How To Use Influencer Marketing To Grow Revenue, Authority & Audience with Cloris Kylie
Say the word ‘influencer’ to a member of the general public and their image is probably of some birdbrain posting a lot of lifestyle pictures of them on the beach on Instagram and touting products, but in fact there's much more to influencer marketing than the stereotype, and it comes with UNIQUE benefits...
Whereas in the past, it was only big media companies that could put you in touch with audiences, now of course the internet means everyone can be a publisher, and everyone - at least in theory - can hold the attention of an audience, and so the media game has changed...
As a result, EVERY business should be looking at influencer marketing, and using it in some way... but most people either aren’t doing it, or they’re not doing it in a systematic way.
Enter Cloris Kylie, author of Beyond Influencer Marketing, who helps entrepreneurs build long-lasting relationships with influencers to build authority, grow their audience, and boost revenue to steer us in the right direction. Includes:
- What should our ultimate goals be for influencer marketing?
- Why does influencer marketing deserve our attention compared to any other marketing channel we might choose? Where should it fit in the grand scheme of things?
- Are there any particular industries or niches where this kind of approach works particularly well, or poorly?
- If we decide we want to do this, how should we get ready - what do we need to be ‘influencer marketing ready’, would you say?
- Are we better with a ‘climbing the ladder’ kind of approach, or should we go in at the top on the basis that, if you don’t ask, you don’t get?
- What you can actually GIVE an influencer that’s of value to them - even if you think you have nothing
- Is influencer marketing an event or a process? If a process, how much time should we spend on it a week, and what kinds of activities should we do - the nuts and bolts?
- Software and tools to help you
- How to track your influencer marketing efforts
- If you find someone unresponsive, what do you do? Keep trying? Change the approach somehow? When do you give up?
Listen now to hear it all, or read the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT:
Rob Tyson
Welcome back listener. I'm here today with Cloris Kylie, the author of Beyond Influencer Marketing who helps entrepreneurs build long lasting relationships with influencers, to build authority grow their audience, and boost revenue. Now, this is a really interesting topic to me because whereas in the past, it was only big media companies that could put you in touch with audiences. Now, of course, the internet means everyone can be a publisher, and everyone, at least in theory, can hold the attention of an audience. So of course, the media game has changed. And I also know that if you get influencer marketing, right, it can be very powerful, but most people either aren't doing it right or they're not doing it in a systematic way. And so I'm really interested to pick choruses, brains on all that in just a second, but before we welcome cloris and get into it, if you're listening to this show, chances are good, you have professional expertise that you would like to monetize further and if you're ready Stop doing okay and take it up a gear. If you're ready to turn your existing visibility into a real business that's actually going to work for you and your clients and give you hope for the future, then I'd like to invite you to a free web class that I have. And it's going to explain why the ascension model or the value ladder you've probably heard about is a disaster waiting to happen for 99% of people in your position. And you're also going to learn exactly what you should do right now instead, if you want to generate real cash flow quickly, and finally get on the right track with monetizing your expertise, so that is free, and all you need to do is pop along to Rob Tyson dotnet forward slash class for all the details. So once again, that's Rob Tyson dotnet forward slash class. So with that said, welcome, Cloris Kylie, great to have you with us.
Cloris Kylie
So great to be here, thank you.
Rob Tyson
And we are obviously going to talk about influencer marketing So in the UK right now, Clarice, if you say the word influencer to a member of the general public, the image that they have is probably someone in swimwear, posting a lot of lifestyle pictures of them on the beach and maybe touting the odd the odd product like a dodgy diet supplement. And so that's one side of influencer marketing but it's not the only one is it? So what to you as an influencer? How do you define that word? And how do you define influencer marketing?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's easy to put influencer marketing aside in this regard. They just because you have that image right of an Instagram influencer or a YouTuber who basically promotes products. But influencers to me are people who can reach an ideal audience for you. Right and that audience doesn't have to be millions. It could be thousands or even hundreds because think about the power of Have you giving a presentation to a group of 50 or 100? paying customers? Right? What is the impact of that? So I think we have to kind of expand our view of what influencers are. And then once we do that, then we can then come up with the great people to connect with an influencers to reach out to, in order to collaborate with him. That's what it's all about.
Rob Tyson
Okay. And is this a question of size of audience? Or is it quality of audience? I mean, this is a bit of a How long is a piece of string question, I suspect, but how do you look at that?
