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Marketing is common sense in a lot of ways but the digital tools that exist today to help you get your goods or service to the people who need it are numerous and at times, complex.

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This post will help you understand a few of the common ways that influencers can help you in your marketing efforts. At the end of the day, the winner in business is the one who can market themselves in the smartest & most efficient way possible. Let's make sure that's you!

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Read anything on marketing and you will see mentions of "the sales funnel". The funnel is meant to help you visualize how your customers become customers. Specifically, how they move from not knowing about your brand at all, to having your services in their cart.

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The concept of the funnel has been around since 1898. While the world is infinitely different than back in the day, humans are hard-wired to behave in certain ways and the marketing funnel is still very accurate in relation to the thoughts behind every purchase.

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Influencer marketing helps with every stage of the funnel and it's important that when you plan your campaigns, that you think about each of these stages and how the collaboration targets each one.

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Most people tend to think of activating influencers for the sole purpose of including a direct link for customers to purchase something, but this would be an ineffective strategy because so much of the conversion process has been skipped over.

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Let's use a couple of examples to illustrate how each stage of the funnel is covered through a campaign, often simultaneously.

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The most common types of businesses either sell a good or a service so I'll use an example of each.

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Good/Product - For this example, we will use the beautiful and minimally designed Young Lux tableware for kids. This bamboo collection definitely deserves a spot on baby registries everywhere!

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Finding a team of influencers (let's say 10 for the sake of this example) to gift a tableware set with the following caveats can ensure they help potential buyers through their discovery process:

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Awareness:

Can be achieved by asking each influencer to make a post of the plates in use and talking about why they like them (ie. design, eco-friendly bamboo). The reason that the influencer likes them should be tied to the theme of their account - ie. fashionista Mama's should be focussing on the design since that's what their audience values, and the eco-friendly Mom should focus on the materials used (which seems like common sense, but worth mentioning).

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Having the influencer site their issues with the current children's tableware options (they are too colourful and don't match minimalist home decor, or are made with potentially harmful plastics) can identify an issue that people are experiencing.

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Interest/Evaluation:

In the above post, tagging Young Lux's own Instagram account will direct interested consumers (aka. warm leads) to the brand's own account to learn more about the products.

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Also the use of a unique hashtag for this campaign (ex. #lovinyounglux) can enable people to quickly see what others are posting about the brand.

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Sale/Commitment:

A second post can be done within a couple of weeks by the same influencers that offers some sort of special discount or offer that can be directed to within the caption using a promo code/affiliate link.

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Service - When I was living in Toronto, I had the pleasure of meeting Nikki Bergen and taking her pilates classes. They were hard but she was so lovely that it counteracted the exhaustion and made me look forward to the weekly torture, I mean class.

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The Bump Method (Online version or in person) is a specific class/set of exercises dedicated to pregnant or postpartum women. The classes can be taken at a variety of studios in the Toronto area or can be accessed for a fee online. Momfluencers (as we here at Momfluence affectionately call them) are the best demographic for her to recruit & grow her audience.

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Awareness:

Nikki's main educational component related to The Bump Method relates to how pregnancy can weaken your core. Her solution to regaining that strength is of course her classes. Having a team of pregnant or postpartum influencers discuss the issues they are trying to prevent or have experienced related to a weaker core is a great way to get women in a similar position relating to the issue.

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Interest & Evaluation:

A second post could be a video clip of the women doing the online class for example and giving their feedback in review format (IGTV style or in feed video) after doing the classes for several weeks. Of course, linking to The Bump Method's own IG channel directs interest so they can see more about the problem and solution provided.

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Sale/Commitment:

Lastly, the influencers could post an invite to their pregnant/postpartum followers to join them in doing an online class at a specific time; a virtual communal class to encourage conversation post class. Having the influencers post a link for the audience to purchase access to the class would drive sales right from Instagram and encourage engagement for the influencer at the same time.

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A lot of times, influencer marketing can be incredibly direct and efficient by hitting on all stages in one post. But rarely do people buy something the first time they see it, in fact it can take up to 7 times before someone is ready to make a purchase.

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Having the influencer campaign span a few posts, or even making it a long term collaboration spanning many months can be the best strategy to gradually hit on every psychological aspect we as consumers go through in our buying decisions.

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Want to dive deeper into how the marketing funnel can be optimized for your particular business? Check these out for some incredibly helpful insights & tips.

Comment below if you need a quick strategy to best use influencers for your business!

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