Let’s say you’ve been working as an artist for some time, and you have amassed a legion of satisfied clients through the years.
However, until now, your influence and reach are only dependent on word of mouth, offline marketing strategies, and your limited social media following.
You are aware of the importance of online marketing these days. But, you are also mindful that it would take time to build your brand online, especially if you’ve been focusing on growing your business offline for the past few years or so.
The good news is that there’s a marketing shortcut that can help you widen your online reach in no time – and that’s through influencer marketing.
What is an Influencer Marketing Strategy?
Influential marketing has flourished over the past couple of years. In simple terms, it is the use of an influencer in promoting a brand or a business.
Contrary to popular belief, an influencer doesn’t have to be a celebrity or a person with millions of accumulated followers across different platforms.
Influencers can be someone with even just a few thousand followers on Instagram or other social media networks. Still, their contributions, words, and content are deemed valuable as diamonds by their loyal fan base.
They are the antithesis of celebrity endorsers that cost more than an arm and a leg to close an endorsement deal with. And such a price tag doesn’t translate to sales.
In fact, according to a survey done by Collective Bias, only 3 percent of the consumer population is influenced by celebrities in purchasing a product.
84% of marketers believe influencer partnerships are effective
Influencer MarketingHub
Similarly, the use of traditional media is also starting to lose its converting power or influence to convert their followers to buyers. On the other hand, the use of an influencer marketing platform is increasing its momentum by the hour.
These days, consumers are more likely to buy a product or avail of a service that is promoted by their trusted influencers. This is attributed to the fact that the influencers are more relatable than paid celebrities or media personalities. Hence, people perceive their “voice” as more authentic and less staged or paid.
Besides, influencers are also careful in accepting a product or service to promote. They know that if their followers would sense that they are starting to be less authentic, and more like a paid and controlled endorser, they can quickly lose them in a snap.
And this is another aspect that makes influencer marketing effective in tapping your desired market and in increasing your reach and conversions.
Are you new to this influencer marketing platform? Don’t worry! I’ll try to cover as many details as possible in this article.
How to Work with Influencers to Promote Your Artworks
Choosing the right influencer is the start of a fruitful collaboration, paid partnership, or endorsement. You don’t have to find an influencer that is famous in your specific field or niche, as long as he or she shares a similar vision as your brand, then that would be fine.
For an artist like you, you can’t limit your options to famous artists and art lovers. Imagine the interlinking webs that connect you with other fields.
If you are following a fashion influencer who is currently designing his condo unit, you can try to send him a message and ask if he might want to look at your artworks. That’s just one way of opening the conversation.
Of course, you can also go directly and send him an offer right away to promote your artworks. Although he is a fashion influencer, at this time, your artworks can be relevant to his life stage, since he is designing his condo’s interior.
You just need to look at things from afar and from different angles. If you are too focused on an exact niche that could help promote your artworks, then you are also limiting the possibilities that you can get from the influencer marketing platform.
Below is a guide to help you get the right influencer on board.
1. Identify the Influencer to Work with Your Brand
Finding the influencer that could best promote your artworks can be tricky and overwhelming. There are tools that you can use to help you with this task, such as BuzzStream and BuzzSomo. However, if you can, it would be better to manually do it yourself at first.
The most convenient way to find influencers is through a simple search on Google, and other search engines. Influencers already have an established name in their respective fields.
Hence, if you will search for industry-related terms on the search engines, you will certainly come across some of the most popular influencers nowadays.
You can also read blog posts that are relevant to you as an artist. Most of the time, bloggers cite some influencers on their posts. You can search for them and find out if they would be an excellent fit for your brand.
And don’t just focus on the body of the article; try to browse the comments section. Sometimes, if you just take your time to dig into this section, you’ll be surprised to discover some valuable gems.
One more valid tip in finding the right influencer to promote your artwork is to look for areas where your target market is lurking around.
Aside from blog posts and Google search, you can also find influencers on social media. You can simply type the keywords, or use hashtags to spot the trending content creators and influencers on such topics or niches.
And of course, you can find influencers by joining seminars, conferences, forums, trade fairs, and other offline events that allow you to meet the influencer and strike a conversation personally.
If you’ve placed certain people under your radar lately, you might want to keep posted with their future events and happenings.
Most influencers share their upcoming shows, guesting, talks, and engagements on their social media accounts. Once the opportunity comes, don’t delay. As they say, strike while the iron is hot.