Cloris Kylie
It's about quality, but it's also about values in style. Because there might be somebody who reaches the perfect audience, right? But maybe your style clashes with the style of the influencer, right? And when you go and present your, your ideas to the audience, they just don't like you and of course, you is a clash. So it's important that there's a match, and also values because if you're going to be collaborating with this person, then you must feel good while you do it. So it's important that you check that as well. And I mean, especially when you don't know somebody is tough, but you will get a good sense of it just by going to their website and checking their About Me page, just to see what they write about their journey to see if you can relate to it. And then maybe consuming some of the content in my put out on social media, LinkedIn, or maybe they have a podcast or a blog that you can read to get a sense of what matters to them, to see if it's a good idea to approach them. Of course, once you start interacting with them one on one, you will know if it's a true match, but at least get the get that idea before you reach out to them.
Rob Tyson
Do your research and say a client came to you Clarissa nice said, We want you to build an influencer marketing campaign for us. And you know, we've got we've got a huge budget. So that's not a problem. But we don't know what to do what? What kind of goals would you be setting with them or advising them to set? I mean, how would what what should we be aiming to do if we want to do this kind of campaign or activity?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have several statistics that have gathered about the results you could expect to get depending on the kind of influencer. So would ask this client, you know, how, if you get, let's say, 100 people joining your list 100 people attending your webinar, then how many of those people would become clients, right? And then once we know that we know our revenue goals, if you want to add, you know, $100,000 worth of worth of revenue, then these are the number of people We'll need to reach. And based on the number of people we need to reach them, we'll know the number of influencers we need to, to reach out to us. Well, I would say it's about past experience of what you get when you when you reach an audience of influencers of a certain size. But again, it's the quality of that audience. So how do you gauge the quality of the audience? Again, the research piece is the first step. So you would have to go and see the engagement of people on social media. maybe ask, you know, what, what, what kind of response Do you get or what kind of open rates do you have for your emails? So this is more like get into the business side of it when you have those conversations. But it all starts with research. Once you feel like you have a potential match, then it's good to reach out to them with an idea and for service businesses, it would be an idea for presentation for the audience. And once you have the presentation, then you you have a conversation or what what kind of results, what kind of, I guess, engagement you get for a webinar and so forth. And then you'll know how to predict that. So we say research is first selecting the influencers, you have a list, and then you go and reach out to them.
Rob Tyson
And and when you when you say reach out to them, are you going directly to them and saying, Oh, hey, you know, it looks as though you you have an audience that might be appropriate for my product and I pay a commission, can we do a promotion? Because that would obviously be very direct, or, and that's one way of doing it, or do you advocate perhaps warming up your cold relationship in some way and if so, what does that look like?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, depends. I mean, for example, if you're really going to do an Instagram influencer strategy, you got to be direct just because that's what they do. You know, that's how they monetize their channels. YouTubers. Same story. Of course, it helps if you've been a fan of their channel or have the posts, and at least they're familiar with you. But in this cases, it's just a pure transactional thing. So you've just approached them. And I've done that with some of my clients. Now, if you want to create a long term relationship with influencer, which is what I'm more of an advocate of, because it's not just about like a one time collaboration but about collaborating, collaborating with them in the long term, then it's different. Then instead of being more of a like, a big campaign to launch or something, then you just start to create relationships one at a time. And what you do is say okay, at the same story, you still have to do the research and come up With a list of influencers, but then the next step is to ask yourself, How can I deliver value to this influencer. So I can start a relationship. So it's more of a relationship that leads to collaboration. So let's say that, for example, you have a podcaster you'd like to connect with. And then in the future you would love to do a promotion, you know, for one of your products is something that you aim to do in the future. Then the first thing of course, you listen to the show and post a review. You become familiar with the show. Maybe they have a LinkedIn profile, you post a testimonial, you know about the show on LinkedIn. So you start to become a seen in the eyes of that podcaster. Once you know the show, then you reach out to them and say, Hey, you know, we're listening to your show. This is the episode that I love the most. I just posted a review. And by the way, I'd love to share there's a topic with your audience, I think is different has never been covered. So you're delivering value with your content, but also with your support of the podcaster. So it's a little bit different see, so you go there, and then after the conversation with the host, then you just talk about the next step. You know, this was fantastic. What else can I do for you? You know, what are you doing in your business that I could support you with? Just try to go without value first? Or would you like to meet again to talk about what else we could do together? So you open the door for collaboration? So I guess it depends. I mean, I am an advocate of the relationship piece. But there's room for Instagram influencer promotions as well.
