Get the right influencer marketing - our guide
Giving your brand a face, using a well-known personality with suitable values as a mouthpiece - that's not new, but the multipliers are. In this guide, we reveal how you can successfully implement influencer marketing and collaborations.
What is influencer marketing?
Popular names in social media are Juliabeautx, joesthetics and pilotpatrick. They all have one thing in common: they give the public around the clock insights into their lives and usually into one of their hobbies. Their followers are growing to six to seven figures. Internet stars influence their fans and followers with their own opinions - hence the term influencer. If joesthetics considers this or that sportswear to be particularly suitable for his fitness training, then a large proportion of those who follow him will also be interested in the products. Reaching this group of people with your own products is possible through targeted cooperation with influencers. Influencer marketing is therefore a discipline of social media marketing. But how do you go about it successfully?
When is influencer marketing an option?
Working with influencers with a wide reach is comparable to recommendation marketing. Users of a social network follow a person because they share similar interests and expect information and inspiration. Tests and comparisons of products or services by these multipliers are perceived as authentic and trustworthy. Influencer relations are particularly suitable for you if you want to explain a product but the brand itself cannot produce personal multimedia content or is underrepresented on the internet. Influencers can provide up-to-date, emotionalizing and multimedia content and enter into dialogue with interested parties.
What are the pros and cons of influencer marketing?
In favor of influencer cooperation:
Proximity to your potential target group - Instagrammers, YouTubers and bloggers provide personal insights into their everyday lives, hobbies or relationships. Your brand or product is included in this environment. This allows your customers to connect the influencers with your product and gain a positive impression of it.
Digital dialog with your community - Influencers maintain contact with their followers. Comments are responded to quickly, questions and requests are taken on board and content is prepared.
Contra influencer cooperation:
Flexibility is necessary - there is no blueprint, every contact setup and every cooperation agreement is individual.
Increased effort - campaigns are often small-scale and require more coordination. The client often maintains close and personal communication with the influencer.
The advantages and disadvantages are ultimately a matter of interpretation. The fact is, there is no guarantee of cooperation. Unlike with other marketing bookings, the client and the recipient decide whether a collaboration is expedient. Experience has shown that rigid ideas do not lead to success. However, when a cooperation comes about, the results are unique and will be remembered.
Does influencer marketing help you achieve your own goals?
Can you achieve and measure company and marketing goals with the help of influencers? To answer this question, it helps to break down the marketing goals into channel goals. Is your target group active in the respective social network? Do the topics match the product or service? How can an action or conclusion be technically realized through the social network? Do the influencers' followers match your target group demographically or geographically? Is the reach sufficient and relevant? Does the cooperation partner's appearance match your own corporate identity? Do they embody similar values? What is the visual language and tone of the content? With the help of these findings, the selection of influencers should be easier and the first ideas for the design can begin to flow.
How do you approach influencer marketing correctly?
It always starts with research. You often don't know the currently successful influencers who are relevant to the industry, region or target group in question.
The following multipliers on the web are crucial for finding the right influencer:
Influencer or blog platforms (usually paid databases)
Keyword/hashtag or location analysis is suitable on Instagram and often leads to a snowball effect during research
Facebook groups
Apps as marketplaces
Search engines in combination with the time search filter
Include existing contacts, surveys with colleagues
Choose your influencers selectively
Once you have found potential influencers, you should take a closer look at their profile links. This is the only way to decide whether the influencers are a good fit for your brand communication. After your first impression, you will usually find other websites, blogs, other influencer contacts and additional channels in various social networks. A genuine interest in these people pays off, as it allows you to better assess your requirements. When looking at the channels and posts, initial ideas for the design of the collaboration develop and questions arise. For example, is the person already advertising another product or service, possibly from a competitor? The research is not complete at this point, as the willingness and interest of influencers cannot be taken for granted. You can save yourself the initial disappointment if you contact them directly before the influencers are presented internally or externally or put forward for selection.
Tip: It doesn't always have to be the top ten influencers in the industry. So-called micro-influencers are highly engaged and have a higher percentage of visibility. It is not uncommon for top multipliers to only reach 10-15% of their followers with a post due to the network's algorithm. You are also more likely to agree on a price with micro-influencers, as the collaborations are usually much cheaper than those with very famous influencers.
How does the first contact with the influencer work?
First impressions count. A personal approach, even if you are representing a company, is essential. Using first names and a brief personal introduction via direct message in a social network of your choice is a good start. The project should be briefly introduced to give a good overview of the expectations. Why does the product suit the influencer?
Tip: Sending private messages from a company page/account to a person with whom you are not yet connected is not possible in all social media. You should consider using your private social media profile.
If these tips make you feel uncomfortable, then relationship management is probably not for you. If you don't want to give out your cell phone number or reveal your private Facebook pictures etc., you won't enjoy this task sooner or later. No matter how “big” influencers are, there is usually close contact.
Key elements of the contact request
Personal greeting and introduction of yourself
What makes me qualified? Background information on making contact
Transition from your task to the specific request and the direction of the cooperation
If there is mutual interest, e-mails and telephone numbers can be exchanged. An e-mail with a signature verifies that you belong to the company, a phone call on the business phone shows serious intentions and raises the connection to a professional level.
Listening carefully and checking each other's level of knowledge and understanding is important and sustainable. As soon as it has been clarified whether a mutual achievement of objectives is possible, an offer can be formulated.
What does collaboration with influencers look like?
It requires flexibility in the design of the collaboration. Clear wishes and “don'ts” are helpful. Initial ideas about what is to be achieved serve as a basis. A good briefing on the product, service or brand to be advertised is essential.
It is important to know what content formats are available and how they contribute to the cooperation objective. If something is being demonstrated or an application example is offered, then pictures or videos of influencers with the product are sufficient. If followers are to be involved, live videos or surveys make sense. How can the product, service or brand be conveyed in more than just a visual way?
Examples of influencer collaborations
The following use cases show what an influencer campaign can look like: