Did you know that 91% of marketing agencies believe that influencer marketing is an effective strategy?
Leveraging influencer marketing properly can help businesses in establishing themselves in the industry and position them as a thought leader. The concept of influencer marketing has been existent for a long time; however, it’s constantly evolving due to technological advancement and changing market demand.
Is it Easy to Execute Influencer Marketing Campaigns?
Although influencer marketing sure can help brands reach their potential customers and build their credibility there is also a unglamorous part of it. It can be a challenging and daunting process at the same time. After all, in the end, it’s the influencers who can help in achieving brand objectives.
But, choosing the right influencers is difficult. Social media is filled with thousands of influencers across various categories. Selection process isn’t as fun and easy as it seems.
For example, let’s say company A wants to execute an influencer marketing campaign to launch their new range of shirts for men. Now, the question is with whom they want to collaborate — Do they want to partner with celebrity influencers or collaborate with influencers having more than 10K+ followers? Do they want to opt for paid collaboration or barter campaign?
One cannot determine the influencer solely based on the follower count or campaign type. Influencer selection requires one to consider several factors to determine the right influencer choice for the campaign.
5 Tips to Choose the Right Influencer
Here are 5 best ways to choose the right influencer for your influencer marketing campaign.
- Focus on Relevancy
Relevancy has always been debatable while selecting the right influencer. So, is it an important factor? Yes, definitely!
It is crucial to work with influencers who match your brand’s vision and value. In simple words, they can understand your long term vision and help in achieving the business objectives at a quicker rate.
Now, a company won’t hire an employee whose values and vision are different from it.
For example, if you want to promote vegetarian or vegan cuisines, collaborate with veg food bloggers or vegan food influencers respectively. Influencer follower count shouldn’t be your first priority if you want to reach the right target audience.
Relevancy is one of the crucial factors while selecting an influencer. So, make sure to collaborate with influencers who align with your brand values.
- Reach or Niche
Most marketers often fail at this. Choosing between reach or niche can be a little tricky; however, let’s break it for you. Simply put, it’s either going for more likes and comments or focusing on getting a loyal audience.
It’s true mass following of big influencers can widen your brand’s reach. But, can it guarantee loyal and engaged customers? Probably not. That’s when you need to collaborate with niche influencers. They might have a lower following but carry required expertise. Furthermore, the audience tends to believe their recommendations compared to established influencers.
It majorly depends on your brand size and type of product or service. For example, Brand A should go for niche influencers if it wants to cater to a specific set of people; however, they can go for influencers with a larger following if they want to reach the masses.
It is important to have clear goals to select a specific category of influencers. Lack of clarity of goals can lead to wrong influencer selection, leading to campaign failure.
- Create a Buyer Persona
Buyer personas are an effective way to understand the needs and wants of your target customers. It allows you to tailor your influencer marketing efforts as per their desires.
Furthermore, creating a consumer persona can allow you to identify the right influencers. Let’s say your brand sells natural beauty products. In such cases, you should target beauty influencers as they will understand your products well. Moreover, their target audience will more likely be interested in skincare and beauty. It is an effective way to reach your potential customers.
Creating buyer personas and journey mapping can help you in knowing your target audiences’ demographics such as age, location, and more. Remember, it’s important to determine their interests and pain points. It will help you in choosing the right influencers who will understand your brand values and help in increasing conversion rates.
- Focus on influencer type
Influencers have been categorised as nano, micro, mega, and celebrity; however, brands often think that they can garner higher engagement only when collaborating with big influencers.
It’s one of the myths that all businesses and marketers need to overcome. Don’t mistake larger following with higher engagement. Often, these influencers lack required skill set and expertise. Furthermore, many brands don’t have a budget to partner with these influencers.
That’s when barter campaigns and small influencers come into the picture.
Nano and micro-influencers have a better engagement rate than big influencers. They have established themselves as a niche influencer. On the other hand, barter campaigns do not involve any monetary transactions. Thus, there is no need for a larger investment.
In simple words, it’s a win-win situation. While influencers can get free products, brands can get influencers to endorse their product or service in exchange for free goodies.
- Authenticity
Today, no one can survive in the industry for long without authenticity.
Authentic content has become a key element in reaching the right target audience. People often don’t trust sponsored content as it lacks value and credibility. Only a handful of influencers have successfully established themselves as authentic.
Very few influencers give a personal touch to product reviews or other mentions.
Barter collaborations allow influencers to use your product in real-life and give an honest opinion about the same. Story-telling is a crucial part of the content creation process. Make sure you choose the ones who understand its importance.
How Can Sehaye Dashboard Help Brands in Picking Up the Right Influencers?
Social media is filled with thousands of influencers across 10+ categories. Choosing the one who fits your brand perfectly can be a daunting task.
Sehaye makes the process much easier by allowing brands like yours to select the right influencers by applying various filters like gender, location, niche, follower count, etc. These filters will seamlessly help in influencer segmentation — As only a few influencers can apply for your brand campaign based on the filters you select.
It removes all the hassle and makes the selection process quicker. Apart from this, you can even put the application start and end date. So that there is no mismanagement while closing the applications.
Is There a Eligibility Criteria for Brands to Sign Up on the Sehaye Dashboard?
Yes, there is. Here is the checklist for registering your business on the Sehaye Dashboard:
- You should have an established firm, startup, or any agency to register your brand on the platform.
- Your business goal should be to execute data-driven barter campaigns.
Bonus: Sehaye platform has influencers across 10+ categories. So, you don’t need to worry about the niche while registering on the dashboard.
Barter campaigns and influencers have always been an unbeatable duo. The sooner you start leveraging them, the sooner your brand will stand amongst the crowd. Get started today!
