Why Influencer Outreach Should Be Part Of Your Next Campaign

Influencer marketing is here to stay. More and more brands are investing their money in influencer outreach to improve their brand awareness, credibility and sales – not to mention communications with those hard to reach demographics.

Influencers, unlike celebrities, can be anywhere and they can be anyone. In every industry, there are influential people, whether that’s a popular fashion photographer on Instagram or a well-respected marketing executive on LinkedIn.

Carswell Gould is ahead of the game with this trend and we can show how influencer marketing has already been a great success, as demonstrated through Go! Southampton’s Parenting Blogger campaign earlier last year. The aim of this campaign was to drive recognition of Southampton as a truly great place to visit. We invited four parenting bloggers to visit Southampton for 48 hours to experience how much there is to do for families in and around the city. In return, they would promote the city to their followers. Activities included visiting the SeaCity Museum and the Art Gallery, Seaside in the Square, and Paulton’s Park to name a few. Across the bloggers’ social media sites alone, we achieved reaching over half a million social media users.

Influencer marketing is growing faster than digital ads, with emphasis being placed on leveraging an industry leaders’ followers to foster growth for your own business. Ultimately, influencers are easily recognised by their hundreds of thousands of followers – that’s the desired target audience.

The seven sells of influencer marketing:

1. The opportunity to work with bloggers and influencers.
2. Influencers and bloggers work with people who they are genuinely interested in.
3. Influencers quickly build trust with their followers.
4. Improve brand awareness.
5. Enrich content strategy.
6. Effectively reaches your target audience.
7. Build strong partnerships.

The beauty of influencer marketing is that the audience is already there. Influencer marketing positively affects the two both parties involved (the influencer and the client). As the influencer gets involved with the marketing campaign in hand and views are generated on their channels, the client subsequently receives a similar following. It’s a win-win situation. However, in order for the relationship between the influencer and the client to be sustained, there must be shared values between the influencer and the client in order for the campaign to truly resonate with the audience.