The Comprehensive Guide To Influencer Marketing

The Comprehensive Guide
to Influencer Marketing
5 Steps to Find, Engage and Profit
from Rising Stars in Your
Next Campaign
by Fabrizio Perrone
CEO, Buzzoole
Copyright 2015 Buzzoole
Table of Contents
1. Understanding the Big Picture
1.1 Introduction: What is Influencer
Marketing?
1.2 Why You Need Influencers for Your
Brand
3. Tell Your Brands Story with Influencer

Marketing
3.1 Craft a Story that Sells Your Business
3.2 How to Craft a Story that Sells
3.3 How to Get Influencers Involved
2. Setting Your Goals

2.1 Identify the Results Your Business
Needs
2.2 Identify the Types of Influencers You
Need
2.3 Case Study: Why Influencer Marketing
Delivers Better Results
4. Building Your Network

4.1 Bringing it All Together with an
Influencer Marketing Plan
4.2 How to Connect with Influencers
4.3 How to Measure Results
The Comprehensive Guide to Influencer Marketing
5. Beyond the Campaign

5.1 Nurturing Your Relationships
5.2 Automate Your Influencer Marketing
with Buzzoole
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Understanding the Big Picture
In the bid to attract, acquire and engage

more prospects and clients, B2B and B2C
companies have implemented different
strategies to make this happen. And although
digital technologies and tactics evolve, the
art of building and leveraging relationships,
regardless of the medium used, is even more
potent now than ever before.
Whether youre new to the concept, or youve

started applying it to your business, in this
section, well be throwing more light on the
concept to help you understand the need for
influencer marketing in your overall digital
strategy.
Influencer marketing, though

has existed since the beginning of
marketing, has always leveraged
relationship building and value
exchange with key players in any
industry. It has only recently
become a buzzword that everyone
seems to be throwing around.
1.1 Introduction: What is

Influencer Marketing?
Starting from the basics, an influencer is a
thought leader who is trusted by his/her
audience and has the ability to persuade a
majority of this audience to take a particular
action. Their influence is generally not judged
by numbers but how well their audience
respond to their messages.
Influencer marketing involves
building relationships with these
influencers and leveraging those
relationships to achieve a particular business purpose. This could be
to drive sales, create brand awareness, or develop social proof.
Being that influencer marketing involves an
authority figure telling other people, in this
case an audience, about a particular product
or service, it has very strong roots in Word of

Mouth marketing. And according to a study
by McKinsey, marketing thats inspired by
word of mouth (such as influencer marketing)
generates more than twice the sales of paid
advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate.
So, you have a better chance of getting better

results by investing your hard earned dollars
into building relationships with influencers as
opposed to paying for ad-space online.
1.2 Why You Need

Influencers for
Your Brand
No business is an island.
If youre looking to massively increase sales of
a particular product, or create a massive launch
for a new line of business, or you just want to
get the word out about what you do, what you
shouldnt be doing is limiting yourself to the
resources and network you presently have.
Instead, you need to find good leverage.
Relationship building has always been the
bread and butter of online marketing. Guest
blogging, joint venture partnerships, and
whichever tactic you can think of involves
forming relationships.
With influencer marketing as a model that
companies are starting to use, it is now more

important than ever to create your own
network. Not just a network of fans who love
your product or brand. But a network of powerhitters who can give you that boost you need.
So why is influencer marketing so essential to
the growth of your business?
1. Youll Have Increased Brand Awareness
Producing media content goes beyond
production. It needs to be distributed widely.
For long term growth, it is very important to
leverage the use of personal channels to your
fans. However, for that initial boost in results,
making use of influencers in your target group
puts your brand in the eyes of your market.
2. It Builds Your Trust and Credibility
When someone you trust recommends a
brand to you, youll most likely have faith in
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the recommendation without any doubts. This

is how influencer marketing helps your brand
gain trust in the market.
Your prospects automatically start to see
you as credible for the singular reason of
that referral from a trusted source.
3. Youll Convert More Customers
According to a study by Technorati, blogs
are now the third most influential digital
resource that customers use to discover
products and trends, with brand sites being
the first. The same study also reveals that
before consumers make purchases, they
research for information on blogs.
ONLINE SERVICES MOST LIKELY TO

