There’s a lot to unpack in the Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing by Eric Butow and Stephanie Garcia. But as a resource and reference on the topic, this book is as comprehensive a blueprint as I’ve ever seen in a book, making the word “guide” seem minimal for all the treasures you’ll discover.
Because I snatched an early copy of the book, I am starting this post before my much-anticipated interview LIVE with Stephanie Garcia on The Marketing Mirror. I’m thrilled to be a small part of the team promoting the new book, and getting the word out to propel it into the hands of the Creator Economy. Small businesses and agencies will also surely benefit from consuming it. (You may want to gobble it!)
This book isn’t just a read. It’s a walk-through, how-to, and occasionally a Wow, too, must USE, manual for winning campaign strategies and events, by leveraging influencers with a strategic and meticulously planned blueprint.
And if that last sentence says a lot but sounds like a mouthful, let’s take it down to the simplest explanation the book reveals, saying, “Content, social media, and influencer marketing have become three intertwined strategies.”
Finding the Synergy for Brand Influence
Further, the book suggests,
“It’s no wonder we can no longer think of them (content | social | influencer marketing) as distinct paths. Each step builds on the success of the one before: content sells with trust; social media deepens that trust through transparency; influencers leverage that trust to influence B2B and B2C purchasing decisions. Together, they form a circuit of authority and appreciation—the shared currency that grows any brand.”
This simplified perspective is foundational to either B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer) businesses because aligning the influencer’s audience, platform, and values with the brand, is essential. As the visual suggests, this synergy builds deeper amplification for brands to a more targeted audience and in a more powerfully strategic way.
Working with influencers helps you stand out in a crowded marketplace, moving your product and services in front of the right people with the added credibility an adored influencer brings. You can probably think of examples where an influencer made a product or company blow up with sudden new sales and recognition simply on the word of an influencer.
You gain sales from trust, not necessarily of you or your product, but of that influencer/spokesperson. This can broaden your customer base exponentially in some cases.
One tactic I see lately similar to this influencer trust credibility idea is when an email you subscribe to shares their favorite email lists they recommend YOU to subscribe to… well, are you feeling it?
We can go deep and wide on how to find the right influencers, from where to look, what to look for, what their role is, how the campaign brief is built, why it’s needed, and much more. But it’s probably in your best interest to grab the book for yourself to gain all the steps and insights. (Not an affiliate.)
The B2B Creators Influencer Model
Still, not all brands, influencers, products, and services are alike. As you can imagine, audiences too, are impactful in how any influencer program is received and how successful or unsuccessful it is. I don’t have to remind you how disastrous mismatches are for brands using influencer campaigns. 🍺 Budweiser, anyone?
Anyway, back to the book review. I love the B2B four-part model they highlight in the book, inspired by leading online digital strategist, Michael Brito. (britopian.com/)
His Creators Influence Model consists of four segments in B2B influencer marketing:
- creators,
- collaborators,
- curators, and
- content promoters.
As a seasoned blogger, this makes perfect sense to me! Each role plays a significant part in the content marketing, distribution, and amplification process. It combines social media, PR, content assets and strategy, humans, and more.
Every component has a purpose and all work together. From creation to processing and perfecting; from repurposing and sharing, to promotions; each part is imperative and helps scale the project. Next, add the magic of an influencer…
The strength, power, and influence this system supports produce an extraordinary grouping of mixed media assets. Use these assets to power your brand further and for extended time and added reach.
But one ingredient has to fit— so much so— that the book suggests putting extra time, care, and possibly expense into perfecting the pairing of business-to-influencer as a top priority.
The Influencer in Influencer Marketing Matters
Involving your influencer in the project from start to finish allows them to give custom suggestions. For example, they may add their personal understanding of the platform, audience, or the creative brief. Involving your influencer more in the process makes them care more. And possibly share more!
