Influencer Marketing: How Brands should Approach Influencers

Let’s say I’m a big travel brand. I’m approaching you, as an influencer, and I want to know if you’re a fit with my brand. How do I navigate that conversation? What do I need to know, from you, to really answer that question?

I usually say three things. Firstly, research. Looking at my content on the most basic level. Is the style and tone of my content, both visual and written, a good fit for your brand? That’s the acid test from the very beginning. If the answer is yes, that’s a great sign; if the answer is no, it’s probably not a good fit. Then digging a bit deeper into it. Looking at my demographics, who do I actually reach? One mistake brands often make, is that they work with somebody who seems as if they’d reach their demographic but, actually, once they scratch the surface, it becomes obvious that they are reaching somebody completely different.

There’s an example that a lot of people like to use of an Instagram account where it’s a woman who is always in swimsuits and brands started working with her and wondering why women weren’t buying the swimsuits. Then, of course, they found out that most of this person’s following were men and men don’t buy women’s swimsuits. It’s one of those things where you really have to do the research and make sure that this person does reach your demographic.

Other things about research can involve anything in terms of relevance or reputation. How much does this influencer do other types of partnerships? Are they working with other brands that are your competitors? Are they working with brands that are irrelevant, just because they want to make money? Lots of different things you can get, just from looking at their content. Also, it’s important to have a conversation with them, as well. Find out what they do, find out if they are even interested in your brand. Finding influencers who are already talking about your brand can be really powerful, as well. Obviously, they’re already fans, so it would be a good, natural fit. Lots of things like that go into it.

So you would provide me with your demographic data, to prove who you were going to reach?

Exactly, yes. I have a media kit on my blog, for any brand that is interested in working with me. They can go to A Lady in London, they can download the media kit and they can look at all my stats and who they would reach, if they worked with me. If they still have further questions, which sometimes they do, they can email me – my email address is on the blog, it’s on my Instagram – and we can go from there.

You mentioned that brands, typically, make which are around, I want to get into influencer marketing, I don’t really know how to approach it; let me just get as many influencers as I can. Are there any other mistakes that they make, when moving into this channel?

Sometimes, they make the mistake of working with too many influencers at one time. I think there is, sometimes, an idea that if we work with tons of influencers, either it will be a bigger reach or we’re spreading ourselves out, so we don’t necessarily put all our eggs in one basket. But again, they don’t necessarily do enough research on all the influencers that they are working with.