INFLUENCE A PURCHASE
Retail Sites
56%
34%
Brand Sites
31.10%
Blogs
Facebook
30.80%
28%
Groups/Forums
YouTube
27%
LinkedIn
27%
Google+
20%
Online Magazines
20%
12%
Pinterest
Being that some influencers are bloggers

in their own right, it only makes sense to
involve them in your marketing mix. Their
recommendations via blog posts give you
a better chance of converting some of their
audience to customers.
8%
Twitter
News Sites
Instagram
7%
3%
Technorati Media 2013 Digital Influence Report
4. Youll Get More Traffic

If traffic is your goal in your influencer
marketing campaign, then this is a no-brainer.
Working with influencers to promote your
brand on their sites and social media creates a
chain reaction that ends up on your website.
Look at it this way: Influencers have large
audiences, and theyre also friends with other
influencers. Not only that, but their audience
also have their own social influence, no matter
how small.
Now using a simple tweet as an example: An
influencer tweets about your offering in a
very low promotional but educative way with
a link back to your site. His friend (another
influencer) sees this tweet and decides to
retweet. Then both their audiences see the
tweets and go on a retweeting rampage
(simply because they trust the source).
And did you know some digital

influencers are even more popular
than mainstream celebrities?
A survey revealed that US teens are 7 times
more emotionally attached to a YouTube
influencer than with a traditional celebrity;
these influencers are considered 11 times
more extraordinary, and 17 times more
engaging than mainstream stars.
You get the picture. It all ends back to your
home base your website. And if that is
designed well for conversions, youll start to
build your own network of influence.
While you can get all these benefits and more
by integrating influencer marketing into your
strategy, its always better to have focus on
one. Then let the others be after effects of
that one goal.
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Setting Your Goals
On a soccer pitch, a goal post is there for one

purpose for players to score goals. However,
several goals can be achieved on a soccer
pitch, depending on the skills of the players
involved.
Without goals, youll be trying to achieve all

the benefits of influencer marketing. What
this will give you will be average results all
round. What you want to do instead is to
achieve phenomenal results in something.
While some prefer to show off their goal

scoring skills, others showcase themselves
as being better dribblers and so are placed at
different positions on the field.
In this section, youll discover how to identify

the kinds of results you need and the
influencers thatll help you achieve them.
Your business goals determine

just what kind of influencers you
engage and how you engage them.
2.1 Identify the Results

Your Business Needs
For your influencer marketing campaign, what
goals are you looking to achieve? You need
to be specific on your end goal so you can
effectively direct the efforts of your influencers.
Here are a few results you can get by
leveraging influencers:
1. Boost in Social Media Followers
Why would you want a boost in social media
followers? Does it in any way lead to better
conversions and revenue for your business?
In the 2012 State of Inbound Marketing
study by Hubspot, after conducting a survey
involving 972 marketing professionals, they
realized that,
Social media has a 100% higher

lead-to-close rate than outbound
marketing.
Youre probably looking to get multiple social

shares on a piece of content. Perhaps you
just want to get the word out about a new
product, or youre trying to hit the top trends
in your industry. For results, it would be more
advisable to go after influencers with good
social following.
However, dont judge this based on numbers
but also on activity (like Twitter reply ratio,
average number of comments on each
Facebook post, etc.) This will give you a sneak
peek as to the level of response you should
expect from that particular influencer.
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Top influencers accounted for a

disproportionate share of total product
recommendations.
Share of influencers and the
recommendations they
generated
Impact ratio
5%
3x
15%
10%
~2.5x
24%
20%
40%
Source: 2013-2014 McKinsey interviews of 20,000 European

consumers across 30 product areas and more than 100 brands
McKinseys study found that a small

number of active influencers accounted
for a disproportionate share of product
recommendations, and the most effective pool

of influencers is largely untapped.
2x
As a result, dont restrict yourself to finding

experts with millions of followers (as your
ideal influencer might be a niche-expert on a
small scale).
After identifying these results, you need to
make it easy for the influencers to share. And
your content must encourage some form of
action. People see sharing as a way to spread
information about products they care about so
they can eventually inspire action, says 49% of
participants in this CoSchedule study.
You really need to be specific on why theyd
want to share and provide them with the right
tools to make this happen.
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2. Credibility & Authority Through Content

