As a brand, you may decide to work with an influencer to reach many people. This kind of collaboration has helped many brands promote their products and services. It can also help you do the same if you collaborate with skilled influencers.
You might not know many things about reach maximization through influencer marketing If you’re new to influencer collaborations. However, we will enlighten you on some top ways to maximize reach through influencer collaborations. Hence, we enjoin you to pay close attention to the information in this article.
1. Work with the Right Influencer – Brand Influencer Partnerships
The influencer you work with will determine the campaign’s effectiveness. For instance, you may not reach many people if you collaborate with an influencer who isn’t relevant to your brand and audience.
We recommend identifying the best types of influencer collaborations for your brand before you start influencer collaborations. The ideal influencer should know how to pitch to brands as an influencer. He or she must also know how to create different kinds of content. And, of course, be good at using various promotion strategies. Influencers need many strategies to engage all kinds of audiences rather than a particular set of people.
Kindly note that beneficial influencer collaborations won’t start all by themselves. Hence, you need to search for good influencers and begin influencer collaborations. Fortunately, some influencer marketing tools can help you find influencers easily. Some of those tools are Upfluence, HypeAuditor, and AspireIQ.
Some of the things you should consider when seeking influencer collaborations are:
The influencer’s reputation
Influencer’s reputation will promote your brand when the reputation aligns with your brand’s ideas. You should always consider reputation when choosing an influencer. Another reason why you should work with reputable influencers is that they often take brand collaborations very seriously.
Geographic location
You should collaborate with influencers who can effectively reach local people if your campaign takes a localized approach. You should note that an influencer always has specific locations where his campaigns will be very effective.
The influencer’s audience
You should find influencers whose audiences are very likely to be interested in your campaign. For instance, you can seek tech bloggers if you wish to promote smart gadgets. If you have already identified your potential customers on Instagram, you should focus on Instagram influencer brand collaborations. If you are unsure where your potential customers abound, you can approach top influencers and tell them what your brand offers to customers.
The right influencer already knows the best platform to reach the target audience, so you won’t need to waste any resources researching the platform to use. For instance, if millennials are your primary customers, a good influencer will already have many followers on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms that millennials dominate.
Apple and Oprah Winfrey have shown the world how successful influencer marketing partnerships can be when the right partnership is formed. The marketing partnership between Martha Stewart and Uber is another example of a highly successful influencer marketing partnership.
2. Maintain Authenticity by Working with Micro-influencers
When you engage in influencer collaborations with micro-influencers, you will reach out to their audience and engage a reasonable number of them.
The major reason why the followers of micro-influencers have a higher engagement rate i.e with 5-100k followers originates from the good communication that often exists between them and the micro-influencer. As a brand, you will benefit greatly from micro-influencers, especially when you build a personal relationship with them.
Source: marketingchart.com
We recommend that influencer collaborations should go beyond campaigns. You should treat influencers well even when the campaign is over. For example, you can send flowers and gifts to influencers when they celebrate their birthday or any important achievement.
You may even send them emails congratulating them on their achievement. The email should portray friendliness and not appear like a typical brand collaboration email sample. Such a gesture will delight the influencer and the influencer’s fans. And hence, it can cause them to develop more interest in your brand.
Relative: Email marketing tips
Attractive monetary returns can also help you deepen influencer collaborations. It has helped a lot of brands have a strong relationship with influencers. We aren’t saying you should attempt to buy them with money. Instead, we are saying you should offer them fair compensation for their effort.
You might have noticed that certain micro-influencers always use every opportunity to promote certain brands even when it is obvious that the brands they are promoting aren’t sponsoring the promotion. This is because a strong relationship between brands and influencers aids brand promotion.
Also, you should avoid setting too many limitations when you make influencer collaborations. Many influencers prefer to have creative freedom. They have their ways of maximizing reach. If you keep dictating things to them, you may not reach many people. So, in essence, you should trust influencers to suggest new ideas and let them test those ideas.
3. Play Active Roles in Campaign
One of the greatest mistakes you can make while involved in influencer collaborations is to exclude yourself from campaigns. It’s okay to expect influencers to play more roles than yourself during the campaign, but you shouldn’t be passive. Instead, it would help to contribute ideas, strategies, and other necessary things during the ongoing campaign.
Don’t hesitate to suggest new ideas to influencers. For instance, you may teach influencers how to pitch to brands as an influencer if you have some ideas about it. Here are some of the major roles you can play in campaigns:
Help Influencers run referral programs
You can maximize reach through referral programs. We recommend that you help influencers set up a referral program and allow them to publicize the program. When influencers share information about your referral program, people will be willing to participate in the referral program. After all, the purpose of influencer collaborations is to work together as a team.
Referral programs motivate customers to inform their friends about goods and services they have tested. People will trust recommendations from their friends even if they don’t trust influencers.
Run a contest with influencer
You can maximize reach through a contest, especially social media contests. You can use influencers’ voices and content as tools to drive people to action on the contest you organize. If your prize outweighs the effort people make in the contest, many people will participate.
Coordinate campaign
You should coordinate campaigns rather than expect the influencer to do everything. Influencers will have enough time to focus on reaching so many people when you don’t over labor them, so it’s best to help them with every little thing you can. Always remember that you have a part to play in influencer brand collaborations.