An influencer may offer an idea or spin beyond your thinking that’s insanely good, fresh, or surprising. Plus, building a strong relationship with influencers helps extend the relationship and deliver better results for your business. Respect your influencer’s expertise, understanding of the market, and ability to connect with the right people effectively.
In the interview and book, Stephanie emphasizes how impactful the influencer “fit” is in creating successful partnerships. Aligning values and beliefs to your company mission, audience and platforms to your business, and niche topics your influencer shares is key.
Additionaly, consider your company culture, and remember the industry you’re in also advises your selection of influencers.
The most popular industries effectively using influencer marketing at this time are:
- Health care
- Fashion and beauty
- Travel and lifestyle
- Technology
Of course, Influencer Marketing isn’t limited to these or any industry, product, or business.
It’s the care you take including research, pre-planning, and campaign coherence that are more important. And, of course, selecting the proper influencer for your brand!
Stretch Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Further
Start by doing the research before deciding on an influencer. Organization and clarity allow you to strategically select and collaborate with the right person or persons. Here are some of the questions to ask yourself and cover in the pre-planning stage so a clear direction is set, and everyone understands it.
Stephanie and Eric identify the following in the book to start a successful influencer marketing campaign:
- Define Your Goals: Why do you want to work with an influencer? What do you hope to achieve?
- Identify Your Target Audience: Who is this campaign trying to reach?
- Find Influencers that Align with Your Brand: Will they communicate your brand in a way you want them to? Is the audience and platforms a targeted match to your business?
- Dig Into Your Research: Based on the above info, now the work begins!
In the book, you get all the steps inside and out, the red flags are spelled out, and each essential part to gain true insight before you grab an influencer or start a campaign, is explained in detail. There are tools for influencer marketing (research, etc.) in the book, along with cost guidelines for an idea of appropriate spend to factor into proposed campaigns. And a whole lot more!
From an influencer perspective, packaging via a Media Kit or with customized proposals for specific affiliates, sponsors, or partnerships helps you maintain control by spelling out what you do, or don’t do.
Working together from a Campaign Brief (get the template in the book!) helps to coordinate efforts in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Having this guideline assures all responsibilities are spelled out, timelines and schedules set, and also shows any gaps or room for adjustments in the strategy.
Beyond the Campaign
One of the points Stephanie reveals in our interview is how much further a business or brand can go to leverage the assets and media created in conjunction with an influencer marketing campaign far beyond the initial event or scheduled campaign. This means ample opportunities are available for things like repurposing of content (content confetti as Stephanie calls it) to use for social media, blogs and articles, on the website, and for other promotional capers.
Wise use of these assets means the ability to continue the excitement and extend the value of hiring and working with an influencer.
The influencer, too, may extend the value of the relationship, particularly if they love a product or service and want to talk about or mention it further, organically. One example Stephanie gives is how she talks about Elgato products, like the new prompter they recently sent her, just because she’s totally in love with it and how it makes telepromting easier for her in a whole bunch of ways!
Castmagic (affiliate link) is another example she gives and it’s a product we both kind of love and don’t mind saying so at all. I know I talked about Castmagic on several occasions even before I became an affiliate for them! The distribution and amplification of your valuable content assets gets much easier to extend and spread with this handy tool, a digital marketing and content repurposing dream for creators.
Are You an Influencer?
It may surprise you when Stephanie shares some secrets for how you can position yourself as an influencer and land paid backing via affiliates, sponsorships, partnerships, collaborations, and via other brand deals and trade. Nano influencers have as few as 1000 (to 10k) total followers on social platforms and possibly little to no mailing list in some cases.
However, keep in mind, the power of a hefty email list is also an appeal, even over social signals, to some brands, as is USG (user-generated content) you can create.
⬇️ Watch the Interview ⬇️
But have no fear, because as an influencer or to position yourself to be one, there are some things you can do to spotlight yourself and gain positive attention. Hopefully, leading to new opportunities. But one thing Stephanie strongly suggests is to proactively approach brands and businesses on your dream list in a meaningful way to spark interest, and start a connection.
