Despite What You Think There Are Influencers for Your Business

Despite What You Think There Are Influencers for Your Business

A common misconception with influencer marketing is that it doesn’t work for your industry.

“My product is too niche.”

“We sell B2B, influencer marketing doesn’t work for B2B”

“We sell to an older audience, they don’t pay attention to influencer marketing.”

We hosted a couple of different events in the last month and at multiple occasions someone asked if influencer marketing applies to their industry. With several people in our events having this question we figured other people would too.

While we understand why people might think influencer marketing doesn’t apply to their business, we push back on that notion. Influencer marketing can and will work for your business and your industry. Here’s what the experts at our events had to say about it.

Influencers are not exclusive to social media

Cloutjam founder, Sam Cutler, who also happens to be a micro-influencer herself with over 30,000 followers said that there are influencers in every space. Influencers as a concept are not a new thing. The word and its association to social media is new. An influencer could simply be someone walking down the street wearing your sweatshirt. There are influencers in every space. We often associate the term influencer with a big follower count but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you know someone that people listen to when they speak, they’re an influencer.

Our CEO and co-founder Swish took part in a webinar by Clearbanc on Content Generation and Finding the Right Influencers recently and he said that when he was a student at the University of Toronto he would see the RedBull representatives around campus, handing out product from their RedBull branded cars. While these students may not have had millions of followers on social media, they were influencing the students around them.

An influencer is not dependent on their follower count but by the influence they have within their community.

They don’t have to be influencers of your exact niche

Farokh Sarmad, influencer and CEO of Goodlife Media and Communications says you need to find someone who fits your brand ethos. Who is someone that fits well with your brand’s mission and its values?

You may not be able to find a specific influencer for your exact product but people who use your product have other interests as well. What are some characteristics of the people who use your product or service? Do most of them like photography? Do they like basketball? Figure out what their other passions are and partner with influencers in that space. Just because someone isn’t a “CMS influencer” doesn’t mean that they don’t have followers who need a CMS.

Influencer marketing works for both products and services

During our free training The Art of Finding Influencers, our Director of Growth Marketing Cameron was asked if influencer marketing works when you sell a service as opposed to a product.

As a matter of fact, influencer marketing works really well with service based businesses. Instead of providing someone with your product for free, you can invite them in to receive your service for free and they can document the whole process!

A distinct advantage service based businesses have over businesses with physical goods is you don’t have to eat the cost of the product. If you give someone a product for free you’re losing the cost of that product up front. But if you have a service based business, you can invite the influencer during a slower time of day when your staff normally wouldn’t be too busy. That way, they aren’t taking your time away from paying customers and still receiving the service!

No matter what, you can benefit from influencer marketing

No matter your industry, product or service there’s a way for you to participate in influencer marketing. Whether it’s finding a “non-traditional influencer” or an influencer with other interests of your consumer, influencer marketing works in your industry.

Having troubles finding influencers?

Influencer Marketing Hub reported finding appropriate influencers is the biggest challenge businesses face with influencer marketing. If you’re ready to start finding the right influencer for your industry, Check out SocialRank, a unique way to find any kind of influencer, for any industry, using audience analytics.