Perhaps all youre looking for is to build your
own authority. This can work both ways.
You can find influencers who
have blogs with quality content
and offer content for their blogs,
whether free or paid.
By doing this, you establish yourself in the
minds of their audience as a thought leader
and an authority online. This is why Native
Advertising works very well. If the influencer
trusts you enough to allow you a spot on their
blog, then their audience can trust you too.
You can also find influencers who create
great content and ask them to contribute
to your site. Readers often follow a group of
influencers in any given industry. When they
see the influencers content on your blog,

it automatically creates a perception in the
minds of your audience that you are friends.
This would also attract a new audience to
you, especially if the influencer had a positive
experience with your brand.
3. Profit Generating Traffic
Engaging influencers for the sole purpose to
drive traffic to your content can be achieved
in various ways, including the two results
mentioned above. However, you also need to
be clear on the quality of traffic you need.
If youre looking to generate good revenue from
your campaign long-term, then youll need influencers that can get you quality traffic that converts. This means traffic that drives an audience
most likely to buy what youre trying to sell.
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However, if all youre looking for is just any

traffic, then any influencer would do. And you
might engage influencers from within and
outside your industry. While this does not
necessarily lead to short term profit, it does
have its long term gains, especially if all you
need is eyeballs on your offering.
2.2 Identify the Types of

Influencers You Need
The reason is you dont want to waste

time and funds on an influencer marketing
campaign that wont work because you did
your research wrong.
Not only do you need to research your
audience, you also need to map it out. This is
where creating good empathy maps comes in
handy.
In order to achieve the kind of results

youve spelled out, you need to engage the
right influencers. How do you identify the
influencers that would help you achieve
those business results?
The first step would be for you
to deeply understand your
audience/customers.
Image via Copyblogger
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The purpose of this is not just to help you

know your audience better with respect to
their fears, goals and aspirations, but to also
make it transferable to your influencers so
they have something to work with.
In order to do this, youll need to create
personas of each segment of your audience so
your influencers are talking to specific people,
and not a group. You want your influencers
to understand what people are already
saying about their problems or the solution
you provide so they can seamlessly join the
conversation.
Youll also need to research your
influencers and place them in different categories, based on the results youve previously defined.
1. If your goal is to build social proof and

awareness of your offering, the influencers
you engage in this category will be judged
based on their reach. How large is their
audience? Whats their following on Twitter?
If youre in an industry that engages a lot
with visuals like the fashion and design industries, you might want to check out their
following on networks like Instagram and
Pinterest.
2. If your goal is to build credibility and authority
through content, youd want influencers who
are relevant to your kind of audience. What
kind of response does their social content
get? How relevant are the influencers in
Search? When you search keywords relevant
to your target market, do they show up in the
results and for what kind of content?
For example, if youre in the cosmetic or
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fashion industry, youd want to engage

with beauty influencers because of their
audience. You want influencers who are

already seen as an authority in that niche,
not the ones still climbing up that ladder.
3. If your goal is to profit through sales and
massive traffic, you might want to look at
the track record of some influencers. You
want the influencers to have a high ratio
of audience with buyers intent. To find out
such data, youd probably talk with some of
the past people with whom the influencer
has worked with just to have an idea.
You can enter all the information you get
into a spreadsheet so you keep a record of
your research. Then take it a step further
by rating each influencer based on your
parameters such as reach, track record,
relevance, authority, etc.
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By doing this, youll be able to leave out the ones

that wont help you reach your results and engage only with the ones that meet your criteria.
In line with finding the right kind
of influencers, youd also need
to know the kind of incentives
they respond to. This of course
depends on what youre willing to
give away in exchange for their
influence.
For example, to get a beauty influencer to
boost sales of your new makeup product, you
might need to ship a free branded product as
an incentive. The same goes for industries
where the product in question has direct
impact on health or physical appearance.
For influencers in other categories, incentives
such as cash rewards, discounts for their
audience or simple recognition of their efforts

would be suitable. This all depends on the
influencer and what youre able to give as a
reward.
2.3 Case Study: why

