influencer marketing can seem pretty
intimidating to pull off a successful
campaign you're going to need to work
with the right social media influencers
so you might be asking yourself how do i
reach out to influencers
how much is it going to cost me and is
it actually going to bring me sales
well today i'm going to walk you through
how to set up an influencer marketing
campaign
from start to finish and you don't have
to be a massive business to set this up
this is pretty straightforward so let's
get started
what's going on everybody my name is
michelle bally i'm a creative strategist
and i'm also your host for today's video
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so in a recent video that we did i
noticed that a lot of you guys left
comments wondering how to reach out to
influencers
and those were actually the inspiration
for this video so thank you so much for
that
and if you want to see your idea
featured in our next one make sure that
you're dropping us a comment because i
do pay attention to the comments
how to build a powerful influencer
marketing strategy
so these are the steps that we're going
to look at in creating a successful
campaign
in today's video so first you're going
to want to set your goal and your budget
then you'll do some research on your
influencers after that you'll reach out
then you'll negotiate the terms then
you'll put your plan into action
and then you'll review to see if your
campaign actually worked
so let's look at these steps in detail
step one is to set up your campaign goal
the first step
is to ask yourself what your goal is why
do you want to work with an influencer
now obviously making more sales is a big
one but there are other options that you
might not have thought about
examples of more common goals are to
build brand awareness
and strengthen brand image you may also
want to increase your social media
engagement
or you could focus on improving
conversions like newsletter subscribers
free trial signups and email list
building for the duration of this video
i'm just gonna use kinda hot sauce as
the brand that we'll be promoting
so the first step here is to write down
my campaign goal
i like to use a google doc nothing too
fancy and for my fake hot sauce brand
i'm gonna say that my goal is gonna be
more sales
i would recommend that you be specific
so i'm going to set my goal to be two
times my return on marketing investment
step number two is defining your budget
so next you'll want to set aside a
budget
if you're an independent business owner
it might be really tempting to just skip
this step
but keeping track of your expenses is
going to help you understand whether
your campaign left you in the red
or in the green if you want to pay your
influencers in product
i find it really easy to just calculate
your campaign by figuring
out your cost per influencer so let's
say my average rate to ship a package is
thirteen dollars
and my hot sauce cost me twelve dollars
to produce then i can put aside
twenty five dollars per influencer maybe
i wanna work with ten influencers to
start
i would recommend starting small so that
you can see if influencer marketing
is the right fit for your business you
may not be paying the influencer in
product
and we'll talk about all the different
ways that you can compensate and
influencer later
but just make sure that you do have a
rough idea of how much you want to spend
at this point
and be honest with yourself how big your
budget really isn't that important
but the important part is staying on top
of your numbers to ensure that you're
getting a return on your investment
your third step will be finding the
right influencers you're going to want
to decide whether you want to use
nano or micro influencers mid-size
influencers or large influencers so
there's pros and cons to each
nano influencers are kind of like your
black widow because their audiences
don't expect to be sold to
brands like to work with them because
their audience is super dedicated and
they trust them
through and through now the downside is
that nano influencers don't usually do
this for a living
so they may lack the time or the
experience to work with you
mid-tier influencers may show great
results since at this size
they're still going to have that genuine
two-way connection with their audience
now the only thing is that these people
will likely want to be receiving
monetary compensation and we do have to
respect that because that could be the
way that these people are earning their
living this could be their full-time job
working with top tier influencers is
super exciting because of their reach
and their content could immediately
impact your business positively if their
audience is engaged and relevant to your
business of course
but keep in mind as influencers grow
they do
tend to lose connection to their
audience and their niche might start to
dilute
and also just because they have a large
audience doesn't necessarily
mean that their audience will convert
for you if their audience is primarily
in australia
and you don't even ship there then their
1 million followers aren't much use to
you anyway so
don't just look at the numbers to make
sure that it's the right fit
you can ask for screenshots of their
analytics so that you can look at the
demographics
of their audience and you want to make
sure that you're doing this no matter
what size influencer you're working with
influencers get asked for these stats
all the time so you don't need to be shy
about asking
so that's what you can expect from
certain size influencers
but how do you actually find them so
you'll want to use these tools to find
the right influencers
obviously you can just go on instagram
type in some hashtags
and search through the top section but i
don't always love that method because i
find that the results are pretty limited
so
what i've personally done is i use a
tool called dovetail
