It’s no secret that working with an influencer with a million followers doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll suddenly have one million new customers. So how do you turn those ‘double taps’ into purchases? Influencers with a significant reach posting about your brand or product will do a lot to help to increase awareness of it, but this doesn’t necessarily drive sales alone. Below are some things to think about when working with influencers that will improve your chances of converting followers into customers.

Pick an influencer that aligns with your target audience

This might sound like an obvious one, but carefully consider the demographic that is most likely to be following the influencer you’re thinking about working with. For example, while a female fitness influencer may well have a significant following and post a fair amount of content about beauty products, their audience may well be male dominated because of the photos they post. Trying to sell eyeshadow? You might be better off working with a male influencer in a creative way if you want to get through to their potentially more female-dominated audience.

Assess authenticity

Is their content organic and can you see real engagement on their pages? An uproar within the influencer community has exposed fraudulent accounts that buy followers. Before clicking send on your email pitch, take a look at a few of their followers’ accounts. Has there been an instant spike in Instagram likes for content which hasn’t really changed? Don’t be fooled – likes can be bought as well as followers. Are their comments spam? Buying desired responses can cause duplicate comments to appear below a picture, or even completely irrelevant phrases to the content itself! Human sense checking is a key way to outwit the bots. Influencers who regularly respond to their audiences are the ones most likely to generate the best results for businesses; their following is loyal and interested in what they have to say and therefore will trust their opinion in the brands that they work with.

Offer a unique voucher code

It can be hard to keep track of which leads generated by Instagram are the ones that are actually converting. Offering a unique voucher code is great for tracking which sales are generated by working with influencers and also encourages people to leave Instagram and actually go and make a purchase. If you set up a commercial partnership with the influencer where they get a cut of any sales, this will encourage them to become a dedicated micro sales team for your product.

Influencer fees

Not all influencers come with the sort of hefty price tag that makes it unrealistic for challenger brands to see an ROI, in fact working with an influencer doesn’t necessarily mean you have to part with cash at all! Depending on the originality and strength of your product, simply gifting or providing a unique experience is often enough to incentivise influencers to post something on their social accounts. After all, they are content machines and constantly coming up with new ideas to post about isn’t easy. Think about how your product can be packaged or ‘unlocked’ to suit their taste and give them something worth posting about.

Want some more advice on working with influencers or have a question about how it can fit into your wider PR activity? Get in touch!