Tag: grow your business

influencer-marketing

How to Use Influencer Marketing to Grow Your Business

Posted on | by Agency Partner Interactive

Influencer marketing has become crucial to many businesses marketing tips recently. It involves partnering with individuals with a significant social media following and influence in a particular niche to promote your brand, products, or services. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, influencer marketing has become a $13.8 billion industry, and it is projected to grow to $22.3 billion by 2024  

If you want to leverage influencer marketing to grow your business, this blog post will provide a comprehensive guide on how to do so effectively. 

Identify Your Goals and Target Audience 

To effectively use influencer marketing to grow your business, it’s essential to start by defining your goals and identifying your target audience. 

Define your marketing goals 

Before searching for influencers, you must clearly understand your marketing goals and how they align with your overall business goals. Your marketing goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). 

Identify your target audience and their interests 

Once you clearly understand your marketing goals, the next step is to identify your audience, which involves defining the demographic characteristics of your ideal customer, such as age, gender, location, and interests. You can use market research, customer surveys, and social media analytics to help you understand your target audience’s needs, pain points, and interests. 

Identify the Social Media Channels Where Your Target Audience Is Most Engaged 

Not all social media platforms are created equal regarding influencer marketing. You should focus your efforts on the platforms where your target audience is most active.  

For example, your target audience is primarily millennials and Gen Z, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat might be the most effective for you.According to Business Insider, Instagram is the most popular social media platform for influencer marketing, with 79% of brands choosing it as their primary platform for campaigns.  

LinkedIn might be better if your audience is more professional and B2B focused. 

By identifying your goals and target audience, you’ll be better equipped to find the right influencers and create compelling campaigns that resonate with your target audience. 

Find the Right Influencers 

Finding the right influencers is critical to the success of your influencer marketing campaign. Here are some steps that you can follow when looking for influencers to work with: 

Types of influencers 

Choosing an influencer that aligns with your budget and goals is essential. There are several types of influencers you can work with, including celebrity influencers, macro influencers, micro-influencers, and nano-influencers. Each class has a different number of followers, level of influence, and cost to work with. 

How to identify influencers who align with your brand values 

When looking for influencers, choosing those who align with your brand values and have an engaged following is essential. You can start by researching influencers in your industry or niche and looking at their social media profiles, website, and blog to get a sense of their content and style. Check their engagement rate, comments, and followers to determine whether they have an active and engaged audience. Look at their past collaborations to see if they have worked with similar brands. 

Tools for finding and evaluating influencers 

There are many tools available to help you find and evaluate influencers. Some popular ones include: 

  • Social media listening tools like Hootsuite Insights or Mention monitor conversations and discover potential influencers. 
  • Influencer marketing platforms such as AspireIQ, Upfluence, or Grin provide a database of influencers and tools for managing campaigns. 
  • Influencer discovery tools like Klear, Traackr, or BuzzSumo help you find influencers based on keywords, demographics, and social media activity. 

Build Relationships with Influencers 

Once you’ve identified the right influencers to work with, building strong relationships with them is essential. Here are some steps that follow when building relationships with influencers: 

How to approach influencers 

When reaching out to influencers, personalize your message and explain why you think they’d be a good fit for your brand. Be transparent about what you’re offering and what you hope to achieve. Avoid generic messages or spammy pitches, and instead, focus on building a genuine connection with the influencer. 

What to offer influencers in exchange for their promotion 

Influencers expect to be compensated for their time and effort. Compensation can include monetary payment, free products or services, exclusive discounts or early access, or experiences or trips. Be clear about your offering and negotiate terms that work for you and the influencer. 

How to maintain good relationships with influencers 

Building long-term relationships with influencers requires ongoing communication, transparency, and mutual respect. Be responsive, respectful, and timely in your communication. Be sure to thank them for their work and provide feedback to help them improve. Consider sending personalized gifts or notes to show your appreciation. 

