What is an Influencer?
Influencers are people who manage to hold a large amount of authority when it comes to brand marketing as they are more trusted by the public than brands’ sponsored advertisements and celebrities. There are 3 types of influencers, Top influencers, Micro influencers, and Nano influencers.
Top influencers are those with more than 100k followers and are well-versed with their niche, adding, that they are also known for their massive reach. As for Micro-influencers, the number of their audience is from 10,000 to 50,000 followers at best, however, they are well graded for their knowledge and opinions. Lastly, Nano Influencers are newbies with 1,000 to 10,000 audiences at most, still, their content holds impact and can work wonders for a brand.
Knowing which influencers to collaborate with is a crucial step in creating a successful influencer marketing strategy. Every influencer marketing campaign involves a process wherein marketers need to first find the right influencers. In this blog, we will help you in your search.
Steps to Start Influencer Marketing 1:
Check Your Budget
When we are starting to do anything in business, we will need to first check our budget available in our pocket. The amount that we are willing to pay will determine what kind of influencer to hire in this influencer marketing plan.
To be honest, it is hard to expect a precise price that each influencer bucket will charge, however, the basic routine is that the more followers the influencer have, the more expensive they will get. Prices also vary by social media platforms, audiences’ engagement, and most importantly the intention to buy, well it is all perceived by the influencer. It is also a good call to calculate the potential expenses beforehand so that you can save the effort for further calculation, that is if the calculation is made able in this step, of course.
Steps to Start Influencer Marketing 2:
Look for Influencers
After knowing how much you are willing to put on the table, now you will need to find the right dish for you. As there are many types of industries in the business world, they are various types of influencers that may specialize in advertising specific products or services. Therefore, to find the right influencers for your influencer marketing plan, we need to find the influencer that is either based on your brand objectives or is in sync with your targeted audiences.
By having a clear goal in mind, it will be easier to know what tier of influencer you are looking for, which may save money and time. It can also save effort as it will be a pain to search every influencer’s profile to find the right influencer for the job.
In addition, like every brand, even influencers have a certain set of audiences they cater on, before choosing an influencer simply on the number of followers, it is much wiser to also check the quality. At the same time, try to get a clear idea of what is your target audience, this will help you to narrow down the list further.
Steps to Start Influencer Marketing 3:
Check the Platform & Search for More
Now let’s further narrow down the narrowed list, after knowing which influencers are based on your brand objectives and in sync with your targeted audiences. This time we will look into the social media platforms that they are publishing their blogs or videos. As we have talked about in step 1, the price will vary due to social media platforms.
As all of you who spend most of your time on the internet know, every influencer is not present on every platform, it is physically impossible. Due to that, it is necessary to know which platform you are targeting for your influencer marketing plan, as it also depends on the content you are trying to give. For instance, if you are going for video content only, then your best spot will be Youtube, and for writing content only, then a blog will be best.
Steps to Start Influencer Marketing 4:
Choose the Best Suitable Influencers
Now that you know how much you can offer, what kind of influencer you are looking and where they operate, we can finally move on by looking for which one is best suitable for your brand. For this, we will mostly be attracted to the influencer with the most follower on the list you narrowed down. However, please keep in mind that the most important thing that matters here is Return on Investment (ROI), not audience size.
Return on Investment (ROI) is an estimation equation to see if the influencer is worth your money to add to your influencer marketing plan. The equation may differ due to operating on various platforms but mostly it will be: (Audience size x Estimated Conversion Rate) – (Marginal Cost + Influencer Cost + Free Product Cost)
Once your ROI has shown that there will be a positive result for your company by offering the selected influencers your content, then it is time to make a move.
Steps to Start Influencer Marketing 5:
Start The Chase
Now that you got your list of influencers that may bring good results or may help in achieving your brand objectives, it is time to make a move in to get them on board. Technically, it may sound simple, but it is harder than cracking a nut as many influencers will highly reject you and your offer or they may even plain straight ghost you.
This is why you will need to prepare a list of them instead of choosing the selected one, after a few responses, compare the offers. If none replied, then move on to the next group, this is the basic routine in searching for human resources.
However, once you have gotten a few proposals, you will have to quickly start your move, as the influencers won’t wait for you. In this society, the target will always prioritize “What’s in it For Me” (WIIFM), this is common as we all have needs and wants, and most of the time, money is the best speaker. Still, money alone may not be enough to coax the influencers down, you should also prepare a free product for them, It will make the talk smoother.
Whether the negotiation is successful or not, after these steps, it will all depend on you, as in the end, it will be your actions and words that finalize the results. In the blog, we have explained the types of influencers, the steps of finding influencers, and what to prepare to engage in a talk with the influencers. Still, these are just tips that help you get a higher chance of success, it does not guarantee anything and you may fail in getting an influencer.
However, just like in everything in life, the most important thing is not whether you will fail or not, but whether you will stop or not after one failure. Success will come to those that continuously, smartly, and bravely attempt to reach it. If you like to know more, Click here to check out, also if you like to know more about KOC Live, click here.
The KOC Live has been founded in Malaysia in 2021, we have been aiming to help our clients to reach out to their targeted audience within their social media platform and attempted to assist in influencing purchasing decisions of consumers.
We have always tried to ensure our clients in achieving their business goals and are passionate about connecting brands to the right audience and consumers. We understand that currently, businesses are struggling with their business by not being able to reach their target audience, especially now that everything is turning remote. We hope that we can help our clients in bringing the best to the world.
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