Influencer marketing has taken the digital marketing world by storm. Local influencer marketing is a powerful marketing strategy that can deliver scalable results for small businesses.
On the global stage, Statista estimates that the influencer marketing industry is worth $13.8 billion in 2021.
Image Source – Statista
The industry has doubled its worth in just 2 years.
Businesses of all kinds have a story to tell and they’ve realized that influencer-generated content is an amazing way to share that story with their target audience.
Traditionally, brands used to collaborate with celebrities or influencers with a large following to reach a larger audience. But now, with the rise of effective micro influencer partnerships, brands are also utilizing local influencer marketing.
As businesses choose to partner with local micro-influencers, they build local brand presence and generate local leads.
The benefits of local influencer marketing can be fully leveraged when campaigns are well planned and executed.
Find out below why you should invest in local influencer marketing and how best to design and run successful local influencer marketing campaigns.
Table of Contents
Why Should You Collaborate with Local Influencers?
Why is local influencer marketing good for your business?
Local influencers can:
1. Promote Your Brand
Local influencers can spread the word about your local business. If their follower base exists in the same geographical location as yours, they can showcase your brand and products to your local prospective customers.
2. Get Better Engagement
Local influencer marketing is gaining traction as it gets higher engagement rates than traditional marketing campaigns. As these campaigns are targeted towards niche-specific, local communities, the local audience finds the content more interesting and as a result the engagement is much higher.
3. Provide Authentic Recommendations
The one aspect where local influencer marketing stands out is that it is even more authentic. Local influencers talk to their fans about the local brands and products they genuinely use and like. That’s the reason why customers are more likely to trust their message and try the products they recommend.
4. Generate Creative Content
Influencers are masters of crafting highly engaging content. When you hire local influencers to create content for your campaign, you are taking the burden off your content team. At the same time, local influencers approach the audience in a way that best appeals to them.
5. Suit Your Budget
Local influencers are happy to promote your brand in exchange for incentives. While bigger influencers require big bucks to endorse your brand, local influencer marketing is both cost-effective and result-oriented.
How to Run an Effective Local Influencer Marketing Campaign
Local influencer marketing is all about using local bloggers and social media influencers to promote your brand in your geographic area. It takes more than just an idea to run a local influencer marketing campaign successfully. It can get overwhelming, we understand.
To help you craft and execute campaigns like a pro, we’ve listed 8 important steps to follow. Here they are:
1. Set Your Campaign Goals
What would you like to achieve with a local influencer marketing campaign?
Before you plan out the details of the campaign, it is vital to determine the goals you want to achieve.
In a survey conducted by the World Federation for Advertisers, 86% of the participants voted “increase brand awareness” as their top influencer marketing goal.
Image Source – World Federation of Advertisers
The goals you set for your local influencer marketing campaign determine your choice of influencers. If “increasing brand awareness” is your primary campaign goal, you’ll want to partner with influencers who have the largest reach for your investment.
2. Connect with the Right Audience
Defining your audience is crucial for running a successful local influencer marketing campaign. You can determine your target audience using hashtag research based on your specific niche or analyzing the local audience that your competitors are targeting.
Understanding the pain points of potential customers, who they are following, and what they are discussing on social media will help you understand their needs and wants. This, in turn, will help you partner with the right influencers to reach your target audience.
3. Shortlist the Right Influencers
How do you find the right types of influencers for your campaign?
It depends on your campaign goals. Here are a few things you should consider while selecting influencers:
- They should be from the same niche as your brand
- Their content style and values should match with your brand’s
- Focus on engagement rate rather than a high number of followers
- Analyze influencers’ accounts to ensure that their following is authentic
Alternatively, you can choose to work with an influencer marketing agency that will do all of the above plus help you find the most suitable creators for your local influencer marketing campaign.
4. Reach Out to These Influencers
Next up, it’s time to reach out to the influencers you have shortlisted with your pitch.
The most professional way to reach out to relevant influencers is through email. Keep your email crisp and to the point with a short introduction of your business.
Clearly state your expectations for them as part of your local influencer marketing campaign and what you are offering them in return.
It’s best to put all relevant partnership information in the initial email that you send in order to avoid many back-and-forth emails with each of your influencers in the campaign.
5. Decide on the Type of Influencer Campaign
Brands can choose between a variety of local influencer marketing campaigns based on their goals and budget. Some popular types are:
- Contests, giveaways, and event activations
- Unboxing and reviews
- Affiliate marketing
- Social media takeovers
- Store or shop visits
- Sponsored social media posts and blogs
Here’s how Celebration Box NZ collaborated with influencer Lydia Macneil to run a giveaway contest.
Image Source – Instagram
6. Collaborate and Create Content
Influencers are seasoned content creators. Over time they climb the ladder of popularity and develop the skill to create engaging posts that will work well for their audience.
Local influencer marketing taps into this great potential of influencers as they create engaging content for your campaigns. When your marketing team and influencers collaborate for a campaign, it is imperative to provide them with all the necessary creative guidelines.
Some brands choose to run “social media takeover” campaigns where influencers post on social media pages on behalf of the brand and directly connect with their audience.
Check out how influencer Tech Unicorn has creatively mentioned a sponsored product while sharing her authentic story.
Image Source – Instagram
Whichever kind of campaign you choose, the content should have the right balance of your brand identity and the personalized touch of the influencer.
7. Kickstart the Campaign and Amplify
It’s now time to kickstart your local influencer marketing campaign. A simple pre-launch checklist will help you ensure that all the aspects are taken care of.
Timing is everything!
Based on social listening, decide the right time to launch your campaign. Also, choose the platforms where your target audience is most active.
Once the campaign is live, you can share and repost the influencer posts to your brand’s accounts to further amplify the reach of your local influencer marketing campaign.
8. Measure the Results
Your job is not done after the influencers have posted. You also need to track and measure your performance on the goals that you set at the beginning. Use the relevant KPIs of CPM, CPE, and CPC to measure how your campaign performed against its goals.
If your goal was to increase brand awareness, you can measure the success of the campaign by the number of content views you got. To measure the traffic generated, track the clicks and website visits that the campaign generated.
If you did not meet your goals, find areas for improvement. Analyze the data and come up with strategy adjustments to improve your next campaign.
FAQs
1. How do I find local influencers?
You can use the following tactics to find different types of influencers for your local influencer marketing campaign:
- Search manually through Google
- Check your social media followers
- Perform local hashtag searches
- Leverage local influencer marketing agencies
- Get references from your local network
2. How does local influencer marketing work?
Local influencer marketing is a strategy used to establish a business’ brand presence in the local market. For influencer campaigns, businesses collaborate with influencers with a decent fan following