Episode 64 | 3 More Reasons Why You Need to Use Influencer Marketing

Sophia Noreen: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Boss It Podcast. As always, I am your host, Sophia Noreen. And today, we are going to be talking about influencer marketing again. And the reason why is because I feel that this is one of the number one strategies that any product-based or service-based business should be using right now when they are marketing their business. Influencer marketing through social media is so powerful. And we are completing our Diwali Seasonal Sale on our product-based platform, Also Sophia and we use influencer marketing again, and it worked. 

We were introducing a new product to a new community. And I'm telling you guys, it wasn't like people were searching these things, they were not looking for these items. These were decorative items for a holiday season called Diwali, and it was a minority festival. So it's not like it's in the mainstream at this point. I think it will be very short considering we had Target and Lowe's in the US that were actively saying, Happy Diwali and putting on their social media. So the point is it was influencer marketing that helped us get the traction for these products. And we almost sold out many of the skews, many of the items on our website. 

So I want to share three more reasons why you should be using influencer marketing. In a previous episode, episode number 62, we did talk about influencer marketing. And at that time, I shared three tips as well. The tips for that episode were a greater return on your investment. We also talked about how you get customer feedback, and we also talked about social proof. So if you have not caught that episode, after you finished listening here, make sure you swing back to 62, so you can catch the details around those three tips. And today, we'll be giving you three more tips as to why you should be using influencer marketing when it comes to marketing your business, be it a service or a product-based business. Both are able to benefit from social selling and influencer marketing. And again, like in episode 62, I spoke about how big brands have been using influencer marketing for decades. Almost a century Chanel, Coco Chanel, started using influencer marketing way back when she was basically spraying her perfumes around the store to help attract customers. That was a form of influencer marketing. So what are the three tips I'm going to give you today? Number one, influencer marketing helps you get great user-generated content. Now, if you have not yet heard the word user-generated content, you must take note of this. This is called UGC for short, and in the marketing world, it is all the rage. If you see somebody using your product or your service and you can get some contact from that usage. You have basically proven to a prospect, to a customer that people believe in your product and your service, and they're willing to invest in your product and your service. And so, by grabbing the user-generated content from your influencers, you are able to then go ahead and use those photos with your product or your service, use those videos, and you can actually repurpose them. This to me is like gold. If I'm paying somebody through either the product, like a PR package, or if I'm giving even a monetary value for their time. So for example, if I was paying an influencer a hundred dollars, you asked for a post and they took a good 10 photos for me with their user-generated content. So they're using the product, they're using the service, they're validating the product by going and taking the pictures, then I can go and take that content, those 10 photos, and I can go ahead and use it in my other marketing strategies. I can use it for Facebook ads. I can post it on my own Instagram page. I can go ahead and put it on Pinterest. It can be on the website. And so if you think about it, you are actually getting your influencers to help you develop content. And now, the content we know sells. The more content you have, the more you are able to expose your brand and your service to a prospective buyer. And that user-generated content then also validates the product and the service. So it's not just you posting pictures anymore, it's somebody that has believed in the product enough to go ahead and take the time. Even if it's a paid post, they've taken the time and they've put together content and they've used the product. And so, in any strategy that you decide to move forward with when it comes to your marketing for your business or your service, you should try to harness the impact of user-generated content.  

This can also come in line with testimonials reviews and whatnot. But the content that a user provides you in regards to photos and videos is priceless. Again, you may have heard the word white-labelling. We won't go too much into that strategy right now, but you can white-label other content. So for example, what we can do is we have an influencer that takes our products. So go ahead and put a post up with our product, and then we can go and run an ad through their page to help drive traffic to our page. So it is basically using their content, their entire platform and helping them run ads in the background. So that way, we get more visibility and it helps the influencer or the social creator as well because they get more exposure to their branding as well, and they get sales. We go through all of these details and a program we have. And I'll definitely give you guys more information about that in upcoming episodes.  

But this is the most powerful thing. So basically, if you are looking to do influencer marketing, you must use your user-generated content very strategically, and you will see great results. Okay, let's go on to point number two and that is the virality of your product. Think of it this way, if you have a number of influencers talking about your brand and your product, that will increase the exposure to your brand and your product. And if you have a great product-market fit, that means that when somebody gets your product or your service, they will love it so much that they will tell somebody else, and that person will tell somebody else, and it goes on and on and on. You are basically setting a small little fire with your influencers to go and tell their communities about what your brand is about and what they have to offer. And again, if you have a great product-market fit, that is key. 

