You don’t have to spend a lot of time with me to know that I am a big believer in blogging and influencer marketing. I spend a lot of time working with influencers both professionally and personally, and while blogging is a great way to brand yourself and your company as thought leaders, did you know there are ways to promote your company with influencers? It’s called “influencer marketing” programs and if you’ve never done one, you’ll want to take some notes.
What IS an Influencer Marketing Program?
An influencer marketing program is where you, your company, or your agency works closely with a carefully selected group of influencers to promote your company, services and/or products. The group of influencers will use your products and services and share their experience on their social media platforms and post on their site in exchange for payment, product or both. You may be familiar with the term “mommy influencers” which is one of many groups of online influencers out there (and where it all began). These influencers possess what you’re looking for – a very passionate and loyal following who value the opinion of the person writing the blog. It’s SOLID word-of-mouth marketing that is virtual gold for your brand. The ROI on a solid influencer marketing program can be quite rewarding if done correctly.
So the next question is…
Why Should You Do an Influencer Marketing Program?
There are plenty of reasons why an influencer marketing program could be beneficial for your business, but probably the biggest reason is this: Influencer marketing is a great way to get website traffic, reviews, buzz, and awareness to your brand. Why? Here are a few reasons:
- Influencers are considered trustworthy. They consistently rank high in value when people are looking for honest opinions on products and services.
- Influencers can increase site traffic. Essentially you will have x-number of influencers talking and writing about your brand and referring people to your site.
- Consumers look to influencers for opinion. By building a relationship between your brand and influencers, you increase the probability that they will promote and speak favorably about your brand…even if they’re NOT doing a program with you at that time.
- Banner ads and the like don’t work as well anymore. Again – these are people with established followings of people who trust them. They’ll believe them before they’ll click on your banner ad any day.
- Content. Not only are you getting great site visits from the program, but you have a variety of people writing and providing fresh content for you!!
There are a lot of facets to a successful influencer marketing program – too many to cover here in one post. In my next post, I’m going to cover the DOs of an effective influencer marketing program and then I’ll cover the DON’Ts in a final one.
