What type of collaborations can I do with an influencer in 2020
Expanding your customer acquisition in today’s economic climate requires a versatile and dynamic approach to marketing. You must strike a balance of acquiring views or visits to see your products or services and ensuring people who are truly interested in your product are those doing so.
Influencer marketing is the road to that balance. Maybe you are already convinced of that, considering it is predicted to become a $9.7 billion industry by the end of the year, but are not sure where to start? Here, you can look a bit deeper into four different methods of influencer collaborations that can make all the difference in upping your marketing game.
Send products to influencers “Gifting”
Let the influencer try your product or service for free. You will immediately start a positive relationship with the influencer and have a chance at having your brand advertised on social media channels without providing any monetary compensation. The risk you run with this approach can be that they don’t end up displaying your product on their channels or they could end up doing so, but with a negative review (particularly if you don’t work on that connection with them).
To avoid this pitfall, you can make an agreement with them with a contract for certain quality postings with or reviews of the gift. Many micro-influencers (5,000-50,000 followers) will even accept this gift as compensation for this formal agreement, whereas mid-tier and macro-influencers will likely require monetary compensation in addition to the gift.
Sponsoring their Content
Say you desire something a little more direct for your influencer marketing campaign; instead of subtly engaging with your brand’s product or service, influencers can be sponsored by your brand to routinely promote it. This does come with that more formal agreement and can result in your brand being tagged in their post on Instagram, a video description on Youtube, or other means of explicit mention on their channel of communication.
The degree of compensation tends to still rely upon the number of followers the influencer has, but it also depends on the type of influencer you are looking to work with. You need to find influencers who align with your values and brand, so the category of influencer is important to check before collaborating. For instance, if you’re looking to sell more of a make-up product, you should most likely be sponsoring a beauty or lifestyle influencer. This filtering can be done more easily through an influencer search engine tool or platform.
Letting them Takeover your channels
Releasing the reigns of your marketing campaign to an influencer can be both daunting and exciting. Since it is demonstrated that influencer content is more effective at gaining traffic than brand content, this can be an opportunity for your brand to experience some authentic creativity along social media outlets that you might otherwise not have the experience of receiving within the sphere of your own company.
For a set period of time, with legal guidelines in place and a clear contract, an influencer can take charge of your brand’s social media account by creating content exclusively for your brand that gives you direct access to a niche of the market this influencer can uniquely provide.
Alternatively, they can produce the content to promote your product or service and send it to you before you post it, so that you have the final call on what gets sent out. Keep in mind, you will need to respect the creativity and authenticity of the influencer with a conscious amount of management to allow them to do their best work–they are the best communicators with the set of followers they have personally accrued.
Hiring a Brand Ambassador
Influencers have a proven track record of putting a recognizable face on a service or product so that their followers directly identify that brand with someone they like, are comfortable with, and trust.
By making an influencer an ongoing part of your marketing campaigns who routinely or even exclusively advocates for your business, you are making a more permanent connection between your brand and their followers. This type of collaboration requires longer contracts, a strong sense of trust between you and your brand ambassador, and vigilance of ongoing data metrics for success.
Checking those metrics is also done more easily through influencer marketing platforms that can check items such as likes/comments ratios to ensure the influencer is maintaining adequate and authentic interactions with their followers while representing your brand. Staying up to date with these metrics will let you know if the content is effective and if you should extend contracts or even expand the campaign to include more brand ambassadors to dip into several corners of the market.
Conclusion
Trying one or more of these types of collaborations can effectively improve your company’s online marketing and it is important to keep certain ideas as mentioned throughout the above collaborations in mind when you move forward with them.
First, take time to find and research influencers, knowing who they are, what their content is about, and who their followers are. This can be expedited through influencer marketing platforms. Remember that contracts, guidelines, and expectations should be introduced to preempt effectiveness of influencer collaborations and transparency between your brand and the influencer. Also, following up on your collaborations by tracking data, progress toward goals, and moving toward further collaboration activities when called for will ensure ongoing and ultimate success.
Finally, The positive connection you make with influencers can productively impact your work with them. With all of that in mind, you have a strong foundation to work upon while entering the growing and powerful field of influencer marketing collaborations.
About the Author
Bibhuranjan Editorial Officer, technofaq.org I'm an avid tech enthusiast at heart. I like to mug up on new and exciting developments on science and tech and have a deep love for PC gaming. Other hobbies include writing blog posts, music and DIY projects.
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