Influencer Marketing
Delivers Better Results
Simonluca Scravaglieri, Brand Manager
at Royal Unibrew, wanted to increase the
awareness of one of their products, Ceres
- a top beer brand. The goal was also to
spread the word about Ceres creativity, so
that the Ceres community starts to talk to
the brand rather than the other way around
(as is the norm with most brands).
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Ceres Italy has a digital marketing

strategy that involves entering into
conversations not just related to
food but also information buzzing
on social media in general.
Method:
Instead of screaming at the top of their
lungs to social media users to appreciate
the creativity of Ceres, they did something
fascinating: they leveraged present news that
had online traction and used influencers to
make their awareness go viral.
Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-Prime Minister, was
acquitted in the Ruby trial. The company then
decided to use Ceres Facebook Page to enter
into that conversation by publishing an eyecatching picture. The goal was to make people
talk about this marketing activity.
During our first campaign,

with the post about Berlusconis
absolve, we wanted to go exactly in
this direction: to leverage Buzzoole
platform composed by real people
who speak in an authentic way
about Ceres creativity.
Interview with Simonluca Scravaglieri
17
Ceres posted an ironic post on its page about

the event and used Buzzoole, a platform that
connects brands with influencers, to ask users to
share their opinions on blogs and social networks.
The Results
Royal Unibrew involved 13 influencers in the
Ceres campaign. By targeting the Italian market,
as well as blogs and social channels, they involved
the top influencers (identified by Buzzoole) by
inviting them to talk about Ceress action.
These influencers where encouraged to
generate big engagement in the shortest
possible time (the campaign lasted two hours).
With this, the Ceres campaign
generated 956 viral users and
a viral reach of 450%. The 1,108
posts published had a total reach
of about 604,900 (gotten through
14 blog posts, 48 social posts, 50
social shares and 906 blog shares).
All in just 2 hours.

The Ceres brand used the live tracking
dashboard of Buzzoole in order to track
the activities of the involved users, the
engagement per post, the best performers,
blogs and social reach in real time.
As Simonluca Scravaglieri stated,
The added value of using

Buzzoole lies on its ability to
reach the influencers and enable
them become storytellers that are
authentic to the brand. We made
different Chapters of the Ceres Story
and Buzzoole told about them to
the community, while leaving the
interpretation to its users. These
were not creative impositions but
only open dialogues with users.
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Tell Your Brands Story

with Influencer Marketing
For many years, brands have been using the

concept of storytelling to sell their products
and services. They do this not just because its
effective and works like crazy, but because it
generates long term benefits as well.
Customers are able to relate their products
with the stories told in their communication
and over time, build affinity for that specific
brand.
While storytelling can bring
instant results, when combined
with a good influencer marketing
campaign, gives a long term
strategy that sells the business

over and over without any extra
effort from the brand.
However, it needs to have some specific
qualities to make it work. Neglecting this will
not only cause your communication to lack
depth, but would cause your brand to fade out
of customers minds over time.
In this section, well discuss how to craft your
own brands story and get your influencers
involved to ensure it has a long term effect on
consumers.
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3.1 Craft a Story that Always

Sells Your Business
What exactly is a story?
It is conventional to only tell a story about

your brand. On the contrary, you should be
telling stories about your customers. The truth
is, most brands already have such stories; they
just dont know it yet.
We tend to think of stories as narratives

that might begin with once upon a time,
present us Good Guys and Bad Guys, take
us on a journey which is resolved, if were
lucky, with a happy ending.
In order to craft the perfect story that would

be used in all your communication, you need
to work with both your existing customers and
your influencers.
But how does a Powerpoint presentation fit

into this scheme? Or a television spot promoting a particular product? Or a marketing
campaign that aims to associate your brand
with a certain set of images and feelings?
As long as you already have a customer who

has interacted with your business before (that
is, by buying your products or services), then
that customer experience is content for a story.
Tiffany Jones Brown, content strategy lead at

Pinterest via Contently
Now you may think one customers story

may not be relevant to the rest. But thats
the essence of having a target customer and
ensuring youre only speaking to one person.
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and how you were able to solve this.

