Building Relationships with Your Influencers
Building relationships is a huge part of business especially when it comes to the marketing sector. A great relationship with a publisher or writer can be profitable for both sides. Influencer marketing is no different as a great relationship with an influencer can lead to both sides making quite a bit of money. Building this relationship will take time like any other relationship but there are some things to think about that can help this process progress. Those who do not have good relationships with the influencers they work with can end up wasting a lot of money. The following are some ways that you can build relationships with your influencers.
Don’t Ever Use a Canned Generic Email
People reach out to influencers on a daily basis so they might see hundreds of pitches a week. Sending an email that is generic not only looks like spam but it doesn’t show the influencers the respect that they deserve. Why would an influencer want to work with a company that can’t even take the time to write a personal email? Unless you are paying well over the going rate and specify this in the email the odds of any type of response is low. Combine that with the fact that these influencers can share this email as spam on their blog or YouTube channel makes this a potential nightmare. Personalize all forms of communication as you want to garner a relationship with this person and it is going to take effort.
Referrals Are Gold
The marketing world is full of favors being cashed in and referrals being given. The chances are as a marketer that you have relationships that your influencer can benefit from. Referring an influencer to a company that isn’t directly in competition can be a great way to build a strong business relationship. Referrals go both ways as the influencer could refer another influencer to the company. Each time this happens the influencer should be compensated as this is a valuable asset to have. Building an influencer network off of referrals might take some time but the referral automatically gives your company some legitimacy in the eyes of the influencers.
How to Do Influencer Marketing
Meet Face-to-Face
Meeting your influencers face to face helps humanize your company to the influencer. This is the time to tell them how happy you are working with them. If attending a conference offer to buy them a drink or dinner after the day’s activities. While face-to-face meetings on Skype are great, it is more personal to meet the influencer in person. This gives you the chance to build a stronger, more personal relationship with the people you plan to work with. An influencer is much more likely to give a discount on pricing for those companies they have personal relationships with as well as those who sign a long-term deal with them.
Stress the Long-Term Relationship
Influencers like any other people in the business world want long term relationships as this can help stabilize/maximize effectiveness of a campaign and stabilize their income. NeoReach is a great example of a company with access to a huge bank of influencers (over 3 million) that makes it easy for both brands and influencers to find productive relationships. These platforms also help you to manage activities and campaigns more easily, streamlining task management and the tracking of analytics like a highly-specialized CRM solutions, and allowing more time to be invested where it’s needed – building lasting and productive relationships. Stress the long-term goals of the relationship and don’t forget that the influencers you work with have, in a way, the same goals and the same stakes.