Have you ever typed, “Best [product category] Reddit?” or bought a productivity hack thanks to TikTok? How about bookmarking the curated list of travel items from your favourite blogger, or Youtuber? Chances are you have. If you consume content, you know that feeling of trust when a favorite creator gives a recommendation - and this trust is proving to be a powerful tool for brands to leverage.
The influencer market for 2022 is projected to be worth $15 billion, almost doubling in size since 2019. The market has also considerably matured, with more brands setting aside dedicated budgets for influencer campaigns.
Authenticity - 2022’s Golden Child
For the world of fan-marketing, this maturation demonstrates the increasing importance of networks, referrals and trust when marketing to fans. After all, with advertising everywhere, and a plethora of platforms for fans to choose from, fans are facing “choice overload,” which increasingly pushes them inwards to listen to a few choice ‘friends’. For 2022, this means that the pursuit of creating authentic connections between your fans and influencers can either play as a strategic advantage, or expose your brand as one that doesn’t understand its fanbase. The question today is, how can brands uncover the influencers that best reflect their communities of fans?
Transforming Fans into Influencers: “tickets sell tickets”
The rapid growth of the influencer market, and subsequently the professionalization of the role of “the influencer,” makes it easy to assume that your best bet is an outsider. But what if it isn’t? The influencer relationship extends to every single champion of your brand that has an impact on another’s purchasing decision. There’s immense opportunity in the social network and connections that your existing fans have. Tickets sell tickets. So, how do you transform your existing fans into micro-influencers? Start with some of the tactics below:
1. Understand the segments of fans with social power:
Find fans that are champions of your brand and super-serve them with personalized offerings and experiences. These fans hit more of your touchpoints, more often than other fans. Dig deep with these fans to breed loyalty and find more “early adopters” similar to them. If you offer a highly engaged fan an exclusive opportunity to jump on tickets early, they’ll be more likely to do so.
2. Build “referrals” into your marketing strategy:
The average person has 3-5 close friends, and even more “acquaintances.” Chances are, if they’re attending a game, concert or festival, they’re already reaching out to their best buds to go with them - make it easier for them to convince their extended network. This could be through gamified experiences such as “referral points,” or opportunities to win bigger in your digital campaigns if they share across social channels. The most important part of this tactic? Measurement. Put trackers on your referral links, and keep track of the fans that are sharing the most, or which fans have the most conversions on the back of their referrals. This way you can check your understanding of which segment of fans are your best micro-influencers.
3. Leverage early buyers + build them into promo strategy:
The fans that have already bought tickets to your event are aligned with you in one important aspect - they want to have an unforgettable experience. Similar to the tactics above, stay engaged and top of mind with your early buyers so that they feel compelled to get others on board with them. It’s common to group your promotional strategy based on milestones before a big event - a dedicated strategy to tap into your early buyers should be part of these milestones.
Creating the Perfect Pairing: use your existing knowledge
At the end of the day, the influencer relationship relies on creating value and relevance for your fans. The key to both starts with knowing your fanbase. Value relies on understanding the motivations of your fanbase - why they purchase, why they interact with your brand, and where these motivations intersect with particular influencers. Relevance relies on your brand finding alignment as part of your fans’ culture - having your values reflected in every move you make - especially through influencers.
The key to finding the sweet spot when it comes to value and relevance is ownership over your fan data and network. When you have visibility over the different touchpoints and behaviours of your fans, you can build a dynamic portrait of who they are and how they are influenced. You can start mapping out their entire journey with you. Start by collecting first-party data from your fans to go beyond audiences and vague trends you can glean from third-party applications.
What platforms do your fans prefer? What forums, channels and people do they listen to? Better yet, why? What is it about the content or the people they engage with that pushes them further down your funnel? Once you uncover what’s driving your audience to grow and stay with you, you can find people that will help you amplify this growth.
Fans live in a unique space in that their love of your brand is tied to something deeper - it’s tied to an experience, identity and community. Building your own banks of data on your fans equips you with the ability to ask the right questions and uncover the best ways to tap into your extended network of fans. After all, your fan network is made up of a variety of people - from customers, to observers, to collaborators - when you know who they are and what they want, you can create the best journeys for them.
Bringing it all together: Data Centralization
When we say “understand” we really mean “use data-driven decision-making.” All that we’ve discussed so far is only possible when you have the knowledge base and information to back up the decisions you’re making. A robust knowledge base relies on centralization and integration. To make your data ‘readable’ you cannot be looking at data in different siloes. Your social insights feed into ticketing, your engagement successes affect fans’ responsiveness to paid advertising - there’s a reason you’re employing a full-funnel strategy, and to only look at each section in isolation is to overlook the deeper understanding that your brand can have.
Start with finding a solution that allows you to integrate your existing tech stacks of data, and have a plan for regular maintenance of your data. Once you start pulling things into one place, you can create a bird’s eye view of the impact of your existing initiatives, have your teams work from the same understanding, and make decisions easier. From there, you can start building out your influencer strategy!
To learn more about how you can leverage the network effect of your fans, get in touch!