It could be like this Airbnb Wall and
Chain story.
With this, youll automatically tell
the story of every consumer in your
target group because they all have
the same problem and are looking to
achieve similar goals.
Image source: Shorty Awards
Your story doesnt have to go in-depth into the

customers day to day life. Instead it only needs
to show what problems the customer faced
This is why case studies tend to work

well as content - they simply tell the
story of a client, creating a before
and after effect.
If your influencers are in the same
target group, then they also have
stories. You may also be surprised to find out
that some of your target influencers may have
interacted with your brand at one time or the
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other. If this is the case, thats more story

content.
This information is priceless and would help
you craft a story that would immediately
resonate with anyone you communicate with.
Instead, share a lot. As demonstrated by Dr

Paul Zak, people tend to trust brands more
when theyre engaged with stories. People
automatically let their guards down when you
simply tell a story than when you actually try
to sell them something.
3.2 How do You Craft

a Story that Sells?
Before you start reaching out to your existing
customer base or influencers, you need to know
some elements that your story must have.
1. Be Interesting
No matter how good your solution is, if the story
behind it is boring, youll only get a few seconds
of attention from new prospects. The best way
to craft a story that sells is to remove your mind
from selling at the moment.
While you may think this is not effective,

making your story interesting works on their
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subconscious minds to always recall it and

perhaps express a particular emotion whenever
they come in contact with your brand.
Its like stumbling on a Red Bull
drink in a mall and automatically
giggling because you remember
their ads about people flying after
drinking a can.
This doesnt lead to the sale immediately
because not all consumers may have need for
your solution at that time. But for a consumer
who found the ads humorous and feels he
needs some extra wings to fly, even if it is six
months after the ads have been aired, hell
automatically go for Red Bull because of the
story behind it.
2. Be Real
Customers arent stupid. They can smell a fake
claim from afar and when you try to sell a fake

story with a result that your solution doesnt
exactly deliver, you immediately come across
as manipulative.
This is how a story can hurt your brand - if it
lacks authenticity.
Customers relate with people, not companies.
This is why your influencers have a huge part to
play in spreading it. Not only that, but the influencers also have to come off as authentic as well.
According to Susan Gunelius on Forbes,
Honesty and transparency are

important in brand storytelling.
Yes, youre crafting stories,
but they need to be rooted in the
reality of your brand, products,
and industry.
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3. Make Your Customer the Hero

You are not the hero of your story, your
customer is.
What your story should tell is how your
customers and clients were able to move
from the problem to the lives they have now
after encountering your solution or your
brand, and not an egoistic view of how you
helped your customer.
This kind of storytelling takes its roots from
the heros journey or the monomyth by
Joseph Campbell. Following this model, your
customer is the hero and you or your solution
is the mentor.
The customers journey is the story.
4. Obey The KISS Rule
Only say what you need to say and nothing
more.
Image via Wikipedia
In crafting your story, youre not trying to

develop a college essay. After getting feedback
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from your existing customer base and

influencers, youll want to cut out most of the
unnecessary words.
What you should have left is a story where
every statement makes an impact, first
emotionally and then in terms of sales. Dont
cram fillers into your story.
3.3 How to Get Other

Influencers
Involved
For the sake of being genuine and for those

who have never interacted with you before, a
simple way to spread your brands story is to
make them simply echo your existing story.
Chances are youve been able to get different
cases studies from different customers. All
you then have to do is let your influencers
share these stories with their audience and
place a personal note of recommendation.
You can see a simple example in a tweet like this:
Not all influencers may have

interacted with your brand and thats
okay. However, in the bid to make all
your influencers say positive things about your
brand (without them ever using it before), your
story may start to lack authenticity.
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Building Your Influencer Network
Theres the time for research and the time

to bring it all together with a plan. Your
influencer plan should include a framework for
your campaign as well as how to implement
as well.
What youll be doing in this section is bringing

together your research into an influencer
marketing plan that can be implemented. And
also ensuring that its easily transferable into
any other similar campaign you do now or in
future.
After eliminating those influencers you feel