Don’t limit yourself to the roles we mentioned above if you realize that there are more roles you can play. Every little thing you contribute to influencer-paid collaborations matters a lot, so don’t hold yourself back when you ought to be playing some roles.
4.Get Creative
One important thing you should note is that you need to be creative to reach many people. There are thousands of other brands out there that also want to reach many people. Most of those brands are your competitors, and you may never be able to outshine them if you don’t get creative.
Influencers are usually very creative, but you need to combine your creativity with theirs to stand out. Some creative things you can do jointly with influencers to catch people’s attention include the following:
Align your campaign with trending topics
Have you noticed that search engines and many online platforms often suggest trending things to you? You can use trending topics, phrases, and words to maximize reach as a brand. Check trending topics and phrases on social media and look for a way to introduce them to your campaign.
People love to associate themselves with trending things. So, if you find a way to make your campaign appear like a part of a trending topic, many people will be willing to engage in it. Some of them will even share your campaign with friends.
Create catchy hashtags
Catchy hashtags can help you reach a lot of people. Hashtags can cause your campaign to trend and bring your brand to the limelight. Also, catchy hashtags can encourage many people to develop an interest in your brand.
Create catchy captions
Make sure you add catchy captions to every picture you post. Most people who come across your pictures will check the captions and not just the picture. If the captions are captivating, viewers will engage with your content, and some of them might even share them with other people. As a result, your content will reach lots of people.
Do the unthinkable
A campaign may never trend if nothing seems special about it. You need to come up with ideas that other brands have never utilized in order to get people’s attention. For instance, you can use Replug to smartly embed call-to-action in captions rather than using the conventional kind of caption.
Use exciting graphics
Graphics can grab and retain people’s attention very well. If you use exciting graphics, your contents are very likely to trend even beyond your expectations. Feel free to use funny images also. The major reason for using exciting graphics is to grab people’s attention and encourage them to share your content.
5. Motivate Influencer to Reach Your Target
Influencers’ motivations during influencer brand collaborations go a long way in determining the number of individuals you reach. While you may assume that money is all you need to motivate influencers, monetary reward isn’t enough to create the type of motivation that can run a successful campaign.
Some of the things you can do to motivate influencers include:
Validate their status
Most influencers seek some form of validation in some fields they are interested in. If you help them get the validation they seek, they will feel motivated. Hence, they’ll also do their best to help you achieve your aim. Fortunately, there are easy ways you can help influencers get the validation they seek. For instance, you can add official badges to their social media profile or website. The badge may bear something as simple as an “authorized product tester.”
If you think the influencer doesn’t yet have enough experience to be awarded the badge you intend to give them, we recommend that you offer free internship opportunities to them. Then, once they have gained enough experience through the opportunity, you should give them the badge.
Offer them VIP experiences
Sometimes, influencers value VIP experiences more than money. Truly, influencer partnerships shouldn’t always be based on the monetary aspect alone. There are other influencer opportunities you can offer, and VIP experience is one of them.
You can offer these experiences by organizing events that entertain or educate influencers. Once influencers realize that you are trying hard to add value to their lives, they will also try hard to help you reach many people. It’s a win-win situation.
Offer them membership opportunities
You should treat influencers the same way you treat members of your brands. They will not have many motivations if you treat them like an outsider. Instead, let them know everything going on in your company. Also, you should seek opinions from them rather than telling them your plans without listening to theirs.
Appreciate them
Appreciation can deepen your influencer collaborations and motivate influencers to do a greater job. You can appreciate them through compliments or by giving them gifts. For instance, you can get the best apps for influencers to appreciate their efforts.
6. Organize campaign at the Best Time
Time is one of the most important factors you need to consider when collaborating with an influencer for a campaign. If you begin influencer collaborations at a good time, the number of people you will reach may surpass your expectations.
For instance, if you send a brand collaboration email sample during the festive period, the mail will likely drive readers into action. Do you want to know why? The festive period is usually an emotional period for most people. As a result, campaigns you run during the period will likely connect with the audience’s emotions.
We recommend that you set a start date and an end date for any campaign you run. You may even create a promotional calendar and post it where your customers can see it. At this point, you may be wondering why time is an important part of influencer collaborations. Here is why. Time creates special opportunities that sometimes favor influencer and brand collaborations.
For instance, a brand that advertises home delivery services during a lockdown period is more likely to reach a large number of people because lots of people demand such services at that time. Even if the brand isn’t able to reach a large number of people by themselves, the few people they reach will spread the news about their services to their friends.
7. Measure Outcome of Campaigns
While you aim to reach a large number of people, you should measure campaign outcomes to identify areas where you need to improve. Some of the key metrics that can help you measure the campaign’s outcome include click-through rate (CTR), revenue per client (RPC), productivity, and new initiatives.
If you notice that your campaign needs improvement, you take prompt steps to improve it. For instance, if you notice that the links you aren’t getting enough returns from the links you are using for campaigns, you should use a link shortener like Replug to maximize return. Replug has a built-in analytics section where you can monitor your campaigns. Some of the things you can monitor under the analytics section include conversation rate statistics and graphical demonstration of the campaign.
Conclusion
Influencer paid collaborations help brands build awareness. As a brand, you need to create awareness for your products and services. Most times, awareness creation isn’t something you can do all by yourself, especially if you plan to reach many people. And that is exactly why you need influencer collaborations.