The book, Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing, gives you some key strategies to attract sponsorships and collaborations. And, it’s never too soon, notes Stephanie in our discussion, to start building relationships for bigger things to happen later for you.
Below are seven areas the book highlights to help you enhance your visibility and attractiveness to magnetize potential brand notice as an influencer:
- Optimize Social Media Profiles and Bios
- Create High Quality Engaging Content
- Actively Engage With Brands
- Leverage Keywords (SEO) and Hashtags
- Network via Industry Events and Online Communities
- Collaborate With Other Influencers to Cross-Promote
- Showcase Analytics and Results Showing Successes
While these sound pretty straight-forward, the book reveals useful information and ideas (including bad ideas) to elaborate on each area. Having an active digital presence requires consistency and participation, but that’s only the beginning. Building trust and visibility is imperative but takes time.
Influencer Marketing For The Win
If you’re a business using Influencer Marketing, thinking about using influencers, or are an influencer, Stephanie and Eric’s book is a must-have. It gives you the steps, the examples, the details, the glossary of terms, and even the templates you need to create a grand-slam with big bam influencer campaign, shining a new and intense light on your business, product, or service.
I think a lot of people are going to have floppy-eared editions from referring to it often. And everything Staphanie shares in the interview (and I share here) only scratches the surface for how helpful and detailed it is, as every chapter is carefully crafted to showcase and cover every aspect of this timely topic.
And remember, while mega influencers may grab headlines, smaller influencers shouldn’t be overlooked.
“Their high engagement rates can drive significant impact for marketing campaigns, creating authentic connections with niche audiences,” enthuses Stephanie. A highly targeted audience often produces better results than a bigger, less-engaged audience. Don’t be fooled by follower numbers, Stephanie warns.
Effective Influencer Marketing Campaigns are based on authenticity and alignment as much as on reach and frequency. However, a carefully constructed, adjusted, and rehearsed Campaign Brief helps keep things fluent, transparent, and timely for all involved. It also allows for input, flexibility, and change in the development process.
By working together on the central ideas and mission from the brief, the final campaign rollout stands to be stronger and more powerful because of a deeper understanding in the concept and plan, along with a true team effort in the final strategy.
Enthusiasm by your team and influencer shines through in the campaign and that enthusiam is contagious to those who experience the project. Excitement and people talking about your product, business, or service— starting with your influencer— equals further reach.
Influence and Marketing Are Old Pals
It’s not new news that people prefer to hear what a person says over what a company says. We’re always asking friends for ideas or opinions on things we’re thinking about doing or buying. And marketing, as you know, has always been about persuading (or influencing) someone to buy.
Still, there’s a lot to uncover and discover when it comes to the benefits of Influencer Marketing, particularly for the digital stage where business transpires more and more.
But not only for business, learning is also leaning to the digital environment. Even for the B2B market, much of the pre-buying research, comparison, and consideration phases take place via digital properties and means first. Additionally, it’s reported that the number of touchpoints with a business before any direct interaction has increased as much as double in recent years. This emphasizes a need for visibility.
For some businesses today, visibility alone is a need an influencer can fulfill and you are probably familiar with businesses who have paid spokespeople (influencers) talking about their product on a regular basis. A great example of this is Roberto Blake and the sponsors he talks about on each of his videos on YouTube, including Streamyard, Tubebuddy, Opus, and Kajabi. (Having all those sponsors is a great reason to keep making video content, right?)
The best takeaway I can leave you with is this. The Influencer Marketing industry is an open and growing ad spend for businesses. It’s untamed at this point giving creators and businesses a lot of room to work creatively and strategically with key influencers to produce exceptional results. There’s an opportunity for small business and small creators as well as huge brand/creator relationships to surely benefit both sides.
More for Your Business Bookshelf!
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