wont be useful for your brand, youll have
that select number that you need to engage
from the word go. This is your influencer
network. And most likely, theyll be the same
set of people youll engage with every time you
want to implement an influencer marketing
campaign for your brand.
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4.1 Bring it All Together

with an Influencer
Marketing Plan
Youve done some research. Youve crafted
your brand story.
Now its time to bring it all together and form a
plan you can follow. Here are a few tips to get
started with your marketing plan.
1. Set Your Budget
No brainer, right? Well, itd be a surprise for
you to know that a lot of small businesses
have no marketing budgets, says Steve McKee
on Bloomberg.
Before you reach out to influencers, come up
with how much youll need over the period
of the campaign. If youll be creating lots of

content, how much would outsourcing it cost?
How many posts would you create per week?
If youll be running contests with giveaways at
the end, how much would that cost as well?
You can also enter this into a spreadsheet and
divide into groups so you have a holistic view
of everything.
2. Collate Your Influencer List
Remember the research you did in the second
section of this eBook? Now is the time to bring
it together. By now you must have been able
to identify the influencers that would be most
useful to your brand.
Apart from having a list, also provide a way to
track each of them. This could be by setting
Google alerts for their names, or a keyword, or by
simply checking their blogs from time to time.
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campaign. With this, youre simply getting on

their radar. But take note: you dont want to
stalk them. Instead, you should show that you
recognize them as influencers.
How do you do this?
The reason for this is because not

everyone stays an influencer for a
long period of time. Without providing
yourself with tracking parameters,
you may find yourself engaging an
ex-influencer in a future campaign.
3. Get Their Attention
This is different from actually reaching out
to the influencers for the purpose of the
A. Social Media Content Curation

Brands that curate content get greater
exposure, says MarketingLand. What does this
mean for your brand?
As part of your social media calendar, share
more of the influencers content and less
of yours. You can simply use the 4-1-1
formula, as coined by Andrew Davis, author of
Brandscaping. This formula enables companies
to get better visibility with influencers.
Heres what it entails:
For every 6 pieces of content shared on social
media;
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- Four pieces of content are from websites,

blogs and social timelines of influencers.
- One is your original and informative content.
- One is a promotional piece like your sales
page or press release.
Note that the numbers dont have to be
exact but the key is to get the attention of
influencers without asking for anything in
return... yet.
B. Rank Your Influencers
Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs Of 2015 by CMI.
10 Best Beauty Blogs Of 2015
by The Fashion Spot.
20 Inspiring Women To Follow On Twitter
by Forbes.
These lists werent created because the
writers didnt have better things to do. These
Image source: Integrative Cancer Answers
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lists are simply ego boosters for the people

included in them.
Everyone appreciates some form
of recognition, no matter how
small. Also, some influencers may
not regard themselves as such until you associate them with other
influencers.
Instead of only just approaching influencers
when you want something in return, you can
show that you appreciate their content by
actually telling them through such lists.
SharecareNow, for instance, created a list of
top 10 online influencers in breast cancer.
Note: Lists receive more average shares than
other content types, states this research by
Buzzsumo on Okdork.
4. Stick to a Calendar
Influencers are also humans, they have feelings
and the last thing they want to do is betray their
audience. One way to show your seriousness is
to be consistent. But in two aspects;
- Be consistent with the relationship. Dont say
hi today (through perhaps a social media post)
and then go silent for the next six months.
- Be consistent with your own content. You
want to ensure that you stay top of mind
with that influencer. Whether you publish
blog posts, videos or just tweets, stick to
a schedule that your audience and the
influencers will come to recognize. If you
choose to rank influencers quarterly, then
stick to that calendar and let them always
come to expect your next ranking post.
- Be consistent with your message. Since
youve been able to craft a brand story and
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you now understand your audience (through

the persona), only speak to that one person
and tell the same story in different ways.
When influencers are also able to resonate
with your story, theyll be more receptive
when approached with an offer.
4.2 How to Connect with

Influencers
The second part of building your network
would be to actually connect with them for the
purpose for your campaign.
Its not enough to rank your
influencers and then sit back and
wait for them to magically stumble
on the content.
Itll also be unproductive to wait for them to
ask what would you like me to do for you?
just because you recognized them as one of

the top 10 influencers in that industry.
This is the outreach stage and here, you need
to be more proactive. This is also where all the
work gets done.
So lets get to it.
1. Mention Your Influencers on Twitter
To start the conversation, you can simply @
mention them on Twitter. This is especially
useful when youve just published a nice piece
of content and referenced them in the post.
Depending on your goals, you can say anything
in the tweet. It could be for them to come
contribute for your blog (this will be easy
because youve already proven your quality
previously after getting their attention). It
could be to send you their email address
31
so you can send them a complete pitch. Or

perhaps just an invitation to share your content.
Next, grab their attention in your subject line.

