How Marketing and Influencer Marketing Work Together

by John Vuong, Guest Contributor

According to a study, for every dollar that you spend to influencer marketing, you will be able to generate an average of $6.50.

Because the digital landscape is exploding with every possibility, high-quality content and highly targeted influencer campaigns are a must-have. Therefore both content and influencer marketing work hand in hand.

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Without content that is relevant, influencers have nothing to promote. Also, without influencers, content creators would be one step back when it comes to amplifying their message.

Influencer Marketing is About Building Relationships
To build trust and credibility, you should treat influencers like partners. Both of you should benefit from the collaboration.

If you are only focused on exchanging money for the sake of collaboration, it will be less genuine. Not to mention, if something goes wrong, you could quickly lose the trust of your audience.

The focus these days has shifted to individuals. People want to be addressed directly by people and build relationships with them, rather than a marketing strategy of a faceless company. We live in an era of influencers.

Why Influencer Marketing is Important?
Influencer marketing maximizes your reach. Although employing various social media strategies and email campaigns are excellent ways to interact with your network, collaboration open more doors for your content to be exposed to a broader set of audience.

It is not enough for your brand to have a specific claim in what you have to offer. While ads are essential, third-party sources can give you more credibility. That’s also the main reason a lot of people rely on online reviews first before ultimately making a purchase.

Influencers have already established their authority on their specific niche. They are known to be thought leaders in the industry and credible sources.

So, whenever they speak or write about your products and services, they are doing so because they trust it. They also know that the people who follow them on social media believe in it as well.

How to Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand
Scouring the net for influencers and blindly making pitches will result in wasted time and resources.

You first need to analyze the profiles of the people that you want to collaborate with. Next, determine the advantage that you will get from the relationship.

For you to have a targeted list of prospective influencers, do the following tips:

• Know the relevant hashtags and keyword searches: Who is owning and using them?
• Know the influencer reach: What’s their follower count? How many shares and retweets?
• Assess the engagement: Are you sure that their followers are not bots? Are their followers engaging with their content and starting conversations?
• Evaluate the intangibles: What’s the influencer’s image, style, and tone? Does their brand compliment yours?
• Investigate micro-influencers: Although they are not as popular as celebrity influencers, they have more devoted followers, which closes matches with yours.

What you can do is to make your ideal influencer persona. Then, filter the others that do not fit your standards. You can use tools like Buzzsumo to automate the more standard components of your reach.

How to Use Influencer Marketing in Your Content Strategy
Influencers have established themselves as thought-leaders in their niche, as well as sources of relevant and compelling information.

So if what your offering them is giving value that way, then, chances are you will likely be successful. Remember that influencer marketing takes a lot of time, effort, and patience to get optimal results.

Now, we will walk you through with the three ways on how you can work with influencers successfully and reach their audience.

1.  Ask an influencer to write a guest post
This can go both ways. You can ask in an influencer to write a guest post for your site and vice versa. That way, you will be getting free promotion, as well as a broader audience who would like your content, and stick around in the future.

2.  Partner with them for a Research Project
You can start surveys in your specific niche and then ask an influencer to be involved. The results can be made into another material later on, such as an infographic or follow-up pieces for a specific topic. These will be shared both on the influencer’s network and your own.

3. Collaborate to create an Ebook or White Paper
Just like a blog, an ebook is an excellent opportunity for further collaboration. So, let’s say the influencer collaborated a section on your ebook. Chances are, they’re likely to promote the content they wrote by including an article on their website or social media channels.

Over to You
You will see content all over the internet. Each industry is busy, so it takes a lot of time (and effort) to stand out from the rest of the pack. However, when you boost your content marketing strategy through influencer outreach, they will be doing the marketing for you.

Author bio:

John Vuong is the sole owner of the Local SEO Search Inc., John’s mission is to help local business owners improve their online influence so they can dominate their industry. With his business acumen and innate understanding of the local business landscape, John writes blogs that delve on how to customize SEO campaigns based on clients.

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