The year is fast coming to an end; as the final quarter rolls out, innovative companies have started to plan winning strategies for the coming year. One trend that has witnessed notable success this year is Influencer Marketing. Several predictions say that this trend will continue to see higher heights of success with the coming year, although it may also see a few tweaks and changes in terms of dynamics.
The beginning of this year saw companies and big firms investing reasonably in Organic-type Influencer Marketing in an attempt to build up their influencer relationships naturally. However, somewhere around the final half of the year, fewer firms showed interest in exploring this channel because the method proved to be long-winded. It always took too much time to break results; there were still higher chances for unsuccessful campaigns.
With time, newer methods emerged as influencer agencies were able to make more of an impact and reap huge benefits through influencer platforms. Unsurprisingly, new digital platforms began to appear on the market every other month, and the services they offered continued to evolve dynamically.
Another study, however, reveals that 75% of influencers do not feel valued by marketers. Following this argument, companies that will work towards improving their relationships with their respective influencer marketing agents will be the first to enjoy higher rewards and have the market swinging in their favor earlier on. A great way to begin to achieve this goal in your company is by adding value to the influential relationships that you already have in place.
Let us study some powerful, newer sales techniques in influencer marketing that have yielded notable results in 2019 and, from research, will continue to up sales tremendously in 2020.
Smart Gifting
Surprise your Influencers, devoted customers, and brand fans that have been loyal throughout the year. The key is doing this through something that is photo or content worthy content; this way, they can integrate testimonials of your brand’s noble gestures into various posts on the internet and social media. This move will make your brand name trend all over the internet and social media; therefore, getting a wider audience interested in your brand.
One good case study is “Taco Bell.” The company sent out surprise thank you gifts to their most ardent customers and, in turn, received a heap of content and photo credits tagging their brand. This generated traffic and had the company trending on the internet and social media for a reasonable period. It got them more customers and lots of other benefits as well.
Brand Ambassadorship
You may consider making an influencer an ambassador of your brand if they fit what your business stands for. Ensure that the Influencer’s beliefs align with your brand’s values, culture, and aesthetics. The relation you will have with an influencer brand ambassador is often long-term. They can represent your brand at sponsored events and cover the red carpet if they have the talent. As ambassadors, they can also set up brand awareness campaigns and generally spread word about new and old products or services.
Collaborative Visual Content
One problem that makes Companies fail with their Influencers is that they try to outdo each other with visual content. While both parties will not notice their failures here, as customers, we’re all busy and suffering from short attention spans, as such will give better “attention” and response to straightforward info-graphic visual content.
The key here is in teaming up with your influencers to co-create straightforward visual content that will be loved by their audience and, at the same time, promotes your brand. This way, their audience can get interested in sharing and promoting your content.
A good case study here is Cuisinart, who collaborated with one of their top Influencer blogs, Fabulously Frugal, to co-create some attractive but straightforward visual content highlighting both the brand and blog. This post scored a lot of action from customers and won new ones for both the brand and blog.
Amplify The “Third Party Voice”
Use your channels to amplify all brand-related media that Customers and Influencers have posted about your company in the past year. It is much easier to get potential customers to respond to call to actions when they come from a third-party. Therefore, give your fans and customers the spotlight by amplifying their third-party voice on your social channels and Influencer blogs instead of talking about your brand yourself. You can use writing services reviews like Online Writers Rating to get across to international audiences. Also, it helps to add a call to action, so your audience knows the next step you want them to take.
Social Account Takeovers
A takeover is another popular format whereby brands collaborate with influencers on social media. Cracking your brain to create new content continually can be quite tasking. Instead, you can collaborate with an influencer to take over your social media account. Here the Influencer takes over your brand’s social page to post engaging and creative content on your behalf.
Takeovers can be very beneficial to your brand since the Influencer’s content is more effective and has an expert view. The takeover can be for a fixed time of a day, week, or extended period, depending on your campaign strategy. Furthermore, an influencer can takeover by having access to your business’s social accounts. Or they can also send you the content they have created, and then you post on their behalf. In this case, it is also vital that you pick an Influencer you’ve worked with and trust.
Sponsored Blog Posts
Besides your regular social platforms, consumers also turn to blogs for more relevant and reliable information sources. Thus it is vital that your work alongside influential bloggers that are known for being trustworthy. The blog can be a dedicated post that speaks about your brand’s products or services. It can provide detailed information regarding your brand, and it could likewise contain exclusive discount codes or custom giveaways.
