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Hey ,

Today I want to share a few lessons on how to ACTUALLY find success working with influencers for your brand. If you're like most brands, you've tried working with influencers before and it was a complete flop. At a minimum, it was probably a waste of time and maybe a waste of money. So let's break down how this process works. 

 INFLUENCER GOALS 

The most important thing is to properly set expectations for what influencers can do for your brand so you go into it with the right mindset. Here are potential goals for working with influencers:

 🤑 SALES - Drive referral revenue.

• So here’s the deal, having an influencer post about your product once WILL NOT drive a ton of sales, if any. Why? People are not scrolling on Tiktok or Instagram looking for products to buy. That person seeing the post is likely learning about your product for the first time. If your measure is sales per influencer post, you’ll be disappointed.

• To drive sales, you need to have an influencer repeatedly post about your product in an authentic way.

• It’s impossible to know which influencers will drive revenue in advance. Seed your products to hundreds of influencers to see which ones actually have a high conversion rate, then double down with them and incentivize them for continued growth.

👋 AWARENESS - Introduce people to your product for the first time.

• Depending on the influencer, each one will have varying degrees of engagement with their audience. A one-time post has a high likelihood of being missed. Build a relationship with influencers so they are regularly posting about your brand (at least once per month).

• To be successful with influencers, you have to go all in. Building consumer awareness requires dozens, if not hundreds of influencers who are regularly posting about your brand. This way, potential customers “see your brand everywhere.” Marketing research has shown that most consumers need to see a brand/product at least a few times before they will actually buy.

• You can find an influencer’s engagement rate easily using free tools like this chrome extension.

🌅 CONTENT - Get video and testimonials to then use later.

• We use the term “influencer” but most of the people you’ll end up working with are really “creators”. This means that they know how to create entertaining and engaging content, whether they’ve built an audience or not first.

• One of my favorite things is to work with compelling creators to make video content that you can then repurpose for paid social ads, post on your own organic channels, and even use on your website product description and landing pages.

When working with influencers, go in knowing your goal and setting proper expectations.

  PROCESS 

Relationship building is extremely important when working with dozens of influencers and is usually where the process becomes so overwhelming that you quit. Let’s face it, you’re a small team and have a million other priorities too. I used to manage this process in a spreadsheet or CRM, but now utilize SARAL’s influencer management software. Why? They make the process so easy that you’ll actually reach scale where you’ll see an ROI. Below I share how to manage this process manually and how to do it within SARAL.

1. 🔎 CREATOR PROSPECTING

• The most successful influencers tend to be nano-influencers with a following between 3k-20k. They’re the most affordable and tend to have more engagement with their audience.

• Manual: Search Instagram or Tiktok by hashtags related to your brand to find potential influencers.

• SARAL: Use their built-in influencer search feature to find partners in bulk with tons of filtering options

1. 📩 EMAIL OUTREACH

• Manual: Once you find the influencers, add them to your spreadsheet or CRM, then e-mail each with an engaging offer. Don’t just ask them to try free product and post. Create a compelling opportunity for them to try your product and become part of your community with a big upside for them.

• SARAL: Automated influencer outreach with follow-ups including personalized information. You can send hundreds of e-mails at once. If they don’t reply, it’ll send a follow-up e-mail checking in. Create a predictable outreach system without anyone falling through the funnel.

1. 💲 OFFERS, CONVERSATIONS, NEGOTIATION

• Manual: Keep track of influencer conversations updated in your spreadsheet, email, or CRM. Have a set offer, though understand that every influencer may have separate fees and rates for posting. Keep track of this so you’re not sending each the wrong information.

• SARAL: Includes a custom-built CRM designed for influencers with specific tagging options. Keeps track of all your e-mails pulled into one central dashboard.

1. 🎁 SHIP PRODUCT

• Manual: Add influencer information to your Shopify backend one by one. Make sure you’re creating a great, personalized unboxing experience the influencers can get really excited about.

• SARAL: Connects with your Shopify account to automatically add influencer shipping and product information so you can ship free products in bulk in just a few clicks. Once the influencer receives the product, you can create automated follow-up emails from within SARAL.

1. 📈 TRACK AND REPORT REVENUE

• Manual: Create discount codes for each influencer within Shopify. Then e-mail the code to them along with posting information.

• SARAL: Create discount codes or tracking links in bulk for all the influencers who receive free product and send them an automated e-mail. Once they start driving traffic to your store, all the analytics populate in the dashboard.

1. 🤝 BUILD LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS

• Manual: Analyze influencers to see who is performing best by adding their performance data to your spreadsheet. Then identify your top influencers and double down with them forming long-term partnerships.

• SARAL: Keeps track of each influencer showcasing their rate per post and amount of revenue driven over time, so you can easily identify who your best influencers are and incentivize them for continued partnership.

WRAP UP

Build a community of hundreds of influencers to leverage their full potential. I partnered with SARAL and they’re offering a free in-depth strategy session where their founder will help you create a unique strategy for your business. You will see the option to book with them once you start your free trial. Not just this, if you really want to build your program, they’ve offered to send you a custom list of 100 influencers tailored for your brand so you can get started emailing them and building relationships in no time! If you’ve been contemplating starting with influencers, don’t miss on this special Foodbevy offer! Now is the time to do it.

Jordan Buckner

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