Rob Tyson
Okay, and why would
Why would we do this?
As opposed to any other marketing
activity or channel we could go after?
So like, why, why is this better than me? chucking 10 grand at Facebook. Cats for instance?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, is a great question. And it all comes down to the quality of the audience that you will reach and the engagement they will have. Because of the influencers recommendation, there's a story about a teacher that was going to give a class to a romance and he had the teacher had never been there. So they separated the class into two small groups. And one group they gave a little card with a bio of the teacher. And the second group kinda different card this card gave a completely different description of the teacher once said, The teacher was amazing was open and listen to the students questions. The other one said, This guy doesn't care about anybody. He just doesn't know how to teach. So of course, everybody had that, that idea of the teacher so when the person showed up, gave exactly the same lecture and then they did a survey of The students, and the survey matched what they had read in that car prior to listening to the lecture. So it's the same thing like when an influencer recommends you, right? Because they say, Hey, I, I'm featuring Claus on my platform, because I believe in her message, you know, she has something great to share with you your lesson. But if you're out there, kind of like tearing your own horn on Facebook asking people to sign up for your stuff. It's very difficult. People don't know you. And I have personally noticed when I post ads that people tend to subscribe, they download the gift and they leave immediately. They don't even wait for you to send them an email, which is download and leave. It's not the same quality. So is it possible of course, yes, you can do it. You can create campaigns, but you end up spending a lot of money and you must have a funnel that really converts that works. Otherwise, it becomes an expense rather than, you know, an investment really.
Rob Tyson
Yeah, no, I mean
Obviously, I asked you that question, having an idea how you might answer it, because you're absolutely right. I mean, the difference with this kind of thing is that you get a transfer of the credibility and goodwill from the partner, isn't it? So exactly as you say, they, they they frame you in a certain way. And because they introduce you, you get a lot of value from that, that you just can't get other ways. So yeah, I agree completely. If we, if we decide we want to get started with influencer marketing. How should we get ready? Do we need anything to be ready for this? Are there any prerequisites or there's other things we should do to our website or materials we should prepare?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, I'm such a strong advocate of of having a strong foundation ready to go before you reach out to the influencers? I mean, you could create those connections right away. Yes. But when you reach out to them with a idea, you must be ready with a list building system meaning a lead magnet that is perfectly aligned with your signature talk, whatever it is, like, if you have three topics, all those topics should have some sort of resource that you give people at the end of your presentation. So it could be a checklist, you know, be a quiz that people take, I would say webinars are great, but I recommend something that is quick to download and it might lead to a webinar. But it's good to have something that is quick that you can offer to people when they listen to your presentation. And of course, you gotta be ready with what is next for those new subscribers. So what is the journey we want them to take, meaning that the lead magnet should have a call to action for that next step, as well as your emails that are going out to Union subscribers. They all should lead to the same next step. And you should also be ready with a system to track Your results otherwise you will never know how this is working. So if I'm going to be on a show a podcast we talking a lot about podcasts but that's what comes to mind right? You would say okay well if you want to download my influencer guide just go to cloris Kelly comm slash success for success podcast right or, or slash fire for entrepreneurs on fire to the way you know how many people really clicked on your lead magnet as a result of that show. If you want to be more accurate, I suggest that you use a an affiliate link. And then you basically make it a pretty link with a pretty link plug in you could do that. But just actually use affiliate links to see how many people subscribed and how many people purchase your products too. So it gives a more you can track the better otherwise it will be just something that you do and never know how it worked out.
Rob Tyson
Sure, and and Just for the benefit of anyone who's listening is not quite sure what an affiliate link is.
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, so yeah, it's basically a link you create to track. Who's coming from where. So Rob is enemies, people, he has a special link. So everybody who comes from Rob's audience, I will know that they came from him. So it's basically just a way to track where people come from.
Rob Tyson
Yeah. And then if down the road, you find that one of those people becomes a client or buy something of yours, then then you go, Okay, well, that was productive, or that.
