Whatever business niche you are in, there are always experts that lead the way. These experts are known as influencers. They have clout with other people within the niche.
Depending on the niche, influencers might have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. And the best part here is that these influencers can persuade their followers to buy any kind of product/service.
In other words, a single endorsement from an influencer can skyrocket your sales drastically.
That’s why every business owner wants to build a partnership with niche-related influencers.
In this guide, you will find out how to benefit from influencer marketing and increase your sales with the help of influencers organically.
Let’s start!
The Essence of Influencer Marketing
As you already guessed, influencer marketing is all about building a partnership with niche-related influencers that would help you promote your product or service.
As a rule, influencers have two significant characteristics:
- People follow them immensely
Have you ever thought about why people start following future influencers?
Because influencers create useful high-quality content. And share it across popular web-platforms. People have free access to the content. They consume it and decide whether they like it or not.
Eventually, if they like content, they start following this content creator across social channels or by subscribing to the newsletter on a website. The more people follow this expert, the more chances this person gets to becoming a niche influencer.
Especially, the representatives of startups are curious about exploring new strategies. They want to know how to build their business, even if it is a non-profit startup.
For instance, one of the most notable influencers in the SEO industry is Rand Fishkin. He has over 440K followers on Twitter only.
Keep in mind this nuance and always verify the number of followers a certain influencer has.
- They are true leaders and people tend to listen to them
First of all, don’t confuse “influence” with “popularity.” There is a huge difference between these two notions. If a person has just an army of followers, that would be “popularity.” But if this very person persuades these followers to take any action – that would be “influence.”
Is Influencer Marketing Truly Effective?
You wouldn’t read this post if influencer marketing weren’t effective. Thus, let’s review the benefits of influencer marketing right off the bat.
- It is all about persuasion – nothing more
If one person can persuade a group of people to take some action (to buy anything), it would be an example of psychological manipulation. Therefore, there is no need to find some techniques that would allow affecting people’s behavior. Just know the following psychological triggers:
- Influencer authority. It should be mentioned that influencers are those people who know what they do. They are always sure of what they say. As a result, they inspire respect and other people follow them.
- Social proof. Influencers are popular and have lots of followers/subscribers. It is a sign that people trust them. Thus, you will trust the influencer as well.
- Affinity. You know that people prefer to help those individuals they like. Hence, there are more chances that a niche-related influencer will be more likely to understand your issue than the people outside the niche.
- Law of reciprocity. It is a well-known fact that people try to pay back what they receive from others. The influencers suggest content that is a kind of a guide to other people who build a business.
- Commitment. By clicking “like”, “share”, “follow”, and “subscribe” people show their commitment to the influencers. In other words, if you click “like” you agree with what the influencer says.
To sum up, any influencer is a master of persuasion.
- It takes lots of time to reach the top – but you don’t need that
It won’t be a surprise if you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is. He is one of the most famous influencers in the niche of entrepreneurship. He has 2.99M subscribers on YouTube. And over 2.4K videos recorded.
Do you imagine what it takes to become as popular as Gary is?
Yes, it might take years to repeat the success. Likely, you don’t need to do this hard work from scratch. You don’t need it because you can build a partnership with the influencer and promote your business using the power of persuasion the exact influencer has.
- Consumers don’t trust businesses, they trust people
We understand the purpose of the ads companies run here and there. We don’t take companies’ promotions too seriously. We try to ignore all this stuff.
Instead, we believe what our friends say about various products and services they use. We lean towards a user experience straight from the horse’s mouth.
Hence, people will listen to the verdict of a live person rather than a brand itself.
How to Start Doing Influencer Marketing
What does organic influencer marketing mean?
Organic influencer marketing is marked by building friendly relationships with the influencers who become the advocates of your brand/product/service. These relationships give you an opportunity not to pay money for spreading the word about your brand but having it promoted free of charge.
So, how to find the influencers related to your niche and start doing organic influencer marketing?
- Start with identifying your target audience
Despite the fact that the number of followers people have is an influencer indication, you shouldn’t go off the deep end with this.
To get you a better understanding of this aspect, review the next few examples of niche-related influencers.
The first influencer is a rock-star Ozzy Osbourne AKA “Prince of Darkness.” He has 5.3M followers on Twitter.
The second influencer is a well-known SEO expert and marketer Neil Patel with over 383K followers on Twitter.
