Brand KOL marketing skills!

Nowadays, influencer marketing is becoming an increasingly popular promotion method. With the help of content platforms such as short videos and live broadcasts, and relying on the influence and appeal of some professional influencers, celebrities, and KOLs, more comprehensive and detailed product information and experiences can be presented to consumers, which can maximize the multiple marketing effects such as efficient communication and precise promotion, and can integrate celebrity effects, emotions, scenes, and experiences into various promotion methods.

Undoubtedly, with the rapid popularity of promotional methods such as big V influencers recommending products, live streaming selling products, and influencers and stars jointly conducting live streaming of brands, the important influence of KOLs in marketing has become increasingly valued by brands. It can be seen that all major brands are basically frequently using or beginning to try this method of communication. In recent years, KOL marketing has emerged and spread rapidly to become a trend. Cooperating with these opinion leaders and radiating to the general public in a fixed circle reflects a KOL's social, network influence and ability to bring goods, while also testing the brand's choice of cooperative users.

The current definition of KOL is "key opinion leader". Specifically, it refers to "a person who has more and more accurate product information, is accepted or trusted by the relevant group, and has a greater influence on the purchasing behavior of the group." Broadly speaking, many Internet celebrities, endorsement stars, core employees of brands, industry experts, etc. can become opinion leaders. When expanded to the entire network, it can be said that any ordinary person can become an opinion leader. If we follow this classification, the scope covered by KOL is relatively large, but in fact many people, such as celebrities and general entertainment internet celebrities, are mainly loved by the public for their entertainment content. They have higher persuasiveness and credibility in professional product brand promotions, have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of products, and can come up with practical information to convince the public. If a brand wants to conduct online marketing through KOLs, it mainly looks for internet celebrities who have certain professional knowledge and fixed fans, and who enjoy a high degree of trust among their fans.

By recognizing the characteristics and scope of partners in so-called KOL marketing, you can choose suitable people in related fields to carry out marketing activities. However, the selection of opinion leaders does not depend solely on their popularity and influence. If brands blindly follow the trend and cooperate with popular KOLs, there will be a huge risk of failure, which will have an adverse impact on the company's tangible and intangible assets.

To correctly choose the KOL to cooperate with, you can refer to the following steps and key points.

First of all, it is necessary to conduct background checks on KOLs in related fields and screen out users with bad records.

Generally speaking, in order to reduce risks, brands usually choose from some of the top Vs and Internet celebrities in the industry, so you can first divide a group of candidates in the field, conduct in-depth and detailed background checks on them, understand their past, speeches, values, content history and past cases, to ensure the reliability and security of brand cooperation.

Brands can cooperate with third-party companies to carry out this step. This step is very important. It not only allows them to have a basic understanding of the characteristics of these Internet celebrities, but also allows them to screen out and eliminate some users with bad records.

Secondly, the influence and growth potential of KOLs can be observed through sorting and dynamic monitoring.

After background checks have screened out opinion leaders who meet basic safety requirements, you can then look for those within this candidate range who are relatively popular and have great growth potential for further consideration. Through the ranking of platform data, we can see the popularity and influence of each KOL in the same category in different aspects. After a period of dynamic data monitoring, we can observe the changes in their ranking, fans and reputation, and see the "potential stocks" besides the popular KOLs. We can tap into those that are growing rapidly and have great potential. Those with higher comprehensive influence and growth rate will also have higher cost-effectiveness. This type of "potential stock" is a KOL in the growth stage, while those that have already become famous and have high popularity are in the mature stage with the highest commercial value. Comparing the investment cost and future development expectations, it is obviously wiser to choose a KOL in the growth stage.

Then, further selection is made based on the overlap between KOL fans, target groups and brand consumers.

The target population of the brand and the fans and target population of the opinion leader should have a high degree of overlap. If a KOL can influence many people, the brand’s exposure and coverage will be greater during joint promotions. If the KOL’s fans are themselves potential consumers of the brand, then these promotions will be of high quality and efficiency. In this way, by stimulating fans' interest and willingness to buy through KOL's publicity, and then using their fame to quickly radiate and spread within the circle, the target group can receive the promotional information to the greatest extent and easily find this channel.

In addition, the KOL’s content attributes should be highly consistent with the brand.

In addition to fans and target groups, it is also necessary to see whether the KOL’s content attributes are highly consistent with the brand. Content attributes include the content’s theme value, style, image, etc. These things can further help interpret and convey the brand concept during the marketing process, and can make the brand more popular when communicators introduce and experience the products.

In addition, fans who like the tone and style of the communicator will be more likely to feel close to and have a good impression of brands with highly compatible attributes. Through the strong combination of the anchor and the brand, the brand connotation and the anchor's own style will be presented in a more three-dimensional and vivid way.

In addition, the KOL’s main activity and content publishing platform should preferably overlap with the product promotion platform.

We can see that the platform with the most active sales, the best results, and the most diverse forms and means is Taobao, because Taobao is an important base for most brand products to promote their products, and it is also the main platform for product sales. When brands choose KOLs for marketing promotion, it is usually best to choose opinion leaders who are active on the brand product promotion platform. For example, if the main promotion platform is Weibo, you can choose bloggers with high popularity and influence on Weibo; when promoting on Xiaohongshu, you can choose big Vs on this platform with high cost-effectiveness.

In addition, you can also follow some micro-influencers at the same time, which have more controllable influence in vertical fields.

Some small internet celebrities are actually worthy of attention from brands. In order to improve their differentiated characteristics and distinction, brands in many industries often add more long-tail words to describe their products. In more detailed classifications, these vertical KOLs can be more specialized in a type of product. For example, in the beauty field, there are multiple categories such as lipstick, liquid foundation, eye shadow, etc., and in liquid foundation, there are many categories suitable for different skin types and different effects. Based on personal skin type, KOLs can recommend products suitable for dry or oily skin based on personal experience, and their fans and other users can also accurately find their own needs. Therefore, these small internet celebrities in vertical fields who focus on subdivided categories will have a more precise and controllable influence in the promotion of certain categories of products.

Paying attention to these groups of people can not only help us observe their growth potential, but also serve as an auxiliary marketing link to assist in publicity.

Finally, while referring to the data, you should also observe the actual interaction between KOLs and fans to avoid being deceived by fake popularity.

When choosing a KOL, popularity, heat and influence are very important, but in the current online environment, fans can be bought, data can be falsified, and internet trolls can be hired, so it is not difficult to create a "false prosperity." Although fake popularity can bring exposure to the KOL itself to a certain extent, its actual value in bringing goods is very low, because its fan base is too small and its actual influence is small.

To avoid this, you need to pay attention to not only looking at the number of fans and discussion of KOLs when examining their popularity and influence, but also understanding the interaction between KOLs and fans, and observing the activity and stickiness of the fan group; in addition, you can also judge their reputation from their past experience cases.

After choosing the right influencer to promote products, you can establish a long-term cooperation and observe the results.

Author: No authority

Source: PR Home