Influencers can mean phenomenal growth
Influencers can have a tremendous amount of effect on the business growth of a small business. According to Hubspot, 82% of consumers said they were highly likely to follow a micro-influencer recommendation, and 80% of companies claim that influencers have proved to be effective for marketing.
How can influencers impact business growth?
As a small business, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the budget to pay for a celebrity influencer to promote your brand. So what’s the answer? Well, it lies in what we would term ‘micro-influencers.’ These are influencers who generally have less than 25,000 followers. Nevertheless, their audiences are highly active. They usually operate within a niche that it’s then easy to tap into. Influencer culture operates around the idea of trust. Customers tend to have more confidence in accepting advice and recommendations from people (even if they do not directly know the person) rather than brands. You’ll want to gain the loyalty of your customers, and influencers have the loyalty of thousands of followers. The followers are loyal to the influencer, and so over time by association; many will become loyal to your brand too.
You’ll find that using an influencer marketing campaign can help you to drive your SEO over time. You’ll increase the presence of your name online, and thus continue to drive traffic back to your website. If you’re considering influencer marketing, you’ll probably be wondering just how you can use them to grow your customer base. You will want to increase the possibility of a successful campaign as much as you can in the following ways.
1. Find the right ones
The best way for a small business to find the correct micro-influencers is to consider those who will be the most appropriate influencers for your brand. These will be those influencers who operate within a niche that is related to or part of your industry. Ask your employees exactly who they follow within your industry to get ideas. If a micro-influencer already loves your brand, then the process of promoting you will feel more organic. When a promotion feels authentic, followers will be more likely to engage too.
You can also perform searches using hashtags that are related to your company or brand. Doing so will help you to find influencers connected to these hashtags. Another way that you can search for the right ones is to take a look at some influencer marketing platforms. Look at TRIBE or BuzzSumo, for example. These platforms allow you to search using filters that can define the category that you are looking for.
2. Properly educate the influencer about your brand
If you want to make the best use of an influencer, you’ll want to ensure that you give them as much information about your business as you can. Communicate to them the finest details of your products and services, your brand values, and your story. Provide them with any brand videos, photos, and guidelines that they may need. Tell them about all the promotions that you have coming up and give them any ideas that you have about how you would like them to endorse you. Influencers will know how to organically endorse brands without being overly promotional. Having said this, it’s still important to communicate to them everything that you want out of the campaign and set some goals.
3. Get involved in the responses
When your influencer marketing campaign kicks off, you’ll quickly see that their followers are commenting on the posts that are promoting you. It’s a good idea to use this opportunity to involve yourself and make comments. You’ll want to try and build relationships with those who are showing an interest in your company. Make an interaction and see if you can get a conversation going in the comments section. You will also want to take note of those people who have liked the post (or perhaps tagged their friends). You can then reach out to all of these individuals via a personal message. You’ll grow your customer base over time with such interactions.
4. Build your online presence & engage people
Influencer campaigns can be used to drive your online presence and help your audience to engage. Remember, social media is much about presenting your branding, tone of voice, and likeability. In the world of social platforms, these things are more important than just obvious promotions to drive sales. Influencers can improve your credibility and present your business persona as whatever that may be; from ethical to responsible, fun-loving, or quirky. It doesn’t matter if sales do not happen straight away; if people get to enjoy your brand and engage with you, your customer base will grow in time. You can use your influencer campaign to offer followers incentives to get involved with your business growth. You might have a competition or giveaway, for instance, that doesn’t bring a profit right away but gets people talking.
5. Come across as personable
You can utilize influencers to present your brand as personable, and thus grow your customer base through trust. Influencers have a knack of endorsing you without being too direct. They do this by generally talking about themselves and their interests primarily. The authentic feel of influencer marketing is driven by the fact that they are not directly selling anything. People don’t like to be too obviously told to buy something; it makes them feel pressured and as though they aren’t benefiting. With influencers, you access a way of driving sales without an overly abrupt approach which the consumer no longer responds to. Influencers have a way of ensuring that the placement of your brand within their content feels genuine. It helps that they are already creating content that relates to the niche of your industry. All you need to do is find the right influencers for you and plan your campaign!
In the last few years, some game-changing marketing techniques have arrived! If you want to continue to grow your customer base and drive success to your business, you’ll want to utilize all the most effective ways to extend your reach.