it's a pretty robust platform to help
you find instagramers and youtubers
and you can search based on specific
keywords locations
niches and audiences and you can even
send influencers a message
straight from dovetail which has saved
me a lot of time in the past
they normally have a 14 day free trial
now unfortunately i don't think you can
search for
tick-tock influencers on dovetail yet so
for that you can also check out
hypetrace
so let's say that i've used these tools
and i decide on hot sauce expert bill
moore
i'll now want to make sure that his
audience is authentic
outside of the numbers you're also going
to want to validate that this content
creator can create the type of content
that you're looking for
so to do this make sure that you're just
checking their past work
so for me i want bill to be able to
review my hot sauces
and he has tons of youtube videos doing
that so this could be a perfect fit
the next step is to reach out so i'm
going to draft up a message to see if
bill moore would be down for a collab
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step five is where you actually start
reaching out to influencers
so here's the part where a lot of people
get tripped up because they get nervous
they don't know what to say they feel
intimidated by the fact that these
people have a lot of followers but
here's a little piece of advice the hype
is always less
than what you think it is if someone has
50 000 followers and you're imagining
that they're getting
100 dams a day they're probably getting
only five dms a day
i want you guys to be fearless business
owners don't let something like a
follower account discourage you
so that when you reach out you're
friendly you're clear of what you're
asking
and you're firm when i'm reaching out
via email here's what i might say
hi bill my name is michelle i'm the
brand manager for kind of hot sauce
i came across your youtube account after
watching your black eyed susan review
i really love how in depth you describe
the ingredients after watching i wanted
to reach out to see if you'd be
interested
in trying our new collection if you're
accepting collaborations at this time
i would love to send you the full line
for you to review in a dedicated video
feel free to check us out at
kindahotsauce.shop
if you're interested let me know and
i'll be happy to share more details
michelle so let's dissect this a little
first we introduce ourselves
then we establish a connection let them
know that you know who they are
and this also helps them in making it
feel less like a mass email
then we give them a genuine compliment
this helps open up the relationship
and it also sets the expectation of what
kind of content you'd like them to
create for you
now we want to cut straight to the chase
tell them exactly why you're reaching
out
next you'll want to softly explain your
expectations so the purpose of this
email is to gauge interest
and gently propose a relationship we
don't give too much detail
on the logistics just yet that comes
later
let them know where they can find you
you also want to make sure that you're
including your social media handles
in your signature as well and that's
going to help increase your credibility
since
maybe this influencer hasn't heard of
your brand before
if you want to copy and paste the format
into your own email i'll make sure to
leave a link in the description box for
you guys
a common pitfall of an intro email is
making the email too long
and making it all about you we only
really injected a little bit about us at
the very end of the email but the meat
and the potatoes of this email should be
about
them we want to be putting the focus on
their work and that's going to help warm
up the conversation
and don't worry if an influencer is
interested in doing work with you
they will find you online and learn more
about you on their own time
when i'm reaching out via dm the tone is
going to be a little bit more casual
when i'm reaching out on instagram i
usually use a voice note because it just
feels more personal
and it's a great way to stand out i'll
make sure that i'm inserting a clip here
but it's basically the same idea just
more personal
once you find out that they're
interested the next step is to get more
detailed
about the expectations and the type of
content that they'll create
step six is deciding how you'll create
content with an influencer
so next you're going to want to
negotiate the terms of the relationship
this could happen in an exchange of
friendly emails back and forth
it doesn't have to be anything serious
like a contract but as long as you're
having a paper trail
that's enough if you're just starting
out so imagine me and bill we're just
going back and forth
and this is our final agreement so let
me explain what's on screen here
talk about the type of content they'll
create maybe i want bill to make
meme and post it to his instagram or
maybe i want him to record a video
talking about our brand ethos how about
a cooking class using our products
basically at this point you can also use
this time to ask for specific
things so you may want them to highlight
certain product features
or tell your brand story if the
relationship is fair in the sense that
the trade-off is equal
you can have a list of requests for the
influencer to fulfill
but if the relationship is skewed in the
sense that the influencer is more so
doing you a favorite to help promote
your brand
then you will have to forgo some of that
creative control
at that point you might have to tone
down some of your requests
either way i recommend that you give
them creative freedom
you chose them because you liked their
work in the first place so
try to trust them to do a really good
job for you
because a script usually comes across as
ingenuine and stiff
so just keep that in mind as you're
working with your influencer
you'll also want to discuss where these
