Digital Marketing
How To Choose Influencers For Your Outreach Project
Outreach marketing is a cornerstone of great inbound marketing and increasingly used by digital marketers looking to stand out from the crowd. By reaching out to different influencers and communities, influencer outreach taps into the power of their networks.
As influencers by t heir nature are trusted by their communities, they make for powerful promotional partners – something which has particular relevance for hotel online marketing strategies.
Outreach Marketing Made Simple
Outreach marketing is the process of seeking out individuals or influencers who share a common goal or interest with your company’s offering and have a community of followers who trust recommendations and tips from that person. A commonly used tactic in branding, outreach takes a less sales-focused approach to marketing, relying instead on building valuable links and relationships with a relevant audience via the person who is the trend setter.
Choosing Influencers
This is a crucial step when beginning your outreach project. Influencers are those active bloggers and social media advocates who can provide you with a ready-made audience and specialised promotion opportunities.
Why do you need influencers?
Customers are careful who they trust. There are instances where a third party source can have significantly more veracity with certain key market segments, and aligning your hotel brand with an influencer will help to bring their network into your own sphere of influence.
To ensure you make the right choices, it is vital to:
1. Consider Your Goals
Hazy or unfocused goal-setting will lead to a hazy, unfocused outreach campaign. Defining what success will look like before you begin, alongside firm KPIs and measurable returns, is a way to prevent this largely organic marketing form from going completely off-track.
Launching any marketing activity without solid reasons why is one of the worst things you can do for your business, so ensure you are very clear on how you’ll know if you’ve been successful with clear, reasonable objectives.
2. Research Your Influencers Carefully
When selecting an influencer, you are seeking someone who can help you amplify your message. They are your business partners in this goal. Look for people who are genuinely enthused about your offering; if they can’t translate their enthusiasm to you, they are unlikely to be able to do so for your target audience and the entire outreach campaign risks falling flat.
The right influencer can have a superb effect on your revenue potential by driving new prospects and traffic direct to your website and heightening your own social media profile – so it is worth taking the time to get it right.
3. Look for Authenticity
Your ROI will be defined in large part by how well key messages are translated by your influencers. An authentic partnership will make sense for your audience, so seek commonalities and points of genuine meeting between your influencer and your hotel.
4. Check They Appeal To Your Demographic
This sounds glaringly obvious, but can’t be overstated. Your influencers must have genuine resonance with your target audience in order for all of the buzz you create to be worthwhile.
5. Consider the Costs
Different influencers bring with them different audiences – and different fees. Some partnerships could prove more costly than others, so be careful to ensure all financial details are hammered out and clearly defined at the outset.
