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3 Comments

What are your thoughts on working with influencers/ creators to reach a wider audience for your products/services?

The few people I've asked had this opinions:

  • it takes time and chance to find a fitting influencer
  • influencer agencies only work for larger budgets
  • influencer agencies add a lot of cost to the actual cost
  • for my product/service it doesn't make sense to work with influencer
  1. 2

    Fame alone doesn't generate sales. Fame can generate awareness, but awareness is barely the first step.

    People don't buy until you a) have something they want and b) they trust you to deliver it.

    LACK of fame also is not the barrier that it's usually chalked up to be either.

    It doesn't take much to show up in public places and be helpful, consistently, and suddenly appear "famous" to a relatively small (but meaningful) group of people. That's how most people become "famous" anyway, in as much as it matters in the context of business and sales.

    The one way that other peoples' reach can work for you is if you use their reach to get in front of their audience yourself. E.g. guest appearances on podcasts or youtube channels, guest blog posts, and other collaborations can be a great way to predictably connect with an audience that you don't already reach.

    But the key is that once you're in front of them is to earn their trust yourself. That's what will help you make sales.

  2. 1

    I've worked with micro-influencers, people with 5000 to 10,000+ followers who are popular, attractive, female and tend to be the centre of their network for an app I made.

    It works well for getting started in a localized zone such as universities for pretty much no money. Most influencers just posted a video I made using Microsoft Powerpoint for free on their instagram and facebooks and it was an easy several thousand downloads and many became DAU.

    However I only worked with micro-influencers because of my budget and you quickly exhaust the people you reach. Its quite good for conversions though because these influencers were trusted by their followers. Thats my two cents and all my experience with influencers.

  3. 1

    I think partnerships with content creators whose niche is aligned with your own might be more attractive than simply partnering with influencers. From my experience, influencers just want to get paid for being famous, yet they don't really evangelize the brand. They want to get paid for a post and then move on to the next sponsorship. This might work well for companies who are willing to throw money at influencers to drive brand awareness.

    Depending on your product, I think you'd be better off partnering with a podcast or somebody else with a list/eyeballs to promote your product, and align your interests to everyone wins when sales convert.

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