You have to have a great product or a great service, otherwise, you'll be basically trying to light the matches and there'll be wet. But if you have a great product and you know your product is great and you're confident, then there's no stopping it. Once you go ahead and you get your five or ten or up to a hundred influencers, that's what these big brands do. They go and they get PR packages out. They're doing 30 to 50 a month. Those brands grow and grow and grow because they have figured out that their product is feasible and it works. So why not give it a little bit of momentum with influencer marketing? So again, guys, virality is key. If your product goes viral, everything drops in regards to costs. You end up spending less on ads, if you are doing paid advertisements in the background. And your product will sell just by influence. So people will see the product and they'll want it, and game over. You have just successfully launched your product in the sinosphere and it will have its own momentum to continue selling. 

Okay, the final reason I think you should be using influencer marketing that I'm going to share with you in this episode is that you are going to be building a community of buyers and followers. Again, we're talking about social media here. So, of course, the word followers exist. And you will naturally gain individuals who are ready to support your brand, support your mission, support your service, support your product, and they will naturally start following your accounts. They will naturally start gravitating towards you as a potential buyer, and they will just be there to say, great job, and they will spread the word. So Influencer Marketing is so powerful to help you gain this traction with a community. But there are a few things you have to keep in mind. You have to ensure that you're not just going and picking any influencer. It's really important to ensure that the influencers that you have selected for your campaigns actually align with your ideal customer. And we go through this as well in the program, and I will give you all that information shortly. But these are things that people will miss when they are trying to select influencers. And I made this mistake myself. That's why I know this firsthand.  

Just because somebody may fall into the "demographic", it doesn't mean that their followers are going to fall into the same demographics. So it is a bit of finessing that you need to do when it comes to research. You need to go ahead and look at who's following the count. You need to look at what the premise of the account is for. Does it align with your mission of your brand and your product? And I'll give you a very quick example, and I've shared this in other episodes. But if your brand is selling, let's say, gym equipment and you want to work with a beauty blogger whose followers are very much interested in makeup. Even if that beauty blogger has similar demographics, and maybe they do work out here and there, maybe that is part of their lifestyle. Do you have to understand why are those individuals in her community following her? What is the benefit of that account? Is that account for her beauty brand or is that account for fitness or lifestyle that she's trying to project? You have to be careful, because you could say, 'Oh, so-and-so's really great'. They have a great following and they work out, but then what is a reason for individuals to be following her community? And that's a really, really great example because it can get very confusing because there are a few checkboxes. You'd be like, 'Yes. she's within the right demographic in regards to age, gender, nationality, location.' You could go through the checklist and you could be like, she's a mom, she works out X, Y, and Z.  

But if that brand that she has created her personal brand on the social platform is for beauty blogging because she has a tutorial for beauty blogging, she sends people to her YouTube for beauty vlogging. You can think of the number of other details that would be pointing people to something else that's not fitness related. You have to be careful. So I'm going a little bit deep into that lesson, and I think the reason why I'm talking about it is because it's very important. If you're starting to build your influencer marketing campaign and you have the wrong, not identified who your ideal customer is, your IC, and we talked about this concept in so many podcast episodes that we have had in the past.  

And if you feel like you still need to nail down your ideal audience, your ideal customer, then you can head back to episode number 12, because that's where me and Laura talked about avoiding a bad client experience. And we tied into an ideal customer. Because usually, a bad client experience could result from the fact that you have not correctly identified your ideal client or your ideal customer. So head back to that episode, if you need a little bit of a refresher. But if you are confident and you are like, 'Yes, I know who my ideal customer is,' then the program that we'll be releasing shortly is going to be perfect for you because that is where we start to make sure that you've identified the correct influencer, who then will invite you into their community and help you build your own unique sinosphere, your own unique community around your brand. 

And again, that is so, so strong to have a community of followers that can eventually become buyers. It helps with your virality, which is what we talked about for tip number two. And in the end, that community will be providing you so much user-generated content, UGC, because they will take photos and they will tag you. And then when you ask for reviews on your website, there are different tools that we can use to grab their user-generated content. And then you can repurpose it with their permission on different social platforms. So guys, these three tips all really linked together nicely. Just, again, validating the reason why influencer marketing is extremely powerful and it must be completed if you want your business to continue growing. 

I really strongly believe that if you're not using influencer marketing, you are leaving money on the table and you're doing a disservice to not just your brand and your product, but you're also doing a disservice to many customers who'd benefit from your service as a brand or as a product or a service. If you don't tell people about you and how you're going to be able to facilitate that obstacle that they are facing and your solution as a business owner is to help them overcome that obstacle. If you don't tell them about your brand, then you're doing a disservice. And sometimes that is what I used to help me reframe as to why I need to market a bit more than I'm comfortable with. 

Marketing is uncomfortable for many people, especially if you're coming from a non-profit sector like I have come from. Marketing is not taught to us in school. It's not part of our sinosphere, in a hospital setting because truthfully, we don't want people to come to the hospital. We're trying to avoid people from coming to the hospital and to a healthcare center. So the point is, if you're uncomfortable with marketing, just think of it as an act of service, because the more you talk about your brand about your product, about your service, the more you're benefiting your ideal customer.  

