SEO-Driven Influencer Marketing? Yes. Absolutely, Yes!

by Sorilbran Stone - Content Strategist... and butter chicken enthusiast

There’s a stat floating around that says the typical consumer has to experience seven to ten touchpoints with a brand before they will convert. That means your influencer campaign can present your products to a consumer, possibly creating that all-important first touchpoint, but what happens after the wrap call? You want to keep selling, right? That’s where an SEO-driven influencer strategy helps your campaign keep delivering those returns.?

Search-optimized content can help you get found by search engines, and it's also the perfect next thing in the buyer journey after someone's been introduced to your product. So, if you've got abandoned carts on your site that haven't been checked out, SEO may be able to help you rack up more completed sales.

Why You May Want to Layer Your SEO Strategy on Top of Your Influencer Strategy (and vice versa)

When you think about the buyer's journey… actually, let’s look at a fun path-to-purchase illustration together:?

The path to purchase is rarely a straight line from awareness to purchase. Your influencer campaign will convert those who are already sold on your value, but those who are just meeting you will likely still do some research before they buy, depending on your offering.

"Not a problem," you say. "They'll find our site and get the info they need."

Maybe, but they won't be looking for your site. They'll be validating your promise with a Google search and reading the articles that surface. Let me remix an example our co-founder used that I think will drive home the point.??

The Dog Food Example

If you sell dog food, your target customer is likely someone who already buys dog food. If that person's under 45, there’s a good chance their dog food is on autoship from Chewy.com or Amazon (in my case, it was hamster food, hamster bedding, and hamster treats being auto-shipped from Amazon). The only way to win their business is to interrupt their established, seamless habit with an offer that's worth the hassle of changing their auto-ship. Totally doable.?

Enter Salvador, an influencer whose followers know that he loves his dogs. Sal’s job as an influencer in your campaign is to address a specific problem your target buyer has - one that's significant enough for them to change their habits.?

If Sal one day shows a pic of his Yorkie running in the park, talking about how his smallest dog now has greater range of motion because the special ingredient in her dog food is minimizing the inflammation caused by arthritis, that's significant enough to investigate further for anyone whose pup is suffering from arthritis.?

Investigate. Not buy. Not yet.

Here's How Your SEO-Driven Influencer Strategy Fits In

The next thing your customer will do is say, "Finally… something that may help my dog Pope, with that weird hind leg…" Then they’ll do a bunch of reading on the types of ingredients that help dogs fight arthritis.?

If your SEO strategy supports your influencer strategy (and vice versa), you will have already published blog content to your website about minimizing the pain of arthritis in dogs.?

AND perhaps there’s even been a few sponsored blog posts on the websites of well-known and respected dog lovers that will show up in search results as Pope’s Person rabbit-holes. Notice that in order for this to be effective, you would have had to loop bloggers into your influencer campaign at an earlier stage or maybe a previous activation.?

All your SEO-driven arthritis-related content (including sponsored content from influencers) should be tailor-made to ANSWER QUESTIONS and SOLVE PROBLEMS Pope’s Person may have about the ingredients that minimize joint pain in dogs, the same ingredients that are in your dog food. And now, you’ve used influencer marketing to create multiple touchpoints along the path to purchase.?

You’ve introduced an accessible solution to a problem your customer is having. More, the content on your site and the content posted to the websites of your influencer partners can continue to provide solutions for pups and their persons for years to come. Bonus: your pages can link directly to where your product lives on Amazon. And, surprise! Autoship is available.?

Heaven forbid…

If your brand doesn't create the blog posts or hire a blogger to create this content and another dog food brand does, the other dog food brand will probably grab Pope’s Person and get the sale.??

Check out This Tactical Guide - No Email Required.

Yes, we wrote a guide on this, too. We always have way more information available than we share in our newsletters. So, if you’re interested in reading up on using SEO in your influencer strategy, or just hanging on to this guide until you need to put together an influencer marketing playbook, you can click through right now.?

Have a great holiday weekend!