12 Step Plan to Use Influencer Marketing for Content Promotion
Influencer marketing can be thought of as a catalyst to a content marketing strategy. It helps to leverage the power of influencers to get your content to the front. The best part is that it allows you to skip having a long email list or a substantive blog readership. If you are a small company or a startup, an influencer is quite important. Here are the steps by Tony Guo (http://www.linkedin.com/in/tyguo/) you should follow to use influencer marketing.
1. Define a Strategy
Just as you will need a strategy for any marketing campaign, you will require coming up with a solid plan for your influencer marketing. You need to have a clear plan of how the influencer can assist you to achieve your goals. For instance, you need to have a plan for the influencer to help you with engagement, branding, sales, and lead generation. By having a strategy, it makes things easy for you and the influencer.
2. Create Personas for Your Influencers
Before you can utilize the audience of your influencer, you will have to find them first. Before that, you will need to identify categories of influencers. There are different forms of influencers; they can be organizations, humans, or blogs.
One example of an influencer is Forbes. A media platform employs various reputable writers. By knowing the different categories of influencers, it will make it easy for you to identify one that has an audience best suited to your needs. Ensure that the influencers you choose have a following similar to the people you would like to reach.
3. Find the Influencers
Now that you have identified the type of influencer who is likely to have an impact on your target audience, you now need to find them. One of the most basic methods is to do a Google search. That way, you will find blogs, which discuss the topics that you value most. There are various other tools such a Google Alerts, which send you notifications when new content on your keyword is posted. Besides that, various tools in the market are designed with finding influencers in mind.
4. Prioritize Your Influencers
After finding the influencers that match your persona, you will find that you have quite a number of them. However, if you reach out to them randomly, it may not have the impact you expected. ON your list, there are those that match your requirements. However, there are those that can be classified as VIP level influencers. While you should focus much of your effort on the large influencers, you should also spare some time for the small bloggers. Although they have a small following, their following is quite loyal. Thus, the expected rate of conversion is quite high with this type of influencers.
5. Form a Relationship with the Influencer
Once you have prioritized the influencers you will use, you will now have to build a fruitful relationship with them. To build a good relationship with your influencer, you will need to understand their needs. Ensure that you prioritize their needs. Besides that, your influencer expects to be accorded respect for the audience that they bring to the table.
6. Create a Strategy for Engaging your Influencer
After you have formed a relationship with the influencer, you need to find mutually beneficial strategies. For instance, you do a joint podcast with them. Another method, you can use is to request them to guest blog for you. Besides that, you can request to have a twitter chat with you on topics that interest them. Additionally, consider asking them to share your content.
7. Pitch Them
When you have found ways to engage them, it is time to consider pitching your influencer. If you want to succeed, start with the small influencers. The small ones are better at responding to request since they do not have a flood of requests to handle.
8. Analyze Your Performance
Your marketing strategy will only be complete if you can analyze data. The data needs to be measured against your set objectives. You can use various tools for this analysis.
9. Strengthen the Relationship
Although it can take a long time to develop a strong relationship, it makes it easy to deal with the influencers. With a solid relationship, you will not have to work as hard on your next campaign. Some of the methods you can use are to invite them to events, conferences, or parties.
10. Determine the Publishing Schedule
For the content to have maximum effect, the content publication must be coordinated on all platforms that the influencer uses. Ensure that your influencer agrees to the schedule that you chose.
11. Negotiate the Rates
If you want to keep your campaigns affordable, you will have to negotiate the rates. If you ask, most influencers will probably give you a negotiated rate. It can help you save a lot of money.
12. Examine Your Campaign
After you have concluded, you will need to study it in depth. It will help you to examined areas where you may have faltered. Consequently, your next campaign will be quite successful. You will not have to struggle as much.