How to Productively Integrate Influencer Strategy in Marketing Plans

Influencers are increasingly becoming indispensable partners in most affiliate marketing business programs. These days, Influencers and the content they create help to support many initiatives across the various teams managing a brand. That is why you now find Influencer inputs into product development, PR, events, social media and even in affiliate marketing efforts/plans. That requires some creativity though if you want good results from such efforts in the medium to long term. That is the reason why integrating Influencer strategy in marketing plans now appears to be a very smart business strategy. 


 
As a marketer, the way you perceive and actually use Influencers in your marketing business is what determines how far their influence can benefit your marketing efforts. If you want your business to benefit maximally from influencer efforts, it helps a great deal to see and also use Influencers as:

Events Promoters

Planning events could be hectic and time consuming more so when the invite list must be thoroughly scrutinized to be sure it includes the right local influencers. These Influencers must be involved and notified in advance what the events entail and what roles they are expected to play. This is made possible by briefing these Influencers far in advance with the schedule, key messages, short lists and hashtags. By inviting local Influencers to your events, it is one fantastic way to spread awareness and excitement via the blog and social posts of such Influencers. These posts somehow allow Influencers to share their unique point of view and drive traffic to your social media channels. Inevitably, these actions help to create demand and interest in the event even before it occurs. Local Influencers also help to push e-commerce and retail sales by simply sharing affiliate links to products, site-to-store offers, etc.

Highly Creative Partners
 
Content marketing relies heavily on resource-heavy content creation. That demands a great deal of creativity to make happen. In creative output, partnership tends to get better results than solo efforts. Some persons may be highly creative at photos/visuals while others may be very good with written content. A combination of both can help get better results than from just the effects of one of them. With creative partners, you can easily obtain the rights to use Influencer images and content across many social media channels, websites, prints and emails. Adequate care must however be taken to ensure you discuss usage rights upfront with Influencers, how you’ll credit them, and the timeline and plan for promotion across various channels. That is one great way to come clean and be faithful to your partnership with Influencers.

Co-Content Creators

Online Marketers have since discovered that launching a co-branded product line with an Influencer is a very smart business strategy. This is because Influencers are advantageously positioned on the front lines with their audience. In that position, they can easily identify gaps in the market to create products that resonate with the audience. That is collaboration. It is Influencers who somehow help to provide a real promotional boost across their own channels, engaging their audience and driving new customers to the business. As an added boost, most Influencers like to support the endeavors of other Influencers and are always willing to help spread the good news because it is mutually beneficial to all parties. Some Influencers are both marketers as well as customers. For that reason, they willingly play a big part in the development of the launch plan, messaging, and promotional strategy of brands. 

 

Data-Driven Marketers

Most affiliates rely hugely on accurate data derived from metrics to measure their earnings and business growth. They thrive on earning commissions. This incentive encourages Influencers to share more often about brands, even when there’s no campaign going on. That enables them to make accurate data-driven decisions about what they share, how they share it and what results are coming in from where. Thus, most marketers have the ability to go deeper with their own metrics and reports on clicks, sales, new customers, understand the customer journey, and even measure cross-device types like Smart phones, laptops, tablets, and desktops with reliable affiliate tracking. More and deeper metrics far beyond social engagement give marketers the opportunity to prioritize Influencer partnerships for better revenues and ROI. With this, it is really very smart for marketers to take advantage of data derived from tracking as a veritable way to gain more business insights.
 
Virtually Everyone Who Knows Someone Else
 
Marketers must now take cognizance of the fact that for as long as someone knows someone, anyone can be an Influencer. With this notion, many brands now use their social media channels to repost user-generated content created by real customers who can become reps, have their own product page, and earn a commission. That enables even the brand’s own employees who naturally champion the business culture and morale both internally and externally to also play the role of Influencers and earn commissions too. Come to think of it, who wouldn’t want to join a viable marketing train and earn better incomes? All you need do is to be an Influencer in your own right irrespective of whether you are employed by the brand or not.


 

How to Leverage Social Media to Grow Affiliate Programs

Have you heard? Social media is where nearly everybody is at these days doing their own thing. It has mass appeal and mass following, the reason it has become an essential channel for online marketers to grow their affiliate programs. Today, mass adoption of social media by marketers has no doubt impacted every facet of marketing in many and immeasurable ways. The most beneficial way appears to be affiliate and partner marketing since this is carefully designed to leverage on the popularity of social media. Essentially, in the online marketing world of today, any type of partner, including influencers, can leverage the principles of affiliate marketing to reach a very wide range of consumers exactly where they tend to spend a very significant part of their time while online. Such channels include but not limited to where a majority of them may be found just scrolling around. Such places like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest where they are either following influencers, or they are influencers themselves. This established relationship hugely supports the idea that influencers and social media together can help bring an incredible monetization opportunity for affiliates involved in affiliate marketing programs.

