By Rosalind Shimmen

Ever noticed how some online business just pop out of nowhere?

How some businesses achieve such enviable fame in such a short space of time?

The secret lies with ‘influencer marketing’ – a type of marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand’s message to the larger market.

Read more: IJL KickStart 2017 – the Search Begins for the Most Talented 10

Like traditional print media, bloggers and influencers can control your brand’s reputation, influence purchasing behaviours, impact your SEO and drive traffic to your website, as well as being the gatekeepers to your target audience.

Nielsen BuzzMetrics found that 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know and 70% trust consumer opinions that are posted on an online source. These are high percentages that can’t be ignored, don’t you agree?

WATCH: Rosalind Shimmen discusses influencer marketing at IJL 2016

In the digital marketing world, influencer marketing is basically reaching out to popular bloggers and influencers in a particular niche with the goal of convincing them to promote your products or services through their websites and social media platforms.

Your mission is to put your content directly in front of the movers and shakers of your industry.

Read more: 5 Must-Have Free Marketing Tools

“Wait does that mean I just have to email every blogger I know?” I can hear you asking.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy; it’s all about building relationships.

You will find that most brands work along side a traditional PR Agency to utilise their journalist contacts, we work to a similar method. Brands work along side us to utilise the personal relationships we have with bloggers and influencers.

We are now the leading network for talent, with over 800 bloggers and influencers and growing. This means we have a pool of talent to choose from when it comes to creating and implementing your influencer marketing campaign.

Take a look below where I share my guide to making influencer marketing work for you…

Understand your customer before investing in influencer marketing

Paint a picture of your existing or desired customer and then use this to identify influencers that fit a similar profile.

Read more: The Best Kept Secrets of LinkedIn for Business Owners

Decide what you want to achieve with influencers 

Once you have identified the influencers you’re keen to work with, come up with fun and creative ways to align your brand with them. If it’s a particular product you would like to push I would suggest product seeding, whereas if it’s a whole range I would suggest a blogger event or trip – the more creative the better.

Just recently I ran a special project with Dollie Jewellery, where we took over V Festival with fashion bloggers, Confetti Crowd. Discover more here.

Build a relationship with the bloggers and influencers on your radar

If you aren’t able to work with an agency like ourselves, you will need to try and build relationships with bloggers yourself. This can be a time consuming process, but all of the below tips and tricks will help:

• Share their content on a regular basis via social media
• Respond to blogger questions on social media and stay engaged
• Leave comments on the blog/social media posts of your preferred influencers
• Compliment them on their work to start conversations

Read more: Can Remarketing Services Help Your Business?

Plan your ideal outcomes and send personalised messages to influencers

Once you’ve warmed up your entire list, it’s time to reach out. However, it is important to first identify what your purpose is. Are you looking for a retweet of your latest post? Do you want them to feature a product? Be sure of your outcome and then craft a compelling and personalised email that communicates your point and make sure you’ve covered the below components:

• Sincerity – Be polite and honest
• Purpose – State your purpose early on. Be brief and concise about it
• Incentive – What’s in it for the influencer/blogger?
• Acknowledgement – What made you contact the influencer/blogger?
• Call to action – Be clear with what you’re asking and outline any time frames or key messages

To find out more about influencer marketing contact Rosalind Shimmen Communications, or find them on social media @rshimmencomms.

IJL is #withyou to help with your digital marketing goals. If you would like to find out more about promoting your brand or business, please contact us. 

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