How Can Influencers Help Your Start-up To Grow?

As a start-up, you may be wondering how to build a strong presence through your marketing strategies. You don’t need to have a big budget to grab your spot in the market, but you do need to have a well-planned approach. Influencer marketing is a great way to get your brand out there without having to spend the big bucks. Working with nano and micro-influencers are increasingly being considered more valuable to businesses and a great starting point for a low budget.

Define your goals

The starting point for any influencer campaign, whether small or large, is to identify your objectives. Jumping into the world of influencer marketing can be exciting, but it’s important to reign that excitement in to focus on what really matters.

There are a few common aims that we see from brands interested in beginning an influencer marketing campaign. Consider which of these would apply to you. You may have several of these goals or different ones too.

• To increase brand awareness
• To improve brand engagement
• To produce new content
• To generate more conversions

For a start-up, brand awareness may be at the forefront of your objectives. But influencer marketing can help companies with various different goals. The important thing to note is that these must be clearly defined in order to achieve a successful result.

Plan your campaign

With your objectives in mind, the next stage of the process is planning. This isn’t a complex process but requires your patience and dedication to understanding what you are willing to put into this campaign.

1. You’ll want to consider your campaign timeline

Are you launching this brand or product campaign in correspondence with a certain season, important date, or a sale? Lining up with a certain time, such as a Black Friday campaign, or a Christmas campaign, for example, can be particularly effective. Or, is there a short time frame that you need to release the campaign quickly, meaning you may have to look for influencers with a pretty free calendar.

2. Consider your budget

It’s really important that you understand your budget before reaching out to influencers. Knowing how much you are able to invest will help to determine which category of influencer you can work with. Payment incentives can vary in cost with influencer categories ranging from nano to celebrity status. For a start-up, nano and micro-influencers have proved extremely effective.

3. Think about the best social media channel to use

You can find influencers across many popular social media platforms. Instagram influencers are generally the most used for influencer marketing, due to Instagram’s highly visual nature. However, many platforms are popularly used, and working with YouTube influencers or TikTok influencers may be better suited for your brand. You should assess your target audience to discover the platform which would reach this audience best, bringing us on to the next point.

Find influencers

Once your initial campaign planning has been done, you’ll want to start the search for influencers that can work well with your brand. With your target audience in mind, it’s vital that you are working with influencers that have an audience within this demographic. After all, it’s no use marketing to a group of people with absolutely no interest in your type of brand!

The best way to find influencers that would align with your objectives and target audience is to use an influencer marketing platform like Heepsy. This way, you can search through dedicated filters such as influencer type, location, language, and social media channel, to name a few. Below shows how your search can be conducted with Heepsy.

As a start-up, we would recommend working with nano and micro-influencers to meet your goals. When it comes to influencer marketing, it’s important to remember that bigger does not mean better. Over recent years, companies have seen the growing success of working with smaller influencers as opposed to celebrities. This is due to their perceived authenticity, as well as access to niche markets. For example, you may want to grow your business by initially working with local influencers who can engage an audience in your area.

Analyze influencer profiles

Through your search with Heepsy, you can then begin to analyze influencer profiles. This is important in understanding if their audience will align with yours, as well as addressing audience authenticity metrics. You can view the influencer’s audience demographics, interests, authenticity, and take a look at other brands that they are working with.

For example, as your brand is beginning to grow, you should consider working with influencers that have good engagement rates. This will show you how well they interact with their audience, which as a result means that their audience is engaged with their content. This indicates a level of trust between the influencer and their followers.

Another example would be to look at audience location and language. If your initial growth requires attracting local customers, then there is no reason to be working with an influencer that has an audience across the globe. Equally, if your brand is primarily English-speaking, then an audience that is Portuguese will be less likely to be interested.

Conclusion

To sum up, influencer marketing is definitely worth your investment this year, no matter your marketing goals. As long as you have established clear objectives and have spent time working out a defined plan, then you’re already on your way to success. With all of the above going well so far, your next step will be to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaigns, to ensure that you are reaching their full potential.