A big challenge new businesses face is getting their product or services in front of consumers. How can you grow your online presence and expose your brand if nobody knows you exist? A quick and easy way to increase exposure is to collaborate with people who already have loads of engaged followers. 

There are so many things a business can do to market its products or services, most take time and money and even then they have no guarantee of success. However, using social media marketing and getting a product into the hands of the right social media influencer could mean it's exposed to hundreds of thousands of consumers overnight.

So how can you identify these influencers? Influencers have a massive following and their followers are extremely engaged in everything they do. Their followers are loyal, have a lot of trust in what they say and highly regard their recommendations.

Usually, influencers are on:

• Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or other social media channels
• Blogs
• Vlogs e.g. YouTube

These offer countless opportunities for exposure through social sharing. Once an influencer shares your product, it will be seen by thousands even millions and then shared by their followers. 

So how can you find these influencers?​

• A large social media following
• Lots of engagement with comments likes and shares
• The high amount of traffic numbers to their websites

Now it's all about the PITCH! You need to really sell yourself to get the attention of the influencer. Here are six keys to a successful pitch:

1. Tailor your pitch and use the influencer's first name in the email.
2. Introduce yourself and your brand in a few sentences.
3.  Explain why you like them and how your brand relates to them.
4. Offer your product or service as a free gift.
5. Include a call to action to make them respond.
6. Be short and sweet, influencers get a very high amount of emails a day, don't bore them.
7. Next, follow up with the Influencer. Influencers are very busy people, if you don't hear back from them, send a follow-up message. We have found from experience sometimes a free gift is not enough. These days being an influencer is a full-time job and depending on how big their audience is, they expect to be paid if they want your product promoted. Consider asking them to do a paid post, depending on the cost, this can be beneficial. The amount you pay for a post compared to how much you might sell could be worth it in the end.

If you still haven't heard from them be persistent, there are other ways to attract the attention of influencers:

• Follow them on social media and comment, like or share their content.
• Add comments to their blog to generate discussion and be noticed.

Please note that if you're trying this, DON'T promote your product. You need to build a relationship with the influencer, then you can try to pitch again later.

Once the influencer is willing to work with your brand, what happens next just depends on the type of posts they do because each person interacts with their audience differently.​

Here are a few examples of how your product or service might be featured by the influencer:

Working with influencers is fantastic to build your brand. It's a quick way to be seen reaching a lot of people that you couldn't reach alone. Although be careful, you need to make sure you are picking influencers that are specific to your industry. Too often we see brands using influences that aren't quite right and they don't get the benefits out of it, making it a waste of time and money.​

Talk to us today about using influence marketing for your business. We can help you pick the right influencers, help you pitch to them and monitor the campaign's success.​​