In the crowded and noisy tech marketplace, standing out with a strong brand presence is more important than ever. Even tech giants like Google and Microsoft need to work hard on brand-building to maintain their market positions. For smaller tech companies and startups, crafting a recognizable brand can be even more of a challenge when facing stiff competition.
That’s where leveraging influencer marketing as part of a brand strategy comes in. Identifying and partnering with relevant influencers in the tech space you populate provides unparalleled opportunities for raising brand awareness and recognition. Doing influencer marketing the right way takes some strategy and effort, but pays dividends in establishing your tech brand.
Defining Your Brand Identity And Target Audience
The first step is clearly defining what your tech brand stands for—your mission, values, voice, and persona. Who is your target demographic and what branding would appeal to them? Craft messaging and visual assets that strongly convey your unique brand identity.
Researching And Recruiting Relevant Influencers
You want influencers who create content for and have strong engagement with your target audience. Look at metrics like followers and engagement rates. Qualify relevance by assessing whether an influencer’s content and tone aligns well with your brand identity. Cast a wide net to find nano and micro influencers in addition to those with larger followings. Often, smaller brands can achieve better results by working with micro influencers because they may have a smaller audience, but it is often a more engaged one. This is something an agency like Clickstrike that specializes in influencer marketing can help you with.
Setting Clear Partnership Terms
Be upfront about what you expect from the influencer and what you offer in return, whether it’s free products, exclusive content, paid endorsements, affiliate commissions, or a mixture. Spell out metrics for success. Draft a formal agreement detailing partnership terms, deliverables, and measures for compliance.
Launching The Influencer Campaign
Ideally, you want a series of posts across multiple platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, and more. Give the influencers creative license to craft compelling, on-brand content showcasing your products or services. Ensure brand mentions, links, discount codes, and hashtags are incorporated. Ask to review and approve content before publishing.
Tracking Performance And Optimization
Analytics tools make it easy to compile campaign data on content views, clicks, conversions, engagement rate, audience growth, etc. Assess what content styles, CTAs, timing, etc. performs best. Iterate and optimize based on performance data, shift investment to better-performing influencers.
Maintaining The Relationships
View influencer partnerships as long-term relationships to continually build awareness. Check in regularly, share brand and product updates, and consider extending agreements with top-performers. Become part of each other’s communities for ongoing mutual benefit.
Executing an impactful influencer marketing strategy takes strategic planning and effort. But the brand-building payoff can be tremendous for tech companies looking to carve out a recognizable niche for themselves. The increased awareness and engagement can ultimately help drive conversions and revenue as well.
