Digital Transformation with Influencer Marketing
Helping businesses get through a digital transformation of sales and marketing can be challenging. Many companies claim to have advances in technology, but are just putting out lip service and not actually delivering on those claims. With the changes that have come about from COVID-19, it is more evident and apparent than ever which companies have their digital transformation in check, and which ones don’t. The ones that don’t are now facing the consequences of not having these good digital processes, and will only continue to suffer more consequences as digital transformation accelerates in the business world. Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to up your digital performance.
Influencer Marketing and Sales
Influencer marketing sounds like marketing, but it’s a lot closer to sales than you might think. The goal of a salesperson is to get leads, put potential clients in the pipeline, move the client through the pipeline as quickly and efficiently as possible, and then close deals. The process starts with leads, and through influencers, you have access to tons of people and potential leads. From a sales perspective, you’re asking the question: “how do I leverage other people on social media? How do I tap into their communities for a variety of different objectives?”
The Profile of an Influencer
So what exactly is an influencer, and what type of person should you be looking for as you explore influencer marketing? An influencer might look slightly different from a sales perspective than a marketing perspective. From a sales perspective, an influencer is anyone who might be able to introduce you or bring you into an organization, whether they work directly with the company, or perhaps just partner with them. From a marketing perspective, an influencer is a content creator. They’re blogging, creating videos on youtube, they might be podcasting, etc. These people aren’t necessarily toting a million followers, but they don’t need to be. If you have even 500, or 1,000 followers of connections, you have some bit of digital influence. Engage with them, and tap into their network, be it for a sales purpose or marketing purpose.
Build Relationships to Leverage Relationships
One of the most important facets of influencer marketing is being able to leverage your relationship with an influencer in an effective way. We all get bombarded on LinkedIn by people who just want to sell stuff to us, without ever getting to know us or getting to know what problems we have that need solving. There are a lot of really smart salespeople out there, but when they get to social media and technology, they try to find shortcuts and automate the process, which isn’t a successful way to leverage the relationship. To successfully leverage an influencer relationship, you have to start by building the relationship. Spend a few minutes every day reading their blog posts and their content, making meaningful and insightful comments, and putting in the effort to develop that relationship.
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