How to Build Your Own Influencer Database to Create Your Influencer Army

Would you be interested in hiring an assemblage of noteworthy people — each having hundreds or even thousands of committed adherents — to endorse your product or service?

If this appeals to you, you can see why micro-influencer marketing is becoming increasingly popular. Micro-influencers have the power to shape ideas, with innumerable amounts around the world often being excited to collaborate with companies. It is a probability that some of your brand’s customers and fans are already micro-influencers.

Ready? Not so fast. To be effective with micro-influencer marketing, you need to roll out your campaign to many micro-influencers, ranging from hundreds to thousands, depending on your objectives. It is not possible to automate the tasks of finding individuals to advertise for you, as well as making arrangements such as reaching a financial agreement, creating content, and making payments. These individuals are real individuals, not pre-made advertising pieces. In order to have a successful return on investment in your micro-influencer campaign, it’s important to become familiar with the intricate web of influencer marketing tools, services, and approaches.

Individuals with a small but engaged online presence, often referred to as micro-influencers, generally have 100,000 or fewer followers. It has been discovered that compared to famous influencers, the lesser known influencers have a deeper connection with their audience, as well as more devoted followers.

Constructing a successful influencer marketing plan necessitates thorough planning, adept communication, and a judicious selection of suitable tools.

First, determine your needs

It seems clear, but it’s shocking how frequently promoters plunge into influencer advertising without thoroughly enumerating their requirements.

What are your marketing goals?

Marketers are known to make the mistake of starting an influencer campaign without considering their marketing goals in detail. For instance, some advertisers think that after they persuade a handful of famous Instagram users to post pictures of their item, the revenue will begin flowing in. Quite the contrary. Using Instagram to advertise can be effective for certain topics such as fashion or journeys, but might not have much effect on other topics.

At the onset, decide what goal you are aiming to accomplish from your use of influencers. What do you want?

• Build awareness?
• Drive sales?
• Gather leads?
• Email signups?
• Increase your social media followers?
• Get reviews?
• Unboxing videos?
• SEO links?
• Stunning imagery?

What platforms and formats are you targeting?

You can decide which online channels and formats will be most suitable for your objectives with regards to your campaign. Remember that any influencer marketing campaign should ultimately produce some kind of content. It could be any form of media, like a YouTube clip, an Instagram article, a Pinterest pin, a tweet, or a blog entry.

Who is your target influencer?

Once you are aware of the content you want to develop and the systems that are suitable for your company, you can begin defining the correct influencer for your project.

• How many followers?
• What do they talk about?
• On which platform(s) do they drive engagement?
• Audience characteristics. Age, gender, location of their followers should match your target customers.

Once you have established what you aim to do and who your desired influencers are, the difficult task of locating and persuading these people to endorse your company starts. Generally, there are three main ways to accomplish this task, 1) find influencers through a platform, 2) make your own list (DIY method), or 3) collaborate with a full service influencer marketing service. There are both advantages and disadvantages to each type of influencer marketing campaign, along with a variety of tools to facilitate them. Having conducted influencer marketing campaigns for more than 3 years, I have listed some of the more viable options for you.

Connect with influencers by tapping into an influencer marketplace

When it comes to getting in touch with influencers, you can either do it directly or through a specialized website. To connect with influencers, you must accumulate a list and contact them individually, commonly through email. You can explore a catalog of already approved influencers that marketplaces give you access to, you can search for them or some marketplaces even have a system in place that will automatically identify which influencers best suit your needs.

The advantages of employing a marketplace are swiftness and productiveness. You can avoid having to spend time constructing a list of influencers, tracking down their contact details, and talking to each one of them separately. The search process can be quickened by each market having specific guidelines for influencers, whether they be on YouTube or any other category.

Famebit

Famebit is the most renowned platform for connecting with YouTube celebrities. Famebit offers access to more than 70,000 online influencers and has the extra distinction of being a subsidiary of YouTube (it was acquired by Google in 2016).

Post your campaign on Famebit and pick the influencers you’d like to collaborate with. Once you’ve done that, either contact them to be part of your promotion or wait for them to apply to promote your product. Famebit takes 20% of the money given to the celebrity.

Octoly

Octoly is another popular YouTube marketplace. In the same way as Famebit, it is possible to put your commodity and promotion in Octoly’s market and either get applications or ask YouTubers to push your product.

Octoly is distinct in that brands cannot compensate influencers monetarily; the system practices only giving them complimentary products. This procedure could be suitable for Youtubers with fewer followers, but big-name influencers usually need to be paid for their services and so may not be included on the Octoly roster.

Influenster

Influenster is a widely known e-commerce platform that specializes in servicing minor influencers who are interested in critiquing products. They boast about possessing 3 million people on their website who give product remarks on Influenster.

You can suggest your product’s inclusion in one of their “VoxBoxes”, which are sets of complimentary items they dispense to their influencers.

Build your own database of influencers

The drawbacks of being included in a marketplace could be that you don’t have much control over the setup of your campaigns. The markets determine their rules concerning the kind of influencers they make available and the tasks which can be assigned. You may be restricted to utilizing influencers from one type of service like YouTube or Instagram, or you may be limited to a certain type of review.

Why do brands need an influencer database?

In summary, it can be challenging to monitor the people who are influential within your program. An increasing number of brands are veering away from using influencer marketing platforms to source various social media influencers, instead opting to manage the process internally. This method provides an economic benefit in comparison to utilizing an agency or platform.

Moreover, companies are increasingly selecting to collaborate only with influencers who have some type of affinity with the brand. They need to develop a list of influencers and handle it effectively in order to have a successful outcome from their influencer marketing. Through this process, companies are able to collaborate with new influencers in a more timely manner. It is well worth the energy that goes into searching for influencers to avoid having to locate them multiple times.

What is an Influencer Database?

It is accurate to say that there exist various types of influencer databases. Certain sites tie into influencer marketing platforms, enabling you to look for and reach out to applicable influencers. Subscribe to a commercial software program or list that is updated regularly that will serve as an influencer database.

Nevertheless, with respect to the issues we are discussing today, we shall focus on something else. Rather than using an outside source, a CRM system has been tailored to meet your specific needs that allows you to track and manage influencers. Rather than containing customers or sales leads, the CRM in question contains different kinds of people. Rather than relying on any old individual, these are people you have a particular connection to who can have an impact on your reputation. They may, of course, also be customers or employees.

With that in mind, how can my company make an influencer database?

Basically, the process of constructing an influencer database is similar to the process that you would follow when creating a database of customers and sales leads. The most obvious contrast is the kind of bond you have with them and, likewise, the way you communicate with them.

Create a CRM to Store Influencer Data

The initial action you need to take to create a database of influencers is to locate a place where the information can be stored. One option to accomplish this is to customize your current CRM software to cater to influencers rather than consumers. Designate a unique classification for influencers, differentiating them from other customers. In this manner, while you are constructing an exclusive database, you have a spot to keep the data. A temporary way to achieve the job can be done through an Excel sheet or a similar program.

Give the IT department the responsibility to modify the influencer database to meet the unique requirements of influencer contacts. For example, you should remember the accounts they have on social media and the demographic they are trying to reach. It’s very beneficial for companies to understand immediately which influencers to employ in order to communicate with different demographics at different intervals.

Start With Your Current Influencers

If you have connections to any influential people, start entering their details into your database for influential people. This job could be either simple or exhausting, based on the software that’s currently in use. If you’re relying on a traditional paper-based system or Word document, it will take an even greater amount of time. For particularly sizeable tasks, look into engaging the services of a short-term staff member from a nearby organization that specializes in data entry. You will likely pay per hour, but the expense is probably more economical compared to hiring your own personnel.

Assign Different Priorities to Influencers Based on Past Performance

It is likewise essential to rate and prioritize influencers in the same way that customers are given ranks based on their buying pattern or allegiance to a brand. This could be accomplished by ranking influencers in terms of their effectiveness. You can differentiate influencers by marking or grading them, thus helping you to figure out who should be most important when organizing a new influencer promotion.

Build your Influencer Community

Creating and administering a database of influencers involves activities beyond just archiving existing partnerships. If you want to keep your database current, you must periodically update it. As your company evolves and your needs vary, the information in your database should be kept up to date as well. Luckily, it is remarkably effortless if you are aware of how to accomplish it.

See who has existing brand affinity

You can also search for individuals who already have a favorable opinion of your brand and add them to your list of influencers. People with brand loyalty are seen as the most effective influencers, as they already have a fondness towards your organization. Workers, for example, could produce the items you are attempting to market. Partners or executives gain advantages from the advancement of your business. Insert the individuals into the database once they have been recognized.

Consider a formal influencer program

Lastly, consider forming a strategic influencer marketing program. Normally, this software is designed for influencers who are strongly connected to a certain brand, not for people who don’t have those relationships. An explanation for this is that influencers that feel a bond with the brand have a more intimate relation to the company. Even though you are paying them to promote your campaign, these are the influencers who would have possibly talked about your brand without any compensation. This job is a source of pride and holds value.

Regularly Reach Out to New Influencers

Engaging with influencer content is a great way to make connections. Many influencers are aware of the attention they receive from brands based on the interactions they get on their posts, such as the “likes” or comments. Interacting with posts related to products is a prudent way to demonstrate that you are aware of their excellent work. Making a comment or sharing content that is philosophical or interesting can show an influencer that you are interested in them and their opinion.

Interacting on social media is not the only element of influencer outreach. You can even reach out to them in a more personal manner, like sending them a message to show that you care about how their lives and businesses are going. This connection will be one of a commercial nature, similar to the tactic used by sales professionals to increase their product sales. Persist in your efforts, and they could wind up consenting to working together again in the future. It is essential to have a comprehensive influencer database regardless of whether you are a novice or experienced with influencer marketing. Making a good connection with influencers will make it easier for you to get positive results. A private register of influencers is designed specifically for your business and its influencer marketing campaign, in contrast to commercial databases. The influencers listed are not only great options for marketers to use, but also those that have been utilized before and even potential choices for campaigns to come. This implies that the data you acquire is the most pertinent possible.

Creating your own database might seem complicated initially, however, I have demonstrated that it is really not so complex. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that has been tailored to fit influencers rather than the general public is what is known as an influencer database. Some people, of course, will appear in both databases. Utilizing automation programs and current data, you can create a beneficial database quickly.