In today’s digital age, an individual’s purchasing decisions will mostly be based on an influencer’s suggestion, recommendation, product, or service review. Influencers are people who have the power to affect or influence another person’s purchasing decisions. Because of an influencer’s authority, knowledge, or simply, influence, they get to transform their viewers, readers, or audience’s decision-making patterns. In turn, this benefits companies or brands who hire and have several partnerships with influencers.
According to Valerie Jennings, building strong relationships with influencers can ultimately help companies and brands to also establish relationships with their audience. More than that, it helps them reach out to a larger group of people, which, in turn, can also act or serve as their target market in the long run. Don’t believe us? Here’s a list of a few good reasons as to why you should build long-term partnerships with influencers:
Stronger Relationships
The process of finding influencers that are perfect for your brand is not a walk in the park. It will be a constant struggle for the first few weeks, or maybe even months. Which is why it’s important to look for influencers you can build strong relationships with, establish a foundation together and press on towards improvement and success. Developing long-term relationships with these influencers allow brands and companies to stabilize genuine relationships with top content creators, who will be of great advantage to them in the long run.
As time goes by, these influencers can produce more content that appears more authentic and genuine as compared to when you two first started building the partnership. As a result, audiences and visitors alike are more encouraged to try all products and services reviewed and recommended by your influencers.
Better Planning and Established Timelines
Working with a lot of influencers mean you’re also working on a lot of paperwork, and individual business owners, with most of them having their own time and schedules, which, you cannot just interrupt, obviously. This means that it’s unlikely for a specific influencer or brand to touch or meet with your ideal timeline. As a result, you end up with unsure partnerships and collaborations, leaving you with unguaranteed revenue as well.
With long-term partnerships, you can both plan on your timeline and brainstorm about the different types of content you want them to produce. Instead of waiting on a bunch of influencers to notice you or create quality content for you, you have at least a few, well-established relationships with content creators who can rest assured that both your schedules and timelines meet and adjust with one another.
Clearly-Defined Contracts
Working with one of a few influencers can cause you several hiccups along the road. There’s this constant thought and occurrences of an influencer backing out last minute, promising to publish content for your brand but never does, products ship, or worse, you never hear from them ever again.
With long-term influencer partnerships, contracts are a must and in fact, necessary. By then, you wouldn’t have to worry about missed deadlines, product ships, or ghosting. Both parties (the company and the influencer) agree on terms and conditions that create brand awareness, publicity, and guarantees a higher generation of income, with added improvement in customer experience.
Simplified Budgeting and Fair Compensation
Each influencer is different from the other; hence, each one charges differently based on the services they provide. With long-term influencer partnerships, your company now has the opportunity to set up a more simplified, but systematized billing process that will benefit both the company or the brand and the influencer.
Take this as an example: for a year-long collaboration, your company and an influencer can agree on setting a quarterly payment of (x) amount. As a result, you wouldn’t have to worry about ghosting, unpaid partnerships, and bucketloads of invoices, since you’ll only be receiving at least two to four per year, depending on your agreement.
Consistency and Creative Freedom
Long-term relationships allow influencers to understand a brand’s tone, voice, or style. Through this, brands can establish a stronger [online] presence through the influencer’s content and other postings. As for the influencers, they’ll have more time and creative freedom to think of content that is also in-line with their field of expertise. On top of that, both parties, and even audiences are satisfied with the outcome given that all outputs are made out of genuine creativity and established knowledge about the company, brand, products, or services.
Drives Conversions
Establishing long-term relationships with influencers can also drive conversions. Why? Well, because of the fact that this influencer frequently posts reviews and recommendations in regards to your brand, products, and services. As a result, audiences of this specific influencer start to grow curious about your brand, check it out, and possibly turn from a mere audience or prospect into an actual customer!
Influencer marketing is actually known as one of the most effective types of marketing as it drives more conversion than any other marketing strategy can. This is why it’s highly essential to work with influencers if you want to reach a broader audience.
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, there will always be more than just several benefits when it comes to partnering with influencers to promote your brand, its products, and services. However, if you do opt for an influencer type of marketing strategy, make sure that you’re ready for a long-term commitment. This is only to ensure that you start building strong foundations with people you’re going to work within the long run. After all, if it wasn’t for their hard work as well, you wouldn’t be reaching a more significant number of [targeted] audience now.
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