 

Many online marketers now know that they can find a wealth of new opportunities for engaging with potential customers via social media channels. The good news is that it works! Just as consumers grow more and more comfortable using social media channels for brand and product discovery, and shopping, social media options continue to expand. Thus, if you are a marketer looking to deepen your relationships with customers, it is smart to consider leveraging social media in your affiliate marketing efforts. With the ease of use, popularity, mass appeal and easy tracking technology associated with social media, good marketers can easily take advantage of these offers to grow their revenues and affiliate businesses.
Here are some simple ways affiliates can leverage social media to grow their revenues and affiliate businesses.

Always Take Advantage of Social Media Innovations
 
Social media platforms are always trying to evolve new and practical ways to satisfy their numerous users. That is why many like to innovate based mostly on user preferences. These innovations bring with them, new social tactics more user-friendly platforms which are better at engaging the target audiences. As a marketer, it is smart to always seize the opportunities of these new innovations with a view to leveraging the newest ways to acquire new customers and build brand loyalists as a viable way to grow your affiliate marketing business.

Leverage Advanced Tracking Capabilities of Mobile Commerce

The world is increasingly in a hurry and mobile devices are becoming indispensable in world commerce. Most people are finding it increasingly easier to complete business transactions right from their mobile devices. These devices now come with advanced tracking capabilities which affiliate marketers can rely on to determine the direction and progress of their marketing efforts. Facebook alone as a very popular social media platform has over 1.3 billion active users and over 90% of these persons are accessing the platform by way of mobile devices. In combination with other social media platforms out there, we are looking at over 3.5 billion active users. That is a huge mobile market out there with advanced tracking capabilities affiliate marketers can leverage for their businesses. Marketers can now track nearly everything from what partner influenced an app download to what mobile tracking link led to a conversion. That makes it easy for them to incentivize their affiliate partners to ensure prompt and accurate payment of commissions. These advanced tracking capabilities of mobile devices now make it easier than ever before to optimize affiliate campaigns which marketers are running through social media platforms.

Target Your Audience from Their Favorite Platforms
 
Well, it is a marketing truism that every business person must try to take his business to where the right customers can be found. Daily, many social media users spend considerable time on the platforms and many are on multiple platforms. That is where they can be accurately targeted depending on which platforms they use more. Even if you are partnering with publishers, media brands, influencers, or other brands, distributing co-marketing content on the social networks exactly where your audience is active tends to make a very good marketing sense. That ensures a more even and much cheaper distribution among content marketers, bloggers/influencers, and social media channels. It engenders better results as well.


 
Align Your Content to All Stages of the Consumer’s Journey 

In today’s social media-obsessed world, many bloggers and other content marketing affiliates rely hugely on social media to creatively and effectively promote their brands. On social media, they rely heavily on good content to drive awareness, consideration, and eventual purchase. Therefore, social media tends to play a very huge role in the early stages of the consumer journey up to the final click to buy. Advanced tracking capabilities enables marketers to deploy better attribution and improved partner commissioning strategies. Thus, by including social media channels in your affiliate programs, you can easily enhance your ability to reach consumers in all stages of the purchase journey starting from product research to comparing prices to the actual buying of the product/service. With the ease of tracking transactions from anywhere associated with them, social media partnerships now help immensely to broaden affiliate marketing techniques and with better results in tow.

Work with Affiliates who have Commanding Influence on Social Media
 
This influence is determined by the number of followers the affiliate already has who trust him and rely in his judgement to make buying decisions. Working with such influencers as partners helps to get marketing traction faster online. If you choose to distribute promotions and offers through social media influencers, the purposes may be different. Maybe you are looking to elevate average order value, repeat purchases, or new product/service experimentation. The type of influencer you settle for on social media will largely determine how successful your quest can be. By setting very clear expectations up front with your social partners, it will therefore not cause future disputes to determine exactly what constitutes a desired action, and what doesn’t. That settled, it becomes easy for you to optimize high-performing programs and to drive incremental revenue through the social media channels that are working well and giving the desired results.