How do you think who would be the right influencer to build a connection with? (taking into account that you own a marketing agency.)
You are correct. Neil Patel is the right influencer to build your relationships. He will help you promote your agency so far. While Ozzy Osbourne with his 5.3M followers is out of your niche. Even if he promotes your agency, you won’t get as many potential leads as you could working with Neil.
Why?
Because it is not organic influencer marketing we are talking about.
To conclude, you must make sure your potential influencer deals with your target audience. And if you know nothing about your target audience, you should create a buyer persona for the business you run. Plus, don’t forget to keep an eye on customer analytics that will help you understand your target audience behavior better.
By having the data you need, you can start identifying the best influencers to work with.
- The influencers to choose from
Since you are aware of who the representatives of your target audience are, it is time to find niche-related influencers.
It should be mentioned that influencers are split into three main groups. Let’s review them:
- a) Small fish
This type of influencer represents experts with a small audience that follows them. These influencers have just stepped into the game and have less traction within the niche.
- b) Big fish
This type of influencer represents experts with a wide audience. If you make a deal with these experts, make sure that their endorsement will impact your business.
- c) Sharks
True influencers who have hundreds of thousands of followers. They really can create a buzz around your business. They are super-stars, celebrities, and gods of the niche you are working in. It is quite hard to reach them out. But the game is worth the candle.
When you build a list of influencers to work with, make sure it consists of the representatives of each of these three groups.
- How to find influencers
First and foremost, you should know what channels influencers use to communicate with the audience. These channels are:
- Social media
- Blogs
- Communities
- Podcasts
Now, let’s see how to find these channels.
- a) Online conferences
Online summits and conferences are the events that influencers attend regularly. Even now during a COVID-19 pandemic, there are tons of streams that host different experts across various niches.
If you know at least one influencer from your niche, you can find out where this person participated at the conferences. Everything that you need to do is to take the influencer’s image and click a “Search Google for Image” option.
Afterwards, add a query “conferences” in the search box.
By having the suggested conferences you can discover more influencers to connect with.
- b) Curated lists
Influencer marketing is not a brand-new wave of promoting your business. And you are not the only person who is exploring this field.
Taking the above said into account, there are already compiled lists of influencers that you can find on the web. Go to Google and type the following query:
“top {niche} influencers”
And voila, rip the benefits.
By the way, you can use this search command to find whatever “top” information you need. Just replace “influencers” with what you are looking for – podcasters, bloggers, etc. What’s more important, if you practice affiliate marketing, you can find dozens of affiliate programs in the same way.
- c) Marketplaces
Influencer marketing is a rapidly growing industry. Therefore, there are various marketplaces available on the Internet that connect business owners with influencers.
You can find these marketplaces on Google easily. Here are a few examples of them: Influence.co, Followerwonk, etc.
- Connect with influencers and build strong relationships
Keep in mind that organic influencer marketing takes lots of time before the influencers start working with you.
You need to attract their attention and show your loyalty. And give them something that would bring any value to their brand, business, or personality.
Don’t dare to ask whatever you need in return. Take your time and you will see the best moment to ask.
How to give value to the influencers?
- a) Influencers want engagement – give it to them via content
It is not a secret that influencers are content creators. Doesn’t matter what types of content they create. They want their blog posts to be read, podcasts to be listened to, videos to be watched.
Help them with this!
Read, listen and watch. Be an active consumer of the content they produce. Comment it, say what you like/dislike, share on your socials.
Sometimes these experts ask their audience’s opinion or ask for help. Don’t neglect this. It will be your first attempt to attract their attention.
- b) Suggest your help (literally)
Influencers work on different projects all the time. You can help them by adding some useful information. Plus, if you own a blog or a podcast, you can invite them to share their story. Everyone likes getting some additional exposure.
Other than that, you can help with publishing their content by repurposing it into other content types.
For example, you can create any kind of visual content, like a flowchart with the help of a flowchart maker tool. This would illustrate the same topic in a different visual way. And don’t forget to point out the source this information has been taken from.
To Sum up
Influencer marketing is a powerful weapon for promoting your business. The thing is that you must know how to use it correctly.
This guide has introduced to you the basics of influencer marketing. While there are many other ways of working with influencers.
If you have never tried influencer marketing in your practice, you should start doing it right now!