Itll provide an added effect if you can mention
their name.
2. Pitch Them via Email

Email outreach can work for any campaign,
whether it is social sharing, joint venture
partnerships or product sales.
In your email, be as direct as possible. Youd

want to ensure that your email is not too
lengthy (influencers are also busy people) but
that it contains all the necessary information to
get started. Kissmetrics shared a great example
You want to make an

impression even from the
email address you use, to your
email subject and then the
content of the email itself.
If you can help it, try to use a company
email (or a custom domain email) at least
as this adds to your credibility. If you
must use a free personal email, ensure
your name appears in the email address.
It shows youre human and not just
someone looking to waste their time.
Anatomy of A Relationship-Building Email
Image credit: Kissmetrics
32
of the kind of email that should be sent to an

influencer youre trying to connect to.
Note: The last thing you want to do is copy the
email addresses of all the influencers in one
email.
Each email has to be as specific
and personal as possible.
And its important that you send the emails one
at a time, regardless of how many influencers
youre trying to reach. This is where the work
starts. But in the end, its worth it.
4.3 How to Measure Results

Asides from the Live tracking dashboard in
Buzzoole, there are several ways to measure
the impact of your influencer marketing.
1. Use a tracking URL for your promoted

content
Its not enough to share the direct link on all
social platforms. A tracking URL enables you
to view platform-specific engagement so you
know just what activities generated the most
results.
You can use tools like bit.ly which enables
you to both shorten and customize your long
URL. You then spread the shortened URL
across board and every click gets measured.
You can also use the Google analytics URL
builder. This enables you view statistics such
as visits, clicks and conversions. This data can
be obtained via the Campaign section in your
Google analytics dashboard.
The trick is to create one URL per influencer.
This tells you which influencer had the most
impact on your campaign. This way, youll have
33
a handy list of influencers that are sure to get

you maximum ROI in your next campaign.
2. Monitor your reach on social media
This is especially useful for knowing just how
much influence an influencer has. How many
direct shares did your influencers social posts
for your campaign get?
A tool like TweetReach
helps you know the
extended reach of
influencer tweets.
Use a special hashtag for
your campaign, as this
also helps you know how
much buzz you have.
If your buzz is strong
enough, you might just
see your hashtag on Twitters trending list.
The image below shows an influencers

contribution for Commander Hadfield via
TweetReach.
These are the kind of numbers thatll help you
measure the result of an influencer campaign.
Image credit: TweetReach blog
34
3. Track your conversions

Conversions show you just how much effect
that campaign had on your brand. This doesnt
just apply to leads and sales but also social
shares, increase in fans, etc. Depending on
your goals, you could ask yourself questions
like:
How much traffic did I get to my website or
landing page?
How many new fans or followers did I get
on my social networks?
How many new subscribers did I get from
this campaign? And how many of the new
subscribers have unsubscribed?
How many calls or sales emails did we
get? Were they hot leads ready to become
customers?
How many of these conversions are
directly attributed to the influencers?
What was my return on investment?
You may get excited by seeing a lot of

mentions and URL clicks and forget the
real reason for the campaign. Unless that
influencer marketing campaign helps you
provide satisfactory answers to the questions
above, based on your goals, then it didnt
deliver.
35
Beyond the Campaign
At this point, it is worth repeating the fact that

an influencer marketing campaign is not a
once in a lifetime thing you do and forget. Its
a long term strategy you keep implementing,
depending on the goals you want to achieve.
You should also note that the
influencers you engage are not
pawns in your strategy. Theyre
people, who like other humans,
cherish real relationships.
campaign, nurture the ones you already have.