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, you will know and, you know, if you say, Okay, I'm not ready to do quite yet, then you can always count on that trust that you have built with the influencer. And that's why I'm an advocate of a long term relationships. Because once you get to a point that you trust each other, and let's say that that person has you as a speaker for their group. You don't have an affiliate link, then you should have the say that you have a consultation form, you should have a question that says who referred you and they will tell you and of course when you talk to them, you will ask and that way you can give that person maybe a gift for the referral and so forth. You will know. So, I think the better that the stronger the relationship is that you create with the influencer, then the more ways you will find the collaborate and the easier it will become for you to track results
Rob Tyson
and question for them because
obviously, in a, you know, in an ideal world, we can we'd probably like to have influencers who have enormous followings, you know, promote us and there's two ways of looking at that, as Suppose the first way is you might say, Well, I'm never going to get that person next week or next month. And therefore, I might kind of climb the ladder and go for people who are maybe a bit further down, but I'm more likely to be able to develop a relationship and then kind of
climb the ladder gradually.
So that's one way we could do it. The other way is you could say, Well, hey, if you don't ask you don't get. And I'm just gonna email Tony Robbins. So I were, what do you think is the best
Cloris Kylie
strategy? Yeah, that's a great question, too. I would say for top influencers. And this is something that I find the analogy of what you do in a virtual summit, right. So I just hosted my summit. And I had some top influencers, people reach millions. But all not all of the speakers on the summit. Were like that, right. I had maybe three of them. reach millions. And the rest of the speakers were not quite there yet, you know, maybe they reach thousands or 10s of thousands, a couple of 100,000. So it's kind of a mix of the top influencers, that you have another cup influencers, but the most important influences in your circle, right? So that you're going to focus on. You have to do not collect connections, but to really focus on the quality. So let's say that you want to connect with one top influencer, or maybe two, I would say no more than three, then you're really going to support that top influencer left and right, like, clearly you're going to be there. You're going to join their program and you'll be their most valuable student. You're going to go to their live event and just be there and meet them in person, right? You're going to support and you're going to become the top affiliate, like I know somebody who was actually a speaker on my summit, and she had a really small list and it's Small Business, but she wanted to really stand out in the eyes of this very, very large company is a joint venture inside insider circle. We were talking about it actually. So she started to promote the program to her connections again she's had a very small lesson she just basically emailed and message people one on one. Here's this great program you should join over. Well, she beat people had seven eight figure businesses as an affiliate partner for that particular launch. She was number one, and guess what immediate connection with the leader of that community and that opened the door to top influencers supporting her and promoting her so now she is a top influencer. So it took that it took you know that effort but she focused on that influencer see so if she had tried to connect with 20 celebrities and tap into answers, you just don't have the bandwidth for that she's got a focus one or two, and then just really give it your all. And you should see results in most cases actually.
Rob Tyson
No, that's really interesting. So, so you're talking about having, let's call them the top level people were just made in terms of, let's call it fame. So you're suggesting on our lists, we maybe have three people like that. So what does the rest of our list consist of? So you've how many people on your list I suppose is a good question. In total?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, I would say me I have a 50 people on my main list of connections that I've really focused on. And there are 10 of them who are what I call my inner circle like the top connections. So I'm always double checking that I'm supporting them in any way possible. We have catch up calls. You know, those are the people who are closest to you. And then the rest of the people within those 50 people who are close, we try to support as much as possible. We stay in touch maybe every every quarter, at least once a year once I subscribe to all of their email updates, so I know what's going on. So these are my people want to support and then of course, then the rest of your connections. But in those in that list of of your influencers, there should be people you can collaborate with easily and directly. Maybe they have, as I said, they have a group program that you can be a speaker for, or they have an event that you can speak at. So just think about yes, those top top influencers, the celebrity type influencers, very small group and then the rest should be people you can collaborate with reach ideal audiences.
Rob Tyson
And just for the avoidance of doubt, so these people are not clients so much as they're, they're people who could introduce you to clients, right?
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, exactly. And they could be direct referrals. Or it could be a group referrals through a presentation or webinar joint webinar, also or something of that sort.
Rob Tyson
Yes. Okay, that's great. And
I think from what I was gonna say, one of my question for you is, is this is influencer marketing an event or a process? I think it's clear from speaking to you. It's obviously a process. So how much time do you spend on it a week? How much time should we spend on it a week? And what kind of activities are we doing in a typical week?