Collaborate with Influencers 

Collaborating with influencers involves creating content that promotes your brand, product, or service. Here are some steps to follow when collaborating with influencers: 

  1. Influencer collaborations include sponsored content, product reviews, giveaways, takeovers, and events. Choose the type of collaboration that aligns with your goals and budget. 
  2. To create effective influencer campaigns, provide clear guidelines and expectations while giving influencers creative freedom. Provide high-quality products, services, or experiences that align with your brand values. Encourage the influencer to create content that resonates with their audience while promoting your brand. 
  3. Measuring the success of influencer campaigns involves tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as reach, engagement, website traffic, and sales. Use tracking tools such as Google Analytics or social media analytics to measure the impact of your campaign. Analyze the results and use them to inform future campaigns and collaborations. 

The Bottom Line: How to Use Influencer Marketing to Grow Your Business  

Influencer marketing is a great tool for businesses looking to boost their brand and reach new audiences. Companies can create impactful campaigns that drive results by identifying the right influencers, building solid relationships, and collaborating effectively.  

Influencer marketing constantly evolves, so staying updated with industry trends and best practices is essential. Businesses should also be open to experimenting with different influencer collaborations and metrics to determine what works best for their brand. 

Drive Business Growth with Agency Partner Interactive: Your Trusted Digital Marketing Partner 

At Agency Partner Interactive, we aim to help businesses grow their online presence and drive results through digital marketing strategies. We work carefully with our clients to develop customized solutions for their unique needs and objectives. Our team of experts specializes in various Dallas digital marketing tactics, including search engine optimization, social media influencers, and influencer marketing. 

We understand the power of influencer marketing in today’s digital landscape, so we recommend it as a critical marketing strategy for businesses looking to grow their online reach and engagement.  

Through our influencer marketing services, we help companies to identify and partner with relevant influencers in their industry, create compelling content that resonates with their target audience, and track and measure the success of their influencer campaigns. By leveraging the trust and authority of influencers, our clients can build brand awareness, content creation, campaign tracking, drive traffic and conversions, and ultimately grow their businesses. 

Get in touch with our digital marketing experts today and discover the benefits of influencer marketing for your business! 

business_survive

How to Make Your Business Survive (and Thrive) in a Pandemic

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Business Survive in a Pandemic

It’s October, and the coronavirus (COVID-19) is still leaving an indelible impact on the world. While the White House says a vaccine is coming shortly, there’s no news yet on how widely available it will be, who will be eligible to get the vaccine first, or how effective it will be at stopping the spread of COVID-19 and allowing the world – and businesses like yours – to return back to normal.

The simple fact is that both large corporations and small businesses have felt the effects of extended lock-down periods that, more than eight months into this global pandemic, are still limiting normal face-to-face interactions and commerce, and for some brick and mortar businesses, restricting the number of people you can have in your storefront at one time, thus slashing your revenue potential.

COVID-19 has been an unprecedented event that hasn’t been seen since at least the Spanish Flu of 1918. This means many business leaders, marketers, and even politicians are struggling with how to proceed during these difficult times, especially since the pandemic has endured for so long and there’s no foreseeable end in sight.

As a result, businesses across the country are going bankrupt and closing for good, especially small businesses. If you want to avoid this event from happening to your company, here are some ways you can make your business survive – and also thrive – in a pandemic.

Can You Grow Your Business During the COVID-19 Crisis?

The answer to this question certainly depends on the type of business you are currently operating. Overall, the need for business has never been eliminated nor will it be diminished in the coming months.

People still have the need and desire to shop for groceries, buy essential products, and lead the lives they were used to living. Do you operate an essential business? Are the products and services you have still attractive to your target audience during this pandemic?

If not, what can you do to pivot to create products or obtain inventory that will be in high-demand given your state or local municipality’s coronavirus restrictions? From retailers offering curbside pickup to commercial airlines providing cargo flights, our economy is full of several examples of companies that have transformed their way of doing business to either maintain their clientele or open up new revenue streams in the midst of COVID-19.