Another blog post idea will be to send the Influencer free products in exchange for an honest review. Additionally, you can ask your influencer blogger to mention your brand in a “top 10 or 10 best” blog of products or services. Here, the blog content may include several other brands, including yours. Your influencers’ blog posts can pop up at the top of every search engine results when done well.
Sponsor Giveaways
One trend in 2020 will be a collaborative effort and teamwork. Companies and Influencer agencies that will perfect working together will ultimately become the most significant benefactors, especially in Influencer Marketing.
Try to support your Influencer’s network by sponsoring giveaways regularly. This works effectively to ensure that your Influencer’s network and social channels stay engaging all year round with content that mentions your brand. It is an effective way to win new audiences and an easy way to get customers to respond to a call-to-action.
Pay for performance, not posts
Another way to win your sales game via influencer marketing in 2020 is to pay per performance and not per post. An easy way a brand can waste money is to pay influencers for a couple of posts or mentions. Most often, influencers rely on the number of followers, likes, or comments to draw up vanity metrics. But most often, there is no connection between the widely-used vanity metrics and actual sales.
With pay per post, the Influencer is not motivated to be imaginative or creative. And the brand is left to manage any risks that occur in case the campaign fails. Therefore, it is more profitable to pay an influencer based on a performance basis. While not many of them are willing to collaborate based on performance, you can find some who want to.
Give Influencers Some Creative Freedom and Trust Their Judgement
As a business owner, it is understandable you want to have control over every aspect of your brand. However, this might have adverse effects on your collaboration with influencers. Yes, you can set up clear goals, expectations, and guidance for the Influencer. It would help if you tried not to dictate and control everything from the copy to the creativity. Remember that when an influencer promotes your product, followers want to see authenticity and credibility they can connect with.
Followers also listen to and respect their influencers because they believe they address them correctly and effectively. Thus, this is why it’s vital to loosen the reins and not be a control freak. Allow the influencers to make use of their storytelling abilities and creativity. It will enable them to promote your product or service in the best way possible since they know their audience a lot more than you do. The results you get will also be much more authentic; otherwise, you may never get value for your money.
Create a Contests for the Influencer’s Followers
We all love a good contest or competition, don’t we, especially when there’s a big prize attached. Games generate more interest than traditional advertising would. Holding a contest around your brand is an excellent means of getting your Influencer’s followers’ attention.
You can ask them to post photos or short videos of themselves using your product, and the most creative one gets a prize. As a brand, these are contests you will generally promote on your page. So when you involve influencers, the impact doubles. Everyone on both yours and the Influencer’s platform gets to profit from it.
Create a Reward Program For Top-Performing Influencers
In as much as your company is devoted to collaborating with and helping their Influencers to grow as well, you also need a program where you can monitor the work and progress of your Influencers. One effective way of achieving this is by creating a reward program for top-performing Influencers. Send out unique links to each of your Influencers; through these links, you can track their performance and reward them on your Reward Program.
You can also use this platform to entertain affiliates and innovative anonymous individuals that have useful inputs in the form of ideas or suggestions that may be useful to your brand. A separate section for rewards and compensations for the brightest ideas can also be created in the reward program. Keep it open, not too loud, but let it exist, whereas the section for Interacting with your official Influencers should be a closed one.
Finally, this platform will also help you identify and address which Influencers are not producing the desired results for your brand and ultimately help you decide on what actions to take.
Take Advantage of Gift Guides
Almost every successful brand and Influencer exploit gift guides’ marketing possibilities. Collaborate with content creators who like your brand and see if you can be part of their gift guides. And don’t forget to also promote their gift guides on your platform.
Share Coupons or Discount Codes
To get more customers to buy your products, you can share promo codes or discount coupons with your influencers. When the Influencer includes the promo code in their posts, it helps to give their followers a gentle push towards purchasing from you. Ensure that you provide each Influencer with a unique coupon code because it helps them track and calculate conversions.
Encourage Influencers to Collaborate
Another trick to effective influencer marketing is to connect your team of influencers so they collaborate on a campaign or new promo. Such collaboration is a perfect chance to let them showcase their expertise and promote your product to a broader audience.
Conclusion
The emergence of inexpensive modern techniques in Influencer Marketing has proven to drive sales, thereby increasing revenue. Companies that want to drive sales should take advantage of the tips that have been discussed in this article to improve their sales game to take on the market in 2023.
