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Influencers, affiliates, and brand ambassadors are all excellent tools to drive traffic to your website and improve conversions, but what if you can’t get them to sign on to promote your business? Why don’t they want to be a part of your Instagram affiliate marketing strategy? Part of the problem could be they don’t trust you. But what’s the cause of this? And how can you get them to trust you? Here are a few reasons why you can’t get your influencer marketing strategy off the ground—and how to improve on these faults.
Poor recruiting and management
A major warning sign for influencers and ambassadors is your having poor recruiters and marketing managers. If your brand representative is a jerk, or downright unprofessional, an influencer is going to be turned off and stay away. Recruiters should be clean, clear, professional, and wholesome. Anything other than that can be a warning sign of what else lurks beneath the surface of your business—spelling bad news to come with a brand-influencer partnership.
Content that falls flat
Influencers want to promote brands that pop and shine. Why? Because it reflects well on their brand; it also increases their chances of getting conversions—their followers are more likely to engage with a brand that has a significant presence. Lackluster content is sure to turn away most reputable influencers, as they don’t want to be hexed by working with a poor brand.
Inconsistent payments
There’s nothing freelancers and contractors hate more than late or missed payments. Many of these workers have been burned before, and any influencer who deals with this would rather try their chances elsewhere than continue praying a paycheck gets deposited into their bank account.
4 ways to improve your relationships
1. Value authentic content
When you talk with potential influencers and affiliates, you want to let them know you value authenticity above all else. Your company should already do this — as a form of best practices — but it’s especially essential when trying to establish a network of referrers. This means not selling influencers and affiliates a fairy tale. To create authentic content for your brand, they’re going to need authentic content to work with. Be direct about what your brand stands for. It will make their jobs far easier.
One example is Magic Spoon (a Refersion client). The brand works with fitness and health brand ambassadors to spread the word, and they want people to be transparent about how the cereal is helping them achieve their nutrition and exercise goals.
2. Maintain transparency
Working off the above, you’ll want to similarly remain transparent in all of your interactions. This means remaining direct, providing people with the information they need to complete their job, giving them clear expectations, and similarly being upfront about compensation, scheduling, and more.
An influencer shouldn’t feel as if they’re guessing with you. Any sign that they’ll have to do that will cause them to run for the door as fast as they can. Rather, be direct and treat them with respect, as if they’re a part of your team.
3. Onboard them with ease
Onboarding is another important process for anyone looking to bring on an influencer, affiliate, or brand ambassador to their team. Onboarding is the key time where your business will teach them all about your brand and what your relationship will entail: from their compensation to your expectations, your tone to their unique style. It’s important to make this process seamless, as you’ll want them to feel comfortable while joining your team—as if the information comes naturally.
4. Let them know they’re valued
Beyond paying them on time, make sure you incentivize them in other ways. This could include competitive compensation, but it can go further. You could provide rewards to influencers who drove a certain number of conversions in one month. It could even include giving out gift cards to influencers who performed to high expectations over a season. Whatever the method, make sure to show your thanks for their work—beyond a paycheck.
Begin building your trust today
Not sure how to begin building trust both with and through your influencers? Consider some brands like Pura Vida Bracelets (Refersion client) that have been able to accomplish just that with help from an affiliate tracking strategy. Since partnering with a trusted platform, Pura Vida has been able to increase its number of brand ambassadors to 126,000 in just North America, all while increasing its revenue by 590%. Put the right performance marketing platform to work today and see how influencers can push your brand to greater success.
Raj Nijjer is the CMO of Refersion, a leading performance marketing platform for e-commerce brands. Prior to joining Refersion, Raj led brand marketing at Yotpo, and previously at Yext in multiple leadership roles through its IPO in 2017. Raj also spent nine years at GoDaddy in leadership roles launching innovative product lines with over nine patents issued and leading to a buyout, inclusive of an eventual IPO.