Dont stop interacting with them. The result of
this is youll be able to skip several steps when
next you have a campaign.
Relationship building is a long term strategy
that shouldnt be neglected. In this section,
well be discussing different ways you can
nurture your influencer relationships so you
can fast-track your next campaign.
To avoid the process of continuously reengaging new influencers (and a new

audience) every time you want to do a new
36
5.1 Nurturing Your

Relationships
It is important to treat your influencers and
audience as real people, and not just people
who help you make up your numbers. Here are
a few ways to keep the interaction going:
1. Follow Them On Social Media
Are there specific influencers that seemed to
impress you during the campaign? How about
your audience: which ones were the most
responsive? Which ones made the effort to
interact? Sure, you cant possibly follow every
member of your audience on social media, but
a few key ones would do.
Following these people on social
media is a sign that you actually
appreciate their efforts.
If Twitter was the main network used for your

campaign, then follow them. If it was LinkedIn,
connect with them. But make the effort to start
the relationship even after every campaign.
2. Add Them To A Twitter List
In order to stay ahead of influencer content,
add your influencers to a Twitter list. This not
only applies to influencers who participate in
your campaign, but even future influencers
you feel will be of value to future campaigns.
The purpose of adding them to this list is to
see all their tweets in one place so that you
can eventually favorite and retweet some.
This makes it super easy to approach them
when next you need their help.
3. Have A Engagement Schedule
You wont have the time to engage with
37
previous and new influencers if you dont

consciously make it happen. Add some
follow-up time to your daily and weekly
schedule. You can engage with them by
leaving comments on their posts, sending
a personal email occasionally or simply
recommending their content.
Jascha Brinkmann, a popular Internet Business
writer, frequently engages with influencers
and gets them to share his posts. Heres an
example from him sending out a personal
email.
When influencers see how much you care,
theyre more than willing to help out in any
future campaign. Always make it a point
of duty to recognize your audience and
influencers periodically.
Image source: Jascha Brinkmann blog
38
4. Ask Their Opinions

Your influencers and audience are
stakeholders in your brand as well. So their
opinions count to a large extent. To create
successful subsequent influencer marketing
programs, dont miss the opportunity to ask
their opinions on giveaways, strategy and any
other information useful for your campaign.
You can also ask for feedback
from their previous campaigns
and their advice about future
campaigns for your brand.
By doing this, they may share
strategies with you used in
marketing other brands.
How would you like to completely automate
your influencer marketing to build buzz
around your products and services?
5.2 Automate Your

Influencer Marketing
with Buzzoole
Buzzoole is an Influencer Marketing Platform
that allows brands to identify social influencers
and brand advocates within any social media
channel. Through our platform, you can engage
influencers in a fully automated way by
providing them special offers or inviting them
to exclusive events, thus stimulating the buzz
around your products and services.
And you can do this in different ways:
1. Pay per publication and increase word of
mouth about your product: Fully engage
influencers on the Buzzoole platform to
give personal feedback about your brand
through blog posts and social updates.
39
2. Engage industry specific influencers for new

product launches: You can generate buzz
about a new product launch in a specific
sector. All you have to do is create the
campaign and target influencers based on

level, geographic area, topic and keywords.
3. Engage with Brand Ambassadors: With the
40
4. Track your campaign and monitor ROI: With

the Live tracking dashboard, you can see
how well your influencers are doing as well
as virality.
Buzzoole platform, you can find the right influencers for your campaign and turn them to
ambassadors for your brand. Brand ambassadors can receive exclusive gifts and discounts.
Total reach
807.4 K
Total posts
484
Total publishers
346
Buzzoole reach
167
Generated posts
Blog reads
29
Influencers
Social reach
33.2 K
570.7 K
Blog posts
Social posts
39
Viral total reach
604 K
128
317
203.4 K
Viral posts
Viral social
317
Viral users
Viral blog
3.9 K
199.5 K
Social shares
Blog shares
12
305
41
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The Comprehensive Guide To Influencer Marketing

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The Comprehensive Guide

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3. Tell Your Brands Story with Influencer

2. Setting Your Goals

4. Building Your Network