Influencers have become invaluable tools when it comes to product launches, and having a few of them boosting social proof for your product before it goes live can help you gain traction fast. However, too many people have a reductive idea of what influencer marketing is or are unaware of its strengths and limits.
Influencer marketing should be used with other marketing techniques in order to have the biggest impact. You should also understand how an influencer could add value to your brand, and not mistake influence with popularity. Let’s take a look at how you can take your product launches to the next level with influencer marketing.
Start Building Traction on Your Own
Before you start looking for influencers, you should already start building traction for your product ahead of time. One of the best ways to do so is with a product launch email marketing campaign.
For your campaign to be effective, however, you need to have a solid email marketing platform to launch it from. SendInBlue and MailChimp are both very popular options and are routinely used for product launches. However, they have significant differences that could make one better than the other for you.
PieSync has an informative article entitled “Sendinblue vs. Mailchimp: which email marketing software is best?’ where they dissect both platforms and show their pros and cons. They also run down who should be using each one. In addition, they also touch on things like GDPR compliance if you plan to launch your product in Europe for instance. These are all important things if you want to get the best value and if you want to have a global reach.
Give them Creative Freedom
Having an influencer do a sponsored review of your product is nice, but it’s a concept that has been done to death, and some viewers simply tune those out. What works great is allowing influencers to showcase products by actually using them.
Allow them to create content that resonates with their audience and where your product will be integrated naturally. Look at the type of content they’ve done before, and see if it’s a fit with your brand and demographic. And let them be themselves – the result will be much more authentic and will connect with their core audience better.
Don’t Neglect Reviews, However
While sponsored reviews are common, there are some cases where they’re still the best way to reach your audience. If your product is highly technical in nature, having some influencer do a funny bit on it might not be the best approach.
Give early access to your product to influencers, and get their impressions on the product first. You want to work with people who seem genuinely enthusiastic about the product. Their audience will then be more inclined to listen.
Influencer marketing is a great tool if you want to reach a whole new audience that could resonate with your product. It’s also a great way to build brand awareness, and lots of attention to a new product in a short period of time.
Freelance contribution especially written for Find Your Influence by Grace Murphy.