How To Give Influencers An A+ Experience And Why It’s Important

Whether you're brand new to the influencer marketing game, or just want to ensure your next campaign is flawless, read on to find out how to ensure your influencer has an A+ experience and why it is so important.

How to do it

Give the influencers everything they need and more! Create a brief to include information about your brand, and most importantly be clear with your objectives and deliverables. The more information you can give, the better.

Give them the premium service

Does your brand have a “standard” and “premium” service? If so, ensure that your influencer/s alway receive the premium service. For example, if you’re an airline you wouldn’t seat your influencers in economy or premium economy. They should be seated up front in first class with all the bells and whistles. If their experience is amazing, then the content they share with their community will be amazing!

Treat them like royalty

Treating your influencers like royalty is all about creating an experience and making them feel special. Little extras like goodie bags or freebie products go a long way with influencers and create incentive to generate more incredible content about your brand (which is more promotion!).

Don’t make them pay for anything

Promoting your brand shouldn’t cost the influencer money, so don’t make them pay for anything or be out of pocket. If they have to travel and be away from home, make sure you give them a food budget or have all of their meals provided. Gifting products is an integral part of influencer marketing, as it introduces an influencer to your brand in a low-cost way. When providing a complementary product or service, it is absolutely critical that they receive the best experience possible. If they don’t, their content will reflect that and it is ultimately a disservice to your brand and the campaign as a whole.

Don’t forget the finer details

It’s the little things that make the biggest impact, so a small gesture of thanks (whether it be a thank you card or a small gift) won’t go unnoticed. Make it known to your influencer that your thanks and appreciation doesn’t end once their content is posted. Maintaining a good relationship with an influencer can be a great testament to your influencer’s genuine love for your brand and its quality.

Understand their value

It is critical to understand that an influencers value stretches far beyond the reach of their content. Your thanks and appreciation shouldn’t end once their content is uploaded, and nor does their influence. For example, content creation, feedback, word of mouth and personal friends and family networks, all have value outside of their deliverables and are all extremely valuable to your brand.

Don’t be stingy

For an influencer campaign to be successful, you need to be ready to invest in it. When you have a budget to invest in influencer marketing, the process is much more collaborative in terms of negotiating content, timelines and execution dates. Plus, paying an influencer for their role in the collaboration ensures more time and effort is spent creating better, high-quality content.

Don’t exclude +1’s

If you’re hosting an event or experience, ask your influencer if they would like to bring a plus one. Nobody likes going to an event alone, especially when they don’t know anyone else there, so bringing a friend will help your influencer feel more comfortable and more likely to enjoy the experience. Plus, many influencers hang out in groups, interacting with each other on both a personal and professional level, so it is likely they will bring a fellow influencer as their plus one, ultimately generating more exposure. Allowing for plus one’s is the polite thing to do, plus who else will help them take their photos?

Make it easy to create great content

Generally speaking, influencers are all about creating aesthetically pleasing content that inspires, informs, entertains and/or promotes, so if you want your influencers content to be a success, ensure they can take great photos in real time! Good lighting is key to getting the best shot, especially when talking about photo content from a camera phone. But just as important is branded content, whether it be balloons or business cards, if done with a spark of creativity, can be the perfect prop for influencer content. If you want your influencer to post imagery that will ultimately lead their followers to your account and increase brand awareness (a huge win and KPI!), these finer details are crucial.

Loaning a product? Organise its return

In the event that you are loaning your influencer a product, it is your responsibility to organise a return courier or collection. This shouldn’t be the responsibility of the influencer to deal with or cover the cost. As previously discussed, it is always best to give influencers the product to keep where possible.

Why it is important

Influencers are engaged to highlight the best parts of the brand, so if they don’t receive the best treatment and experience, how and why should they share it. Whether it is a complimentary upgrade, additional products “just because” or the invitation to bring a friend along, whatever you can do to make their experience the best, you should. Influencers can become loyal customers, partners or even brand advocates based on their experience. Although it might be complementary, to begin with, they could return as a paying customer, so treat them as you would any other customer who you would like to spend money with your business.