In our business, we often use influencers to speak on behalf of our clients to elevate a campaign or a brand’s voice. Oftentimes these individuals hold influence over your target audience because of their authority or insight into a specific subject allowing them to act as credible third-party advocates and purchasing power motivators.
How an Influencer Marketing Agency can Maximize Your Impact, Budget, and ROI
While we might typically think of an influencer as someone with a large following, the profile of an influential individual has expanded beyond social media and can also include people of prominence, like a doctor, dietitian, or athlete. When deciding if influencer marketing is right for you, it is important to consider if your product or service would benefit from third-party validation and if so – what type of individual can help you reach your strategic marketing goals. Managing relationships, timelines, contracts and budgets can be daunting but partnering with the right influencer marketing agency can help.
Finding the Right Strategy with the Help of an Influencer Marketing Agency
Influencers can range from highly-connected A-list celebrities to the mom next door who shares her daily life on social media. These influential people can increase visibility for your brand in varying degrees – you can utilize them to create content on social to reach their audience, host events, act as a brand spokesperson in media interviews, or use their name and likeness in marketing and advertising.
Beyond followership, it is important to consider other factors that contribute to influence. For example, medical professionals such as doctors or nutritionists can easily break down complicated topics in an organic and easy-to-understand manner. While they might have a smaller following on social, their highly engaged audience trusts their expertise and oftentimes media outlets will harness insights from these individuals to support their stories.
As a PR and influencer marketing agency, we’ve utilized influencer programming in three key ways: to support a business in a 360° marketing campaign, to boost a brand’s credibility, and to garner mass attention. As we discuss the strategies for each, it can be helpful to imagine each scenario for your business and how the rubber might meet the road as you move forward in your influencer marketing.
Finding the Purrrrfect Fit
In 2019, Zesty Paws, a functional pet supplement brand, was in need of an expert who could speak on behalf of their products to meet their goals of growing awareness in the press, building credibility and increasing product distribution. Konnect was tasked to find the right partner to serve two purposes: 1) provide the brand with validation which would 2) attract media and customers to write about the brand and consider purchasing.
Through Konnect’s search, we identified a Vet partner, and within 45 days into the relationship, we noticed a sizeable uptick in social media engagement, press opportunities, and a newly energized voice for the brand. The partnership continued to grow with vet trade show opportunities, offering another platform for Zesty Paws to speak directly to a Vet audience and grow their awareness.
Just before the end of the first year, the vet program had created more than 80 pieces of social content with nearly 1M impressions and 23 articles in outlets like Yahoo!, Reader’s Digest, PureWow, Dogster, and PopSugar. These are just a few examples that prove how an influencer marketing program can grow beyond its original scope and be flexible to benefit the brand’s priorities and goals.
Backing Your Brand with Credible Professionals
Recommendations from a trusted professional can help a brand build credibility and trust with consumers. For some of Konnect’s clients in the health and wellness space, third-party validation from health care professionals and doctors is a critical component of the overall marketing strategy.
For example, our client LELO, a leading designer brand of intimate lifestyle products, aims to be at the forefront of conversations related to sexuality, identity, and pleasure. In order to effectively showcase how LELO bridges the gap between sex and intrapersonal discovery, connections, and relationships, we leveraged insights from sex and relationship experts.
Our panel of experts includes Dr. Laurie Mintz, Ph.D., and author of Becoming Cliterate & A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex, Casey Tanner, Certified Sex Therapist specializing in gender and sexual diversity, Zhana Vrangalova, Ph.D., professor of human sexuality at New York University, and Dr. Alyssa Dweck, MS, MD, FACOG, co-author of “The Complete A to Z for your V.
Utilizing insights from this network builds brand credibility, separates LELO from its competitive set, and uniquely positions the brand as a leader in the sexual wellness space. As a result, we are able to build strong relationships with editors who are looking for information that will help educate their readers, and garnered coverage in national outlets including InsideHook, Coveteur, Glamour, Greatist, Oprah Daily, and more.
An (A-List) Take on Celebrities
A partnership with the right celebrity at the right time will elevate your brand image. Whether it’s a launch, tentpole campaign, or an evergreen brand initiative – a celebrity ambassador can drive massive reach and ROI for your brand.
In 2021, Noodles & Company debuted TRUFF Mac, a hot take on its classic Wisconsin Mac & Cheese dish with a decadent drizzle of Oprah’s favorite TRUFF Hot Sauce on top. The limited-time-only menu item warranted a celebrity partner who would drive awareness of the season’s hottest dish and as a mom and on-air radio show hostess, Courtney Lopez was the perfect partner to reach Noodles’ key target audience of millennial parents. Through both PR and digital efforts, this partnership enabled Konnect to effectively communicate to reach Noodles’ target audience and in less than a month, the campaign achieved 31 articles, dozens of pieces of TikTok and Instagram content, and social media chatter that spread from coast to coast.
In this example, this partnership drove widespread brand awareness to support a key launch and secure media in entertainment outlets. Without a celebrity endorsement, coverage in these outlets would have been largely unachievable.
Finding influencer partners for your business can be time-consuming and might seem a little daunting, but in our experience, they can be an effective way to connect with your customers, increase your brand’s presence online, boost sales, and move the needle for your brand.
Looking for an influencer marketing agency?Konnect with us to learn more about our work and how we’ve helped other brands build brand awareness through successful influencer partnerships.