things are going to live
do you want a feed post do you want a
story post maybe you want some blog
content
it's really up to you and what makes
sense for your business and the
influencer you're working with
next you'll want to discuss a timeline
if you want to see a first draft just
set the date for when that would be due
but generally speaking it's usually
enough just to have a date of when that
thing would be going live
come to an agreement as to how they will
mention you do you want your name to
show up on screen
maybe you want to be tagged in the photo
or maybe you want them to include a link
to your website
in the description box in the best case
scenario the influencer will have a very
clear call to action
like make sure you're checking out
kindahotsauce.com to see their new
collection
and then i might ask bill to leave a
link to shop with us to see a higher
return on investment
you'll also want to agree on
compensation if you have a budget to pay
for their time then you can just simply
ask
what are your rates or can you send me
your rate card but if you don't have a
budget there are ways around this
you can give them something of value
that's not just a simple money exchange
but just keep in mind if the rolls were
reversed
and if you were the influencer would you
be happy with the deal that you're about
to offer them
you could exchange products for content
this is a very popular way to carry out
influencer relationships
you could exchange professional
opportunity for content so what do i
mean by this
i might want to invite bill to design a
custom hot sauce line
in exchange for him talking about it on
his social media so this could be a
win-win because
for him it adds to his experience as an
influencer and for us we get to add a
new collection with a face behind the
line
here's another idea you can exchange ad
spend for content
so what you would do is you would send
the influencer your product
get them to take a photo or a video with
it and post it to their social media as
usual
but in this case you would get them to
send you that content and then you would
run it as an ad on your end
the reason that this works is because
you're getting exposure from the content
that they've shared
and they're getting exposure from your
ad if you're not 100 sure on how social
media advertising works we actually have
an
entire video dedicated just to facebook
ads if you're a beginner
so make sure that you're checking it out
right up here sometimes
people fail to remember that influencer
relationships at the end of the day are
still relationships so
if there's respect you're both happy
with the end
product then you're going to want to
continue on this relationship
and if you're able to establish a
genuine connection and you both have an
emotional tie
then both of you are going to want to be
more accommodating towards one another
and you're going to want to help uplift
each other okay so if this were real
life
bill would accept i'd ship him his
package and then he would create the
content
so the next step is managing your
relationships and tracking the results
to see if your campaign worked
step seven is to stay organized with
your campaigns and track your results
like i said you want to start small at
the beginning to see if influencer
marketing
is even going to work for your business
but managing 10 relationships at a time
is still
a lot to keep track of if you're
maintaining relationships with many
influencers at a time
you can use a free tool called hubspot
here you can make notes of people's
social media handles
shipping addresses and when shipments
were sent you can write down the results
that the influencers brought to you here
as well
and i recommend that you also input
contacts that you've reached out to
so that you're not accidentally reaching
out to someone more than once
so now how do you know if your
influencers actually brought you return
on investment
well remember in the beginning how we
said we wanted to make double our money
back
i set aside 25 for a bill now i want to
make sure that i'm getting 75
back so to track results i'm gonna ask
bill to use this special link that i
made here
in his youtube description box that way
i can see
how many people click the link to go buy
our hot sauces
this link is called a utm code a utm
code tracks the performance of campaigns
and they're easy to make at utmaker.com
if you want to learn more about utm
tracking
i will link an article in the
description box for you guys
but alternatively i could make a special
discount code for bill
and bill could ask his audience to use
it at checkout
when i see how many people used his code
i can track how many customers bill
brought in
once your campaign is over measure
results against your initial goal
at this point you can see if you want to
work with these influencers again
and keep those relationships going you
might also notice that your campaigns
didn't bring you in as much results as
maybe
thought in which case try working with
different influencers
and try different types of content some
industries will be better suited for
influencer marketing
and some will be better suited for
facebook ads for example no two
industries and no two businesses
are the same so if you find that
influencer marketing isn't really
working for you then just make sure that
you're keeping up to date with your
digital marketing education
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all right congratulations on getting
started with influencer marketing
i hope that it's going to bring your
business that boost that it needs
and maybe you'll make some friends in
your industry along the way if you're
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marketing
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thank you so much for watching i'm
michelle bally i've been your host
and i will see you in the next one
you