Whenever a company decides to use any form of marketing strategy, the management always hopes to not only get new customers but also retain them and at the end of it all increase revenues. Online marketing strategies have become among the main approaches used by many businesses in today’s digital world due to growth in technology and increased popularity of the internet. Influencer marketing is one of the main strategy used in this case to help build the trust of one’s brand. Working with a renowned celebrity has proven to help many businesses expose their brand to the target audience and convince them to not only trust it but also drive a purchasing decision. Since influencer marketing comes with a cost, how do you ensure that you maximize your returns from it?
1. Do Not Only Reach Out But Also Engage
After publishing an Instagram post about your products or services, the next main thing to do is encourage engagement with followers who comment on it. The more you engage, the more your post will bring more impact to the success of your brand. According to Behrmanpr, you should know that Instagram feeds are usually shown to users based on the popularity of each post. The level of engagement is used to measure this popularity, and it is why you need to value engagement more than reach.
2. Ensure Your Influencer’s Followers Are Your Target Audience
For one, you need to make sure that the followers are real and have been engaging with the influencer in previous feeds. Also, make sure that your influencer’s niche industry is related to your business niche, and this will guarantee you relevancy of the audience. For instance, if yours is a clothesline, you cannot choose a food or travel blogger as your influencer because their audience does not match your target customers.
3. Focus On Building Strong Relationships
It’s good to create authenticity if you want to get the best out of influencer marketing and this you achieve by focusing on creating long term relationships with an influencer. Nancy at Behrman says that you should consider making your influencer a brand ambassador and they will post more often about your brand and gradually earn the full trust of the audience. It also becomes easy for the influencer to engage with their audience about your product consistently, and it’s your brand that will benefit more from the long-term commitments.
4. Give Your Influencer Considerate Freedom To Create Content
One thing you need to know about influencer marketing is that you will have minimal control of the strategy applied by your influencer to promote your product. In fact, most are the ones who demand full creative freedom once you choose them as your influencer. The good thing is that they know how to relate better with their audience and it is good you respect that to avoid causing more harm than good with your control. However, Behrman warns that you should not just sit and wait for anything to be posted by the influencer. She adds that the best thing to do is to collaborate without dictating what should be done. At least get to see and approve the final message that they want to post before it is published.
There are a lot of benefits you can enjoy from influencer marketing if and only if you use it the right way. Use these tips to ensure that you get best out of it and of course earn a high ROI.