If your business’s revenue has decreased because of the coronavirus and you’re fighting tooth and nail to keep your doors open, what can you do to remain relevant and continue to operate despite consumers’ changed behavior or state or local restrictions related to your industry? These are the questions you need to be asking yourself to survive – and thrive – in a pandemic.

What’s the Best Marketing Strategy During the COVID-19 Crisis?

This has been a frequently asked question since country-wide lockdowns began. Even high-level marketers had genuine and desperate questions about how they could revamp their marketing strategies.

To answer all questions, the most important thing to do now is to continue growing your online presence. With more people working from home or staying at home to avoid large crowds or help their kids with online schooling, COVID-19 has caused internet usage to spike by 70% this year. Having a strong online presence will be vital in driving your marketing strategy forward.

With that said, here are some questions you should ask yourself during this pandemic regarding your marketing strategy:

  • Does your business already have an online presence? If not, you need a website now. Even if you’re a small boutique and can’t ship product, creating a website for your customers to browse and then purchase curbside can boost your revenue during these trying times.
  • Does your business have an intuitive, responsive, and well-built website? If you think your website is outdated, what can you do to make it more modern?
  • Does your business have a stable search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing strategy in place?
  • Have you measured the user experience of your website?

These are fundamental questions you should ask to begin the steps of improving your marketing strategy.

How to Adapt Your Marketing Strategy

Social distancing and other preventative measures have made conducting traditional business near-impossible.

Trade shows and events, for example, are now nonexistent and have all moved online, if that. Like never before, you have to be quick to modify your marketing strategy, especially if you’ve heavily relied on events and customer visits in the past.

Here are some things you should keep in mind if you want to sell your offerings more effectively:

  • Increase the functionality of your e-commerce store to allow your customers to order your products and goods directly.
  • Online deliveries are very common now. Make sure you provide a convenient and inexpensive delivery service to your customers. 
  • Add features to your website to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as online booking.
  • Update your Google My Business profile to reflect your business hours. This is very important in regards to user experience, especially if your hours have changed due to COVID-19.
  • Provide webinars instead of face-to-face meetings.
  • People have all sorts of questions. Create a live chat feature on your website or post FAQs to give your audience the answers they need. As a bonus, live chat makes it easier for your employees who are working from home to professionally answer your customers’ questions without their kids, dogs, or the neighbor’s lawn mower creating background noise.
  • Increase your email marketing, and even consider deploying marketing automation, to reach customers that you can’t visit in person or have difficulty calling due to employees working from home and having too much background noise in their makeshift workspaces. Email marketing is also a great way to inform your customers about any special promotions you may be offering or restocked inventory of essential items that have been flying off the shelf.

Another tip we want to go into detail here is to continue creating great content. With internet usage going up, it stands to reason that more people are reading online content such as blogs. Content is a major part of digital marketing.

It not only educates an audience but it also guides them throughout the process of initial interest in becoming a loyal customer. For example, if you are running an online business, you will still need to attract qualified leads and convert them. Research from HubSpot shows that companies that blog see 126% more leads growth compared to companies that don’t.

Conversion comes through exceptional and engaging content, in which a prospect finds awareness of your products and services, becomes interested in what you have to offer, and finally comes to a point of decision. 

Whether your company is in the B2B or B2C industry sector, focus your efforts on creating purposeful content that assists your audience’s development in your sales funnel. Blogs with images are great, and videos help convert leads at high rates. Video viewers are anywhere between 64-85% more likely to buy from you then website visitors who don’t view your video content.

Give Us a Call Today!

Do you want to revamp your current marketing strategy to survive and thrive during COVID-19? Are you searching for ways to improve the scalability of your business? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. Give us a call today at (214) 295-5845 or click here to Get a Free Quote to speak to a member today.

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “How to Make Your Business Survive (and Thrive) in a Pandemic” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!