Cloris Kylie
Yes, is a good question to well, in regard to nurturing my connections abroad, we spend about a half hour every day just making sure that I'm following up with people and supporting them in any way I can, in making sure I have meetings with people to catch up and so forth. So I would say yes, about an average of a half hour a day on That. And then I also dedicate time. For interviews and appearances. The thing that counts is the time you spend on influencer marketing. So for example, I've gotten a lot of guest requests to be on people's shows. And I've had to kind of postpone that because I don't want to have, you know, a million interviews that don't allow me really to, to serve my clients. So you should limit your interview time depending on your schedule to maybe an hour to a week. But it would be great if you could have a presentation in front of an ideal audience per week. That would be ideal. So allow time for that. And then I'm not spending too much time on that right now. But I used to spend a couple of hours a week just reaching out to potential podcasters or bloggers that I wanted to be featured on because there wasn't a building mode. So those two hours would be spent in a blog just to send out pitches, or just to send ideas to people. And then, and then the next week could be again, pitches and following up. Right now, people are reaching out to me, so it's become less of of that you need to do that. But at the beginning, I think it's good to do that. So couple of hours a week doing that.
Rob Tyson
Okay. And last last few questions for you. Because we're, we're bumping up against time a little bit. So let's say you've you found someone and you'd like to develop a relationship with them, but you've been trying and they're, they're unresponsive.
And maybe you're not sure if they're just they just don't want to know or maybe they're busy because they're busy people. So for how long do you keep trying and when do you give up? Or are there any signs we should look for that would would tell you that you know this, this person's unlikely to be a good connection that we should spend more time on.
Cloris Kylie
Yeah, I think is important to follow up at least three times with people and to change the medium that you use. So if you're going to be using email, maybe your emails are going to their junk folder. So try maybe messaging them on social media, right? Maybe try a handwritten note if you don't hear from them. But it depends. I mean, if you're reaching kind of like a celebrity type, then I think a handwritten note would be great, just to stand out a little more. And then try to find a way through maybe their assistant so you can reach them you have to become the assistance of best friend to really be recognized or at least a check with an influencer and see if you know they're interested in connecting with you. Now, if you're talking about somebody who is more like you know, the level that you're at, and you just want to find ways to collaborate Then Yes, I would follow up via email three times. If that doesn't work. Try another way, maybe Facebook, LinkedIn. If that doesn't work, then maybe it's time to give up, you know, and you will know because it just feels more of a chore to do this follow up. And it's not worth it. You know, you can find somebody who is more aligned with with your values and who can collaborate with you, or someone that works really well. When you send a second email, always have the same headline but add the words follow up at the beginning. Now usually works but if it doesn't, then your third email, just write last follow up. And that one again, I have never had anyone who did reply to my last follow up email, that's the one that always gets a reply. So make sure to do that. And to keep the same body of the email you have before so people can see what exactly you had been asking you.
Rob Tyson
There you go. That's a great tip. I'm going to be using that one. Final, final quick one for you. So any particular software or tools you're using before we wrap up?
Cloris Kylie
Well, if you are going for the Instagram influencer route, there's a good website is called influence that SEO, where you can do your research too early to start with a research. Of course, you have a paid influencer software out there that you can, you know, 1500 hours a month, where you can find social media influencers and bloggers mean that's the way that route when you just want to do a transactional type of thing. When you're focusing on relationships, it's good to have some sort of networking software to organize your connections. So sometimes it's as clothes like clo z, or even pipe drive that you might use to stay Touch with potential clients you can use to stay in touch with influencer connections. If you don't want to use any software, you could just use something as simple as you know, like a Google Sheet and then set reminders in Google calendar to support them and to follow through. That's okay, you have Boomerang for reminders, email reminders to follow up. But I think it's good to have one of those software tools to really organize yourself better though, huh?
Rob Tyson
Yeah, I agree. It's worth a small investment, isn't it if you're if you're doing this properly? We're running out of time. So if people only took one nugget or piece of advice away from from our conversation, what would that be?
Cloris Kylie
It would be to see influencer marketing as something that is not about social media. Instagram influencers, but it's about creating relationships with people who reach your ideal audience. And that can start today. I mean, you can create a relationship today. And then once that moment comes once you have that launch happening, that new product, a new service, and it becomes easy just to just talk to your connections and see if they can support you. So start the relationships today. Expand the opportunities that you see so so look at all these people you need as potential partners, and you'll see those those new opportunities pop up.
Rob Tyson
Okay, very good. And where's the best place for people to get more from you Cloris?
Cloris Kylie
Well, if you want you can go to cloriskylie.com/influencer that's where you will see my guide with 15 ways to get noticed by influencers just a way to start that relationship.
Rob Tyson
Fantastic. Well, it's been really great. So really appreciate you you coming on and I will talk to you very soon.
Cloris Kylie
Thanks Rob.