2. Time to Connect with Your Chosen Influencer
Once you’ve narrowed down your list to one, two, or three influencers, it’s time to send your pitch over. But, don’t be too excited and reckless as to send a generic message.
Don’t just use a template. It’s better if you write a custom email to your chosen influencer to make it more personal and sincere.
And to do this, you should have followed the influencer for some time and you already know a considerable amount of information about him or her.
If your knowledge about the influencer is limited, then, you might need to ask yourself again, “Why are you considering this person to promote your brand in the first place?” Believe me, if a person doesn’t light a fire within you, then why would your followers or target market be interested in him?
In this age of Instagram and other social media channels, it can be so tempting to drop a comment at one of the influencer’s posts. But, I highly discourage this. It’s just too lame and unprofessional. If you can’t send him an email, then, for goodness sake, send him a private message.
3. Keep Your Pitch Short and Simple
Remember the acronym K.I.S.S.? Well, it also applies in drafting your pitch to your chosen influencer. Be mindful that he or she is probably bombarded with tons of emails every day.
So, be sure that you catch his attention long enough that he ends up reading your pitch until the very end.
However, keeping your pitch concise isn’t the same as being too specific in what you want to happen, that you may sound too dominating and overbearing.
You may also want to start your message by addressing the influencer by his name, and not just “Dear Influencer.”
Similarly, be sure that you know his name and you spell it correctly. It might be a minor detail, but trust me – a misspelled name is a major pet peeve.
Also, it’s just appropriate to introduce yourself and your brand to him, but don’t make this pitch all about you. A single paragraph can be more than enough introduction. In fact, a sentence may already work.
Focus on building a relationship with the influencer. You can do this by simply sharing your thoughts on his content.
You may cite a particular post from his blog that left a big impression on you and lead to your decision to reach out.
4. Set Your Budget or Plan How to Reward Your Influencer
While it can be true that influencers are like normal people who have a physical business or a 9 to 5 job, some make a living solely out of their influencer status. So, before you send your pitch, it’s better to consider that his service is not for free.
If you don’t have a marketing budget just yet, at least think of how you can reward the influencer. Are you planning to offer a collaboration video on your YouTube art channel or are you going to offer him some freebies, exclusive benefits, free artwork, and so on? There’s got to be something that you can put on the table.
5. Send a Follow-up Email
Let’s face it – there’s a high chance that your email will be ignored. However, that doesn’t mean that the influencer is not interested. You may have just sent the email at the wrong time.
You’ll never know, maybe he already “starred” your message so he will be reminded later. So, instead of relying on such a chance, it’s better to be more proactive by sending a follow-up email.
However, you shouldn’t overdo it because it can certainly be annoying at some point. Or to some extent, it’s just that the influencer isn’t interested in working with you. It’s simple as that. Don’t take it personally. Shrug it off. Move on, and find another influencer.
This time, try to reassess the situation and ask yourself what happened. Think of the possible reasons as to why the influencer ignored your offer.
You might want to change the way you look for the right influencer to work with. Or maybe influencer marketing isn’t for you just, yet?! Why not try some products to promote your artworks, instead?
Significance of Working with Influencers
In this digital age, influencer marketing can really do wonders to your brand whether you are still starting or you’ve been in the industry for some time. Influencers are simply as their label says.
They have the power to influence, persuade, affect, provoke, and promote. Well, you can think of almost every positive adjective there is, and that’s how they are.
But to be more specific, here are some of the benefits of working with influencers:
- Introduce you and your artworks to a highly engaged audience
- Instantly widen your reach within your desired market
- Tap a new audience who might be interested with your works
- Attach a positive image into your brand
- Help you rake in sales, offers, and leads
All of these benefits are too tempting to just disregard. As such, more and more businesses are using the influencer marketing platform to their advantage.
The success of an influencer marketing campaign starts with the right influencer for the job. Having an influencer on board requires a well-thought-of plan and human connection.
Yes! It’s not enough to want to work with a certain influencer. You need to engage with your chosen influencer for some time to make your offer more sincere and increase the likelihood that he will respond to your message.
It might sound like a lot of work, but if you are genuinely interested in the person, it shouldn’t feel that way. With all of these wonderful benefits at stake, it makes sense why you have to invest your time, money, and effort in influencer marketing.
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