What makes the Internet such a great place for marketing products is just how easily you can do it with just thinking outside of the box a little bit. Think about it; in the 90’s - and even in the 2000’s – you needed to go through various different channels to market a product that you were selling.
Had something neat, but local? Well you needed to buy advertising space in Newspapers, Radios, and even Local Television (If anyone even watched that). Wanted to expand? You needed to buy advertising space in Magazines and more to get people to notice your product. Organic growth through word of mouth was another good option too, but wholly unreliable because you didn’t know if mouth the words came from was reliable or not.
Thankfully, the 2010’s had seen the rise of Social Media and Marketing to people had never been simpler, cost effective, and organic since.
Sure, Social Media is great for connecting with people generally. Nothing is more fun than making a Facebook post to family, a Twitter meme, or share a pic on Instagram and receive instant feedback on everything. However what really makes Social Media so great is how there came a natural rise of people who got popular through the platforms due to a multitude of different talents. Be it entertainment, artistic, or anything else.
These people built a platform and brand around Social Media, YouTube, Twitch, and other websites are what’s known as “Influencers” and are often considered people that have… well… influence over other people, be it thoughts, opinions and more.
So how do you use these Content Creator ‘Influencers’ in your marketing plans? Luckily, it’s rather easy. At its most basic, you just reach out to them and ask “Hey, want to sponsor/use our product?” and see what they say. Often they’ll just ask for free samples or something so they know they’re pushing quality products that they’ll trust to not hurt their brand and that’s usually that.
However, sometimes – depending on the Influencer – it’s a little bit more depth to that marketing scheme. Low to Mid end Influencers might be fine and even excited to be thought of when you suggest including them in your Marketing plans, but higher end Influencers more or less treat their brand as a business, and thus, will often ask for some kind of compensation.
In essence, this is how you should plan out your Influencer Marketing:
- Determine Your Goals
- Create a customer profile for your product.
- Compile a short list of Influencers who would be useful in marketing with.
- Research those Influencers thoroughly and see if they would help with your Brand
- Reach out to the Influencers you want to work with.
- Collaborate and help them develop content to promote your product.
That’s often it and all you need to really do, and really, that’s the fun part about using Influencers in your marketing plans. Depending on the Influencer themselves, people will come to associate your product with either that Influencer, or even the certain sort of energy that the influencer tends to give off.
If you’re still unsure of whether or not it’ll work… well… look at such products as Nord VPN, Raid Shadow Legends, Ridge Wallets, and other products that either started up and included YouTube Influencers in their marketing to sell their product, or through the power OF their Influencers became memes on the internet spreading outside of their niche.
It’s simply a marketing tool that if done right has the potential for exponential growth.