Outreach and Influencer Marketing

The Importance of Outreach and Influencer Marketing Today

The way marketing is carried out today has been transformed from the previous traditional techniques.

The world is connected now in a way that it never has been. Ecommerce continues to grow year on year, and international business has never been easier to conduct.

Virtual data rooms allow multi-billion dollar deals to be undertaken, with due diligence simpler than ever.

Two ways that marketers have changed their methods are through the use of outreach, and influencers.

With the use of the internet, outreach marketing has allowed brands to harness the power of influential individuals to increase brand awareness in a unique way.

What is outreach marketing?

Outreach marketing is a strategy whereby you search for people that would be interested in your product.

However, instead of looking for customers per se, you are searching for influencers and bloggers. People who already have followings that match up with your target audience.

The global online retail market was worth approximately $4.9 trillion in 2021 according to Statista.

Competition has never been so fierce, so the use of influencers with loyal followers is an excellent marketing tactic today.

How important are influencers today?

Influencers have become one of the most effective marketing instruments on the internet.

A good influencer will have a following who trusts them. Over a period of time, this influencer will have shown that they care about their audience, can understand their needs, and will have developed trust.

They will have done this through relevant and engaging content, and by recommending products and services that their audience enjoyed.

Influencers need to be careful when they produce sponsored content and tie-ins. Promoting products and brands purely for cash can backfire. This is why good influencers can command high figures for these promotions, and they will only post about products that their audience will connect with.

According to Visual Capitalist, the top ten most influential people are made up of celebrities. Sports stars, musicians, and actors, fill the top ten list of most popular influencers.

However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t regular people using Instagram too. Micro-influencers are becoming increasingly favored as a way to reach niche audiences.

So, it isn’t always about the size of the audience, but the level of trust and engagement that they can bring. This might be why they are so crucial now. They inspire loyalty that some brands can only dream of.

How do you reach out to influencers effectively?

When performing outreach marketing it is critical that you understand who you are targeting.

You are looking for influential people who have an audience that corresponds to yours. Therefore, you will be looking for bloggers, journalists, complementary businesses, and influencers, among others.

You will need to approach these people and organizations with care, and by offering something of value.

Ultimately, you are hoping to improve your SEO through influencers using your guest posts and content. There are many tools to streamline your content marketing machine, and guest posts can still work today.

When approaching an influencer, email still works well. More than 300 billion emails are sent every day. Consequently, you need to make your message stand out.

Use a catchy, interesting subject line. Perhaps include a question in the subject. Something to garner curiosity in the recipient.

Making the email friendly, but professional also helps. Be personal in your approach. If you have contacts or interests in common then name-drop when appropriate.

Add value to your email. Explain why they should be interested in using your guest post material and include statistics to show how it would help them.

You can research their website to see where they are losing out to their competitors. Offer to fill this gap with engaging content.

Can you grow your own following to reach a bigger audience?

Successful collaboration with influencers should result in your followers growing.

Trying to raise the number of followers on Instagram isn’t always easy. Often it takes a lot of time and trial and error.

Understanding the algorithm that Instagram employs is also vital. By learning about the Instagram algorithm, you can start to make your brand more visible step by step. Your posts will start to appear in other people’s feeds higher up, and more often.

There are other ways to enhance an Instagram following though. Using an Instagram bot can lead to a boom in followers quickly. It can also result in other benefits, but it can backfire too.

What are growth services?

Influencers such as the ones in the top ten have grown all their following organically. People have simply searched for their favorite celebrities and clicked the follow button.

It is a little different for other users of Instagram. A lot of the influencers who have done well had to work very hard to get where they are. This meant producing engaging content and understanding their audience completely.

If you are unable to do this or don’t have the time, then you might want to use a growth service.

This should be done with caution.

Any web developer, or digital marketer, will understand some of the best white hat SEO techniques for better conversion. They will also understand that black hat SEO can result in a quick boost, and then a sudden drop down SERPs.

The wrong growth service could do the same.

What are the issues with using a growth service?

Using black hat techniques on websites can see an immediate improvement in search rankings. Yet, more often than not it will lead to being penalized quite quickly.

The best type of SEO is from long-term strategies. Continual improvement in rankings, and adjusting the performance of the website.

Outreach marketing helps because it can lead to quality backlinks which improve the overall SEO.

Instagram benefits from similar techniques. Growing a following organically is similar to long-term SEO strategies in that you have a genuinely engaged audience. You are effectively following the rules so to speak.

A good growth service will also follow the rules for creating a genuine audience. They will search the platform for people that match your preferred audience and engage with them. This will hopefully result in them following you, and interacting with your posts.

A poor growth service will not follow this path.

What do bad growth services do?

Your whole strategy with outreach and influencer marketing is to increase the visibility of your brand. You want to be more visible and ultimately receive more interest in your website.

As a result of all this, your social media presence should also grow organically.

If you use a bad growth service, then they will likely flood your account with bots and fake followers. These can be spotted by your genuine followers, and more worryingly by Instagram.

This black hat technique will often result in thousands of new followers who will never engage with you and are ultimately worthless.

Summary

Outreach and influencers can help your marketing no end. Your marketing ROI could see significant boosts by effectively using influencers to promote your brand.

However, outreach needs to be handled properly. Approach the right people with an audience that matches your demographic. Offer them something of value to their brand. Then write engaging content for them to post.

This will lead to a growth in your following and more traffic. Avoid shortcuts, and if you need to use a growth service, use a reputable one that will bring genuine followers to your account.