How to operate KOL influencer marketing?

As more and more brands use internet celebrities to promote their products and brands and achieve success, many people have seen the huge potential of influencer marketing and want to get started. But we have to admit that influencer marketing is not as simple as imagined! Because we have no idea what effect will be achieved by cooperating with different influencers; or whether using other promotion channels (Google/Facebook, etc.) will have better results; are our products suitable for influencer marketing, etc.?

Advantages of influencer marketing over traditional advertising

First of all, one of the difficulties in operating an independent website is how to attract users to the website. However, the cost of traditional advertising is getting higher and higher, and the effect is getting worse and worse. Young people in the new era are also becoming more and more tired of traditional advertising forms. Therefore, how to make the products of the independent website discovered in the content that they are interested in, overseas content layout and influencer marketing play a key role.

Of course, although the primary function of influencer marketing and advertising on Google search engines and Facebook social media platforms is to attract traffic, the role of the former goes far beyond attracting traffic.

When conducting influencer marketing, influencers will also directly generate materials for the independent website, which is not available in advertising (the materials for advertising are all produced by the advertisers themselves). For example: When influencers do promotions, they will make some review videos and shoot some product photos. With the permission of the influencers, these materials can continue to be used for advertising. In addition to reaching the influencer's fan base, advertisers can also place this video on other channels or even on their own official websites.

Generally speaking, internet celebrities will not delete posts maliciously. Any related product searches can bring long-term exposure and popularity, and will not disappear without a trace just because they don’t cost money. Although traditional advertising can bring direct results during the period of advertising, once the payment stops, the advertising will disappear without a trace. In comparison, this is also a big benefit of influencer marketing.

How to determine whether your product is suitable for influencer marketing?

1: Is your product attractive and topical?

2: Do you often see product-related topics in the news or on social media?

3: How many similar products are currently on the market? How is the competition?

4: Does the product have a broad audience base?

5. Will consumers be excited to learn about or use your product?

If your product can meet the above conditions, then OK, your product has at least a 50% chance of success. However, if your product is a niche product (specifically a product that is highly targeted and professional), then influencer marketing is not suitable. General or broad products often achieve better results through influencer marketing.

How to select Internet celebrities?

1: Fan range and scale

We cannot simply look at the number of fans of an internet celebrity. It may be smoother to cooperate with a small V with 10,000 fans than with a medium V with 500,000 fans. Because this type of small V has more active fans, and you can communicate more with the small V, thus establishing a longer-term cooperative relationship with them. For small businesses, this growing internet celebrity with 10,000 fans is the most cost-effective.

For sellers with monthly sales exceeding 500,000 US dollars, brand promotion and accumulation of brand fans are more important. Therefore, this type of Internet celebrity with 500,000 fans is worth developing as long as the fan group is relatively accurate. Some sellers may pay more attention to the number of fans and video views when looking for influencers. Theoretically, this is not wrong, but if the influencer you find is not suitable for promoting your products, the effect may be greatly reduced.

2: Types of fans

You need to understand whether the influencer’s fans are highly compatible with your target market (product) or (brand), as well as the fan data, geographical distribution, interests and hobbies behind them. And pay attention to the hashtags that influencers are using so you can easily discover more influencers who are discussing related brands, products, or industries.

3: Published content

No matter how good an influencer is or how many fans they have, if they frequently share junk content, you'd better not work with them. This will only make passers-by think that your product is as bad as other junk ads they have taken.

4: Posting frequency

Generally speaking, there is a direct correlation between the frequency with which influencers post and their traffic and return visit rate. As with website marketing, content needs multiple exposures to get visitors to click on your website or even come back to your website again. When influencers publish high-quality content regularly, their fans are more likely to engage with, share, and collect it. For internet celebrities who don’t post frequently, the fan loss rate is very serious.

How to connect and cooperate with influencers?

1. Find influencers and establish connections: You can establish connections with influencers by following their social media accounts, forwarding their posts and blogs, and participating in interactions.

2. Make initial contact: After establishing initial contact through social media, we need to get in direct contact with the influencer through direct messaging on social media, sending personalized emails, etc.

3. Determine the remuneration: Once a blogger or influencer is interested in working with you, the next thing to consider is the remuneration.

4. If the internet celebrity is satisfied with the remuneration you give, then the next step is for you to put forward your requirements. A formal explanation via email is best. For example, if you want to sell 1,000 lipsticks at a 20% discount, then you have to stipulate the number of posts, platforms, time periods, purchase links, and other issues that the influencer will post. When communicating with influencers, be sure to explain each one.

5. After the money is spent, follow-up tracking and monitoring of the promotion is required. How much ROI, new users, real conversion rate, etc. you receive from KOL actions are all things you must track! Based on the traffic data statistics of the website background, summarize the KOL's promotion effects, which ones are worth keeping and which ones must be abandoned.

Leveraging the influence of Internet celebrities to promote brands and advertise products has become a must-have marketing option for many advertisers. Times are changing, concepts are changing, and the market is changing. More and more people are aware of the power of influencers. I hope this article can help everyone understand overseas influencer marketing, choose a method that suits them, and realize the dream of shipping goods around the world.

Author: Gerry from Haima International

Source: Haima International Gerry