How to Get Influencers to Promote your Brand: Step by Step Guide!

Influencer marketing is a powerful way to boost your brand’s visibility and credibility. Partnering with the right influencers can enhance engagement and reach. This guide offers a strategic approach to securing and managing influencer collaborations for optimal results.

Social media continues to grow rapidly, driving the rise of influencer marketing. According to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2024, over 90% of brands view influencer marketing as an effective advertising strategy and plan to increase their investment. However, simply running an influencer marketing campaign because it’s a trend doesn’t guarantee success. The key lies in selecting the right influencer for your brand.

This article will guide you through the process of finding the ideal influencer to maximize your return on investment. But first, let’s define what we mean by "influencers."

What's an Influencer?

Influencers are personalities with a considerable social media following who can impact consumer buying behaviour. Most influencers post content on social media related to specific industries like travel, beauty, fitness, gaming, and more. Some people also consider content creators and celebrities as influencers. Even if they don’t post content as experts in a particular industry, they can still influence purchase decisions on social media.

Now let's see the importance of having the right celebrity for your brand.

Why Choosing the Right Influencer is Crucial?

Choosing the right influencer is crucial for several reasons:

1. Targeted Reach

Influencers with expertise in a specific industry or a strong connection with particular demographics, such as age groups or gender, offer your brand precise audience targeting. By choosing influencers whose followers align with your target audience, your marketing campaigns are more likely to reach the right people, increasing the chances of conversions and building brand loyalty.

2. Trust and Credibility

Influencers are trusted by their followers for their honest opinions and reliable advice. When they endorse your product or service, their trust transfers to your brand, making it easier to build credibility. This trust factor plays a crucial role in influencing purchasing decisions, especially in highly competitive markets.

3. Higher Engagement

Influencers have a significant impact on their followers' purchasing behavior. Their ability to connect personally with their audience leads to high engagement levels on sponsored posts, including likes, comments, and shares. This heightened interaction increases your brand’s visibility and sparks conversations around your product.

4. Brand Alignment

Choosing an influencer whose tone, content style, and values align with your brand ensures a seamless message. This alignment not only enhances the authenticity of your campaigns but also strengthens your brand identity by making the promotion feel natural and relatable to the audience.

5. Cost Efficiency

Working with influencers who cater to a targeted audience allows you to maximize your marketing budget. Instead of spending on broad, untargeted campaigns, you can achieve better results by investing in influencers who deliver focused exposure, generating higher returns on investment.

6. Brand Reputation

Collaborating with highly trusted influencers enhances your brand’s reputation by associating it with someone who has established authority in their niche. This positive association helps your brand stand out in the market and builds consumer confidence, paving the way for long-term brand loyalty.

How to Pick the Right Influencer for Your Brand

1. Define the Goal of the Influencer Marketing Campaign

Your marketing goals play a major role in choosing which type of influencer to work with, how many influencers to involve, and more. Beyond choosing an influencer, the goal also helps determine which type of influencer marketing to opt for.

There are three major goals that brands generally aim for:

• Brand Awareness: Brands want to introduce their product to the market, reaching as many people as possible. New brands and brands launching a new product generally use influencers to achieve this goal. Here, the brand may work with a large number of influencers or those with a massive following.
• Lead Generation: With this goal, brands aim to get leads or signups. This type of campaign generally involves influencers with a targeted audience and sometimes content creators who ask their followers to sign up, download an app, etc., where brands may offer something free like a free webinar.
• Sales: This influencer marketing campaign involves asking consumers to buy the product directly while offering some discount. Brands may involve niche influencers if they are selling a niche product (e.g. protein supplements, gaming consoles), but they can also collaborate with mega influencers if the product is generic.

2. Know Your Target Audience

Your target audience will be the primary thing to consider when choosing the right influencer for your brand. The target audience is the statistical representation of your ideal customer, considering demographics (e.g. age, gender), interests, pain points, and other important factors. Once you define your target audience, it will help you find the right influencer who can relate to them, giving you targeted reach.

3. Set a Budget for the Campaign

Before starting your search for an influencer, decide how much you are going to spend on the influencer marketing campaign. You may have to spend on content creation, influencer fees, and other things like the cost of any free product you're giving to the influencers. The budget will be one of the key decision-makers while choosing the right influencers, as their cost may vary depending on the number of followers, engagement, etc.

4. Identify the Right Type of Influencers to Work With

Primarily, influencers are identified based on the number of followers. Here are the main types of influencers:

Influencers can also be divided into different niches like beauty, fitness, travel, and more, which are essential for a brand selling niche products to a targeted audience. So, when choosing the type of influencer, a brand must focus on the number of followers and niche if necessary.

Along with that, consider the social media platform you are going to run the campaign on. Some influencers have a huge following on Instagram, whereas others are known as YouTubers. Like many brands, you can go for both.

5. Search for Influencers

Once you have an idea of which type of influencer to work with, it's time to start searching for the perfect influencer for your brand. Here are a few ways you can search for influencers:

• Contact Tring: Finding an influencer is a time-consuming task, but Tring, the best influencer marketing agency in India, can help you get a list of influencers with their price list. With more than 15,000+ contacts, we can help you connect with influencers with low to high numbers of followers in any niche.

• Explore Industry-Related Hashtags: Hashtags on Instagram can help you explore creators who use them. Once you click on any hashtag, you can find top influencers who are using it.
• Explore Listicles on the Internet: One of the simplest ways to find influencers is by searching on Google with queries like "Best fitness influencers in India" or "Top content creators in India." In the results, you will find listicles mentioning top influencers.

Use any method you like, but ensure that you create a detailed list of influencers along with their number of followers, niches, and other factors you are considering.

6. Set Criteria to Choose the Right Influencer

Once you have a list, set some criteria to filter out the best match for your brand before contacting influencers. Here are a few criteria you can use:

• Engagement Rate: Engagement rate is a formula that helps brands know how well an influencer's audience engages with their posts. The higher the engagement rate, the better. However, keep in mind that the higher the number of followers, the lower the engagement rate. So, avoid comparing a micro influencer's engagement rate with that of a mega influencer.

• Quality of Engagement: While the engagement rate is useful, you must also manually check the quality of the influencer's engagement. For example, check if followers interact meaningfully in the comments, asking questions related to the product.
• Audience Trust: Influencers may have a huge following, but that does not necessarily mean the audience trusts them. Assess whether the influencer is perceived as genuine and trustworthy by their followers.
• Personality/Tone of Voice: Some influencer marketing campaigns may require a specific personality. For example, you might want a funny personality to represent your brand or a more serious influencer to promote your product. Ensure the influencer’s personality suits your product.
• No Negative Association: Collaborate only with influencers who have a positive image among the audience. Look through news and other sources to ensure the influencer has no negative associations that could damage your brand’s reputation.

7. Contact Influencers You Shortlisted

Once you’ve filtered the list of influencers you want to work with, it’s time to contact them. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Direct Message: The simplest way to contact any influencer is by sending them direct messages for collaboration. Keep the message brief, but mention all necessary details to attract the influencer. However, influencers receive numerous DMs daily, so they may not always respond.
• Email: A more formal approach is emailing the influencer. You can create a fixed template to approach influencers with a formal message of collaboration. But similar to DMs, the chances of getting a reply may be low.
• Call: Having the contact number of the influencer or their manager is the best way to connect. You can have one-on-one communication, explaining how you want to collaborate. However, obtaining a contact number may be difficult.
• Through an Agency: While the above methods may help you connect with influencers, none are as effective as using an agency like Tring. Tring can help you find the right influencer for your brand, connect with them, and manage the relationship for you. With a large number of influencer contacts, we can handle multiple influencers at once, which is difficult for you to do alone.

8. Listen and Negotiate Influencer Demands and Deliverables

Once you’ve established communication, the actual negotiation starts. Here, you explain your needs and ask about the influencer’s compensation. During the conversation, you may need to negotiate with the influencer about how the deal will proceed. Here are a few types of influencer marketing deals:

• Free Product: This deal involves providing a free product to the influencer in exchange for a promotion on their social media. Some influencers may also ask for monetary compensation along with the free product, requiring negotiation.
• Affiliate Commission: Some brands allow influencers to earn commissions on each purchase through an affiliate link or personalized code. Similar to free product deals, influencers may ask for monetary benefits in addition to the commission.
• Monetary Compensation: In this deal, the brand provides monetary compensation in exchange for promotion. However, this deal may require more negotiation as some influencers may ask for a price that exceeds your budget.

9. Get Started with Influencer Marketing

Once all negotiations are complete and the influencer agrees to work with you, you can begin your influencer marketing campaign. Ensure your influencer marketing strategy is in place before starting. You can check our best influencer campaign examples to create a robust plan.