Brand & Business With Influencer Marketing

When done right, influencer marketing can be a dream come true for brands looking to reach new customers. Influencers have dedicated followings that look up to them and trust their opinions and product recommendations. 

But if you’re a brand just getting started with influencer marketing, it can be hard to know where to begin. Let’s take a closer look at how you can grow your business with the help of an influencer.

Takeaways
Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy for brand growth.
Identifying the right influencers is crucial for successful campaigns.
Building authentic relationships with influencers fosters long-term success.
Leveraging influencer content can enhance brand credibility.
Measuring ROI helps refine influencer marketing strategies.
Consistent engagement and collaboration yield sustained benefits.

Define Your Target Audience

It’s important to define your target audience before you start building relationships with influencers. The more specific you can be, the better.

For example: Do you want to reach millennial mothers with kids ages 2-6? Or perhaps stay-at-home moms between 25 and 45 who are interested in parenting and lifestyle content? 

Or maybe even millennials who like travel but aren’t necessarily parents? It all depends on what works best for your business goals.

When defining your target audience, think about who it is that would benefit most from interacting with your brand or product or service the people who would actually buy what it is that you’re selling. 

For example, if I’m selling a clothing line aimed at women in their 20s and 30s (myself included).

Then maybe my ideal customer would be someone who’s a few years younger than me a recent college graduate perhaps and she might have kids but not necessarily yet (or at least not very many).

Video content has become a powerful tool for building engagement and community. If you’re looking to connect with your audience on a deeper level, consider the insights in our guide on why video marketing is a potent way to foster connections.

Create A Brand Narrative

Creating a brand narrative is the most important step in the process. It’s what every business needs to define, especially if you want to be taken seriously by your customers and industry. 

You can think of it as the story of your brand and why people should care about it, but there are lots of ways to tell a story and many different ways for them to get across the same message depending on how unique or complex the company is. 

Some companies only need one sentence while others might need multiple paragraphs or even several pages for people to understand what they do and how they do it better than anyone else in their field. Here are some examples:

[Company X] creates beautiful wedding dresses that last for generations!

Identify Your Pathway To Success

When it comes to influencer marketing, the first step is to define your goal.

This may seem simple, but it’s important to consider exactly what your goals are before you begin the process. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there? Before anything else, start by asking yourself: “Why do I want this?”

The answer(s) to that question will help determine which influencers are right for your business. 

For example, if your goal is to generate more brand awareness and drive traffic back to your website, then choosing an influencer who does YouTube videos about beauty products would probably be a good fit but if one of your goals is product sales then maybe not so much.

Are you seeking innovative ways to boost your sales and lead generation? Discover valuable tips in our article featuring 15 creative marketing tips that can elevate your marketing game and drive impressive results.

Research Your Target Influencers

Now that you’ve decided on the appropriate channels for your influencer marketing campaign, it’s time to start researching! While there are many different ways to find influencers, we recommend using tools like Fohr Card or Klear. 

These platforms will allow you to search for relevant influencers in your niche with a large following. However, keep in mind that having a large following does not necessarily mean they are the best choice for your campaign. 

You should look at engagement rate as well the higher their engagement rate is (generally over 50%), the more likely they will be able to drive results.

Collaborating With Influencers Who Have A Relevant Audience

Choose Influencers That Have a Relevant Audience and a Large Following

When looking for influencers, you want to pay close attention to the size of their following. If they don’t have a large audience, they may not be influential enough to help grow your brand. 

If the people in their audience are not interested in what you offer, then it won’t matter if they share your post or mention it on social media; no one will see it or take action because there is no interest from anyone in that person’s network.

This is why when searching for potential influencers to work with, aim high and look for those who have large followings (to get more bang for your buck) as well as relevant audiences (where you can connect with existing customers). 

This type of collaboration will also allow you access to new communities through which may never otherwise have reached out before so consider additional opportunities beyond sales/marketing campaigns when deciding upon who should represent your brand!

Nurture Relationships With Influencers

When you’re just getting started, your first step is to find some influencers in your niche. So what are influencers? They’re people who have a large following on social media and can drive traffic to your site.

They include bloggers, vloggers, YouTubers, and others who create content related to their interests or passions. You can also find them by looking at the most popular articles on sites like Buzzsumo or Ahrefs.

Once you’ve found them, it’s time to nurture relationships with them! Here’s how:

Get To Know Them

This is the first step in any type of relationship-building process! 

You’ll want to take some time getting familiar with their personality and what they do so that later on when asking for something from them (like a guest post or interview) it comes across as genuine rather than transactional or promotional

Decide What Type Of Content You Want To Create

It’s important to decide what type of content you want to create before reaching out to influencers. Do you have a product that would benefit from the trustworthiness and expertise of someone who has been in your industry for years? 

Or are you looking for something more casual, like a regular vlog series on YouTube that helps people with their day-to-day life?

Once you know what kind of content fits your brand, it’s time to figure out what type of tone you’re going for and this will depend largely on how serious or fun your brand is. 

A company selling luxury beachwear might want an influencer who can talk about trends and products with authority; 

On the other hand, if they wanted their audience to relate more with them as someone they could hang out with at home instead (or maybe even someday be).

Then an influencer might say something like “I’ve always wanted these shoes but they’re so expensive! If anyone knows where I can find them cheaper…”

Influencer marketing has transformed the way brands connect with their audiences. For a deeper understanding of how to harness the power of influencers, delve into our insights on what B2C marketers can learn from influencers to stay ahead in the competitive marketing landscape.

Influencer Marketing Campaigns Should Support Your Sales Funnel

Once you’ve identified the right influencers and created a campaign, you want to make sure it’s supporting your sales funnel. Influencer marketing should be used to increase brand awareness, brand recognition, and even brand loyalty.

So what does this mean? It means that if someone sees an influencer promoting your product or service on Instagram, they might be more likely to visit your site and buy from you directly (or maybe even go into the store). 

Or maybe they won’t buy anything yet but now at least their interest has been piqued. They may not have known about your business before the campaign started but now they do. 

That increased awareness will help keep them engaged with your brand over time as well as help attract new customers down the line too!

Connect With Micro-Influencers Too

You might think that the only way to grow your brand is through celebrity influencers, but you’d be wrong! Micro-influencers are people who have a small but engaged audience. 

They’re more likely to be authentic and more relevant to your brand, making them great for connecting with customers through sponsored posts.

If you want to find some great micro-influencers for your brand, check out social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook where they can share their love of products they’ve tried and loved. 

You can also look at blogs that feature product reviews written by real people we’ve got lots of these here at The Content Factory!

Ensure That The Audience Matches Your Brand Narrative

When it comes to influencer marketing, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. You can reach out and work with an influencer based on the number of followers they have, for example, or you can look for an influencer that matches your brand narrative. 

The latter is arguably better because it will ensure that your audience feels more connected to the content you create through your partnership.

If your brand has a certain tone or style and you want to continue building upon this, then finding influencers who already match up with those qualities will go a long way in ensuring that their audience is receptive to what they’re saying about you and what you do. 

For example: if I were selling an eco-friendly cleaning product (which I am not), then I would want my potential partners/influencers who are also eco-conscious as well, and not just because they want green views but because they think sustainability is important!

Crafting compelling content is a core strategy for driving business growth. To effectively leverage content in selling your services, explore our guide on using content marketing to sell your services and uncover techniques to connect with potential clients.

Don’t Always Go For The Top Influencer In Your Industry

First, let’s talk about what influencers are.

There are two types of influencers: top and micro. Top Influencers have large followings and a high level of engagement that is, they get a lot of likes, comments, and shares on their posts. 

Micro-Influencers have smaller followings but still have relatively high engagement rates compared to the average user. 

To put it another way: if you were looking for an “average” person to wear your brand’s shirt in public and post about it on Instagram, you’d likely go for a top influencer because they’ll reach more people than someone without as many followers would; 

However, if you were looking for someone who could wear your shirt at her local farmer’s market or street fair with other locals who are into the same thing she is (and probably want some new shirts too).

Then hiring a micro-influencer might be better because she has less reach but more targeted audience appeal.

Why should we care about this distinction? Because hiring niche micro-influencers can help your business win in three ways: 1) You get higher engagement rates per follower than with more general-interest ones; 

2) Your campaigns will reach more real customers who fit within your target demographics; 3) It costs less money because their followers aren’t as valuable so there’s no need to spend much on ads!

Consider Using Niche Influencers For Greater Reach And Relevance

It might seem counterintuitive, but you can use smaller influencers to grow your brand and business. While top-tier influencers have a larger audience than niche influencers, they may not be as relevant to your brand or product and they’re less likely to be interested in it. 

Niche influencers have smaller audiences but are more likely to have an interest in what you have to offer, which could make them better partners for your business than top-tier influencers who simply wouldn’t care about partnering with you.

It’s Not Always About The Numbers! Look For Impact, Not Impressions

The most important thing you need to know about influencer marketing is that it’s not always about the numbers. You should look for impact, not impressions.

The impact can be measured in terms of sales, leads, and brand awareness. The impact can also be measured by the number of people talking about your brand or product online (i.e., conversations).

If you want to learn more about how we measure impact at Bambuza Media, check out our article on calculating ROI for your company’s influencer marketing campaign.

Consider Using Video Content To Leverage Trust Within Your Niche Market

It’s no secret that video content is more engaging than text. Using video in one way or another can help to establish your brand and grow your business. 

The possibilities are endless when creating videos for your brand and business, but here are some ideas on how you might want to use video content:

• Showcase your product with a demo video
• Demonstrate how a product works with an instructional video
• Give information on how something is made using a behind-the-scenes type of video (such as where does the raw material come from)
• Showcase solutions for problems your target audience may be having

Prepare A Brief That Will Guide The Influencer’s Creativity

A brief is a document that outlines your brand, what you want the influencer to create and promote, and how you want them to do it.

A good brief should be:

• Short – no more than one page
• Clear – include any necessary information in bullet points or headings rather than writing paragraphs of text
• Specific – use exact language when talking about what you want from the influencer, e.g., “I would like one Instagram post containing three images with captions.” You don’t have time for vagueness here!

Be Clear On How You’re Going To Measure Success

Define How You Will Measure Your Results

How are you going to determine if this campaign was successful? You need a way to measure whether or not the influencer marketing that your brand or business is doing is working. Will it be subscribers? Sales? 

How long will it take for the results of your campaign to show up in numbers? What kind of metrics should you use as benchmarks for success (i.e., likes, shares, comments)? 

How long do you want these results to last after the campaign ends (i.e., does it need to reach 100k users within a month)?

Social media has become an integral part of marketing strategies. To enhance your B2B marketing efforts, delve into our insights on how to leverage social media and discover strategies to amplify your online presence and engage your target audience.

Decide Who Will Be Involved In Creating Content With Influencers And What Type Of Content They Will Make Together

I recommend working with at least 5–10 different types of influencers from all across the world who represent different niches related specifically to yours.

So that there’s more variety on topics covered during each episode such as lifestyle tips about entrepreneurship and personal finance advice for millennials living paycheck-to-paycheck (or whatever other demographic might relate best). 

The more diverse perspectives available through different experts sharing their knowledge on topics related specifically to yours means better quality information being shared among readers/viewers which means more conversions!

Use Influencer Marketing To Grow Your Business

Influencer marketing is a great way to grow your brand and business. It can help you reach new audiences, build trust with your audience, get more sales, improve your brand reputation, and improve brand awareness.

To use influencer marketing effectively:

Identify which influencers would be good for your brand and product/service. For example, if you’re selling luxury handbags then an influencer who posts pictures of themselves wearing high-end designers like Chanel or Hermes could be ideal for promoting your products. 

You could also see if any bloggers talk about fashion or travel and reach out to them about helping promote your bags as well as other items like wallets or shoes that go well with them.

Set up a relationship with the influencers so they know what type of content they can create for you and when it needs to be created (ie: before posting). 

This will allow both parties involved time to plan out the best strategy for each campaign based on all factors including budget constraints, timing needs etcetera…

Conclusion

Don’t forget that for a campaign to be successful it should align directly with your business and marketing goals. When it does, you will notice more engagement with your brand, higher search rankings for your website, and an increase in sales.

Further Reading

How to Use Influencer Marketing to Grow Your BusinessDiscover strategies for leveraging influencer marketing to expand your business reach and engagement.

Influencer Marketing: A Guide for Ecommerce BusinessesLearn how influencer marketing can benefit your ecommerce business and drive sales growth.

Grow Your Brand with Influencer MarketingExplore tactics to enhance your brand’s presence and authority through effective influencer collaborations.

And here’s the “FAQs” section:

FAQs

How does influencer marketing help businesses?

Influencer marketing enables businesses to tap into the followers and credibility of influencers to reach a wider audience and build trust.

What types of businesses can benefit from influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is versatile and can benefit various types of businesses, from startups to established brands, across different industries.

How do I find the right influencers for my brand?

To find suitable influencers, consider your target audience, industry relevance, engagement rates, and alignment with your brand values.

What are the key elements of a successful influencer marketing campaign?

A successful influencer marketing campaign involves setting clear goals, choosing the right influencers, crafting authentic content, and measuring results effectively.

How can I measure the ROI of my influencer marketing efforts?

Measuring ROI involves tracking metrics like engagement, website traffic, conversions, and brand mentions generated through influencer collaborations.