Influencer Marketing: Brands

?? Part 4: What Do I Need To Know About Brands

Will find ways to build longer-term relationships with influencers.

As an influence marketer you have to be able to identify which brands will the right fit.

? Brands see 'influencer marketing' as another channel to reach and communicate with their desired audience.

• Its more authentic engagement: people trust other peoples opinions more than claims made in advertising.
• Generates acceptance and relevancy: testimonies on how they use the product.
• The method is a proven success: influencer marketing can generate up to eleven times the ROI (return on investment) over traditional advertising methods.
• A respected business strategy: many companies consider this their 2nd priority, after content marketing.
• Offers greater impact: a person of influence like a celebrity can affect the decisions of hundreds of thousands of people.

Brands are familiar with being pitched. Your professional approach in connecting with them is essential, and the information you provide will help a brand better understand the full potential of partnering with you on an influencer marketing campaign.

? For Influencers — How do you find brands?

• Look for brands in your local market or industry with less than 100K followers.
• Follow influencers and if you notice they partner with a brand, make a note for future reference. If you do this, soon you’ll have a one like Bizolly's Library of Brands. Look them over. These brands are large, midsize and small companies. One might be just right for you!
• Find the ideal brands and follow them on social media.
• Engage them with hashtags when you post new content.
• Like, comment and share their content!
• Buy their products, get to know their promotional style and events.
• Build a list of contact names and emails.
• Use Linkedin, search brands, go to the company page, go to employees, and search for marketing and public relations titles: brand partnerships, digital marketing, or public relations.

If you can’t find a contact name you can eventually pitch with an email to info@brandname, there is a fair to good chance it will get forwarded to the correct person.

If you’re a brand that is just getting started but your budget and your social media following are small reach your target audience can be a challenge. Think about working with influencer marketers.

• Influencers can increased conversions on your website, your brand awareness, give you access to buyers and expand your reach on social media.
• Influencers make and absorb the creative costs on evergreen content, so you can reuse it again and again.

? For Brands — How Do You Build A Influencer Marketing Campaign?

• Get clear on your company's marketing goals, learn the process to find, approach, and offer compensation.
• Ask one of your business associates for a referral to an influencer.
• Look into online tools (buzzsumo, klear, discoverl.y).
• Search social media accounts, blogs, and websites to help you find people in your niche. Review what interests them, and how you can contribute to engage them. Your engagement of them has to show usefulness and relevancy to their audience of followers.
• You need to convince influencers your products are worthy of mention, so you need to be ready to present their value in conversation and your social media interaction: retweets, like and comment. Visit their website, comment and subscribe to their blog.
• You will have to build a relationship with this person. Sharing their content with your followers, you should sign up for their email list, leave a review for their podcast, buy their product and leave a testimonial, introduce them to someone in your network.

TIPS — Pitching Your Brand To Influencers:

Compensation is the final factor in securing an influencer. You have to provide an incentive for these people's time, knowledge, and efforts.

• Determine the cost/value of your an influencer campaign in advance.
• If you have small to none budget, offer a commission per sale rate instead of a flat fee, affiliate links and promotional codes. (more incentive ideas later in this article)
• Asking an influencer to promote your brand can be handled through an email or an exchange of several, and work you way to a phone conversation and/or meeting.
• It's let them know they will have creative freedom, but within guidelines.
• Be clear about what you want, goals and deadlines.
• Listen to their promotional ideas.
• Present the benefits of your product to their audience of followers.

An influencer knows what’s working, and they have the audience and the time to keep up with shifts in the marketplace. You can energize your business working with an influencer with greater brand awareness, higher consumer trust, and more relevant leads.

Collaboration is what makes this relationship possible. It's important to remember, influencers are not brand ambassadors or advocates of a your company. They participate in influencer marketing programs if it aligns with their core career or brand objectives and offers the right incentives.

Seven-Part Article Series | Influencer Marketing: What's All The Fuss

Part 1: Influence Marketers Are Hot!

Part 2: The Art Of Engaging Your Followers

Part 3: I Want To Be An Influencer

Part 4: What Do I Need To Know About Brands

Part 5: How Do I Pitch

Part 6: Influencer Incentives

Part 7: Tips On Launching The Campaign

This post is next in a seven-part article to explain 'influencer marketing' strategies. Presented by Bizolly.com here on Linkedin, this series is intended to explore the roles, the goals, and inform on how to be successful. If you have any comments that would lend further insight or offer advice for entrepreneurs, companies, and brands who want to be a part of this exciting marketing trend, please share it with us.