In the B2B world, one way of making your brand gain huge recognition towards enhancing its growth is through referrals. This could involve sharing links with a popular influencer in the particular niche of your business.
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that places emphasis and focuses on the influencer and not the target audience.
Forming a partnership with online influencers opens a whole lot of opportunities for businesses. Whether you run a big or a small brand business, influencer marketing is a very effective marketing strategy that will help you build and amplify the voice of your brand through increasing your SEO, traffic and conversion on your website.
In a recent webinar, Jack Kosakowski was joined by guest speaker Mark Fidelman, CEO of Fanatics Media. The webinar was covering how salespeople can leverage industry influencers to drive more deals. Those that joined the webinar sharpened their knowledge with lots of key information, tips and strategies.
Let’s look at the key takeaways from this webinar.
Table of Contents:
- What is an influencer?
- How can I find influencers?
- How to engage with Influencers
- How to increase influence
What is an influencer?
An influencer is an individual that has the influence of impacting on the purchase decision of others largely due to their position or audience. An influencer is someone that can help increase awareness and engagement of your brand.
Prospective buyers tend to be more receptive to a recommendation made by someone that they trust.
They create trends and motivate their followers to purchase the brand they are creating awareness for. They can introduce your brand to their readers which in turn can generate huge traffic and conversions. Influencers are usually celebrities and industry experts, and some micro-influencers that have amassed a large following on social media.
How can I find influencers?
There are various ways to discover successful influencers, two of the best methods are via the use of influencer search tools and the power of social media.
Online Search Tools:
Using tools like BuzzSummo and Followerwonk will allow you to discover influencers that have an active and engaged following that could potentially help your campaign be a success.
These tools allow you to filter your search to identify key influencers that would be suitable for your business.
Other tools such as Ninja Outreach will allow you to discover influencers, bloggers and more via the use of filters. You can then set-up outreach emails to start a conversation allowing you to build a relationship.
Social Media:
Whilst tools are great, there are other options which tend to be free. Using social media is a great example. You can use networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook all of which allow you to search for specific keywords, hashtags and accounts.
Credit: SheSpeaks
You should look for influencers that are highly connected with their followers and engage with them on a regular basis. Determine the number of likes, comments and the number of shares they receive on a frequent basis.
How to engage with influencers
One of the challenges that salespeople face when it comes to working with influencers is getting their attention and engaging them. It can sometimes be a very tough task forming a relationship.
The ultimate goal here is to ensure that influencers show interest in your brand. Having a great and unique product is not enough to help you achieve this, you have to work on how to approach industry influencers and form a strong relationship with them. A strong relationship is needed to help you achieve tremendous success in campaigns.
Follow and Comment
If you intend to form a relationship with an influencer, first of all, try to be part of their large base of followers. Like, share and comment on their posts whenever possible. You have to make sure that your comment will add value to the influencer’s value as this will make them find you interesting.
Find Out Their Value
Visit Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and find influencers. Follow them and find out what people talk about them. Determine what they like talking about as this will give you a clearer picture of how to approach the influencer.
It gives you more insight into the value that you would want to share with them.
Allow them to Review Your Product
Once you feel ready and have started to establish a relationship and getting noticed by the influencer, you should then allow them to enjoy the utility of your product/services.
This will propel influencers to add extra effort to affect the purchasing decision of their followers if they like your product.
The good thing about this strategy is that when you finally decide to approach them, they will see you more as a fan than as an opportunist. Meet influencers with respect, relevant ideas and clear expectations.
How to Increase Influence
There are many times when salespeople lack motivation for finding influencers due to how tedious the task is. In order to start the recognition of your brand, you have to look for a micro-influencer who has a platform where your target audience is hugely based.
Micro-influencers have small dedicated channels which sometimes yield great results for salespeople. The reason being, they have a more engaged community. Look towards solving solutions rather than making great sales. This will, in turn, maximize your brand image and influence over time.
Credit: Digiday
Create Quality Content
You have to learn to curate quality content. This will enhance and sustain your relationship with your target audience in a particular channel. Most influencers may have little knowledge about your services which they can make up for using your content.
This will enlighten your prospective buyers towards buying your products.
You can learn what to add to your content by interacting with people on different social platforms such Facebook, Twitter or forums like Quora. You have to make the content simple to understand, consistent, relevant and unique. This will help you get more insight into the type of content to create.