Okay guys, let's go from the top. I'm going to quickly go through the three additional reasons why you need to include influencer marketing as part of your marketing strategy. The first is, of course, user-generated content. As much as possible, so you can repurpose that content in different social media platforms or for ads. Next, if you use influencer marketing, there's a better chance of your product or service going viral and grabbing momentum and selling more. And the last reason that we discussed today was building a community of buyers and followers that can support you in all of your additional initiatives that may come up. And we briefly spoke about your ideal customer, your ICA, your ideal customer avatar. And if you have to brush up on who that might be, episode 12 is very useful because we talked about that in that episode with Laura about how to avoid a bad client experience.  

And guys, again, I have great news to share with you. We will be releasing shortly the program, Influencer Marketing Made Easy. I know many of you had joined it in the past, and it helped with getting your influencer marketing campaign off the ground. Again, it is like an experiment when you run influencer marketing campaigns. I have to say, again, with sheer confidence that influencer marketing was what has allowed us to grow our company so steadily over the last three years. And it was also, without a doubt, one of the reasons why a big retailer like Walmart picked us up because they knew that we had the social influence and the clout to bring in customers from using social media into their stores. 

So you might think, oh, you know, I don't know if my product is the right type of product for influencer marketing because I don't expect a lot of sales unless it's done in a specific way. Influencer marketing actually can open doors to other things like a retailer. So don't discount influencer marketing because perhaps you use it in the past and you didn't get the sales that you thought you would. You have to remember that you have to be able to say, okay, I learned from this campaign. What can I do better next time? And of course, our program goes to many of the details. A few of which we talked about today of how to diagnose if there's a flaw in the campaign, like you may have selected the wrong influencer to sell your product or share your brand. And those are common mistakes. Some people don't even know how to even approach an influencer. So those are common areas of concern of how to get started, so we'll talk about that. And I'm really excited to share more with you. So I will, in the coming weeks, share a little bit more especially when the official opening occurs. 

Again, we do run this program on a six-month basis because that is when we find most brands are doing marketing strategy work. And so, we will release it shortly. We will let you know. And if you're catching this episode, later on, you can always head to bossitclub.com and check, because we will put it on our main homepage when it's up and running. And we're extremely excited to have more people learn about the value of influencer marketing and how to do it correctly. Because again, like I said, there are a lot of boo-boos, a lot of issues that can happen if you're not actually strategizing your marketing accordingly and using the correct influencers. And then also, how to approach the influencers and ensure that they feel like they're part of your team. They're not just somebody who's being paid a gig, and they forget about you. the goal as a small business is to build that relationship with your influencer partners because in the end, as they grow, you'll grow and you'll support each other. 

And you never know, you can become really great friends with them. So again, keep an eye out on bossitclub.com if you are listening to this episode a bit later on. We're recording this in the fall of 2021. And if you're just catching it brand new, fresh off the broadcast, then, of course, we will be keeping you posted on when it will be coming up, and you can definitely enrol and check us out. And again, if you have any questions, you can always send an email at [email protected]. You can also head to our Instagram, which is @bossitclub. And we are quite active on our direct messages. Again, guys, we are super happy that you are taking this initiative, the step to learn about valuable tricks and tips in marketing. It is only going to make you more successful. But remember, listening is not the only thing that you need to do. You do need to make a plan, an action plan, and start working on these things for your business. 

And so again, like I always say, you have to make a plan and take action. I don't mean that lightly. We are coming to the end of 2021, and many people are going to be reassessing how their year went. And of course, putting new goals out there, trying to make that a reality. And when you do that, just make sure that you are being realistic in your goal setting. And if you're a busy person, like many of us are, make sure that the goal that you've created for yourself, you actually made time to complete that goal. And I run into this as well, and without getting too much into another entire podcast episode, I want to just say that even if it's influencer marketing, if it's releasing a new product or service, it doesn't matter what your plan is, make sure you've carved out a little time each day in your agenda to work on it. Because if you don't work on it, it's not going to happen. And that's pretty much it.  

So ensure that you are dreaming big and you're planning, but make sure it's scheduled into your calendar. So you have time to work on it. And then you can enjoy the journey of being an entrepreneur and being a business owner, and not always feeling so stressed. Because again, the last thing we want you to do is to feel stressed about all the great things that you can accomplish and do. Again, it's about the journey, it's not about the destination. And we want to make sure that you are enjoying the journey and eventually, we'll get to that goal that you're envisioning for yourself and for your family.  

Okay, enough of that from me. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Again, if you have any questions, you can always send us an email or send us a direct message on Instagram. And we will catch you guys again next week, same time, same place. And again, remember, make a plan and take action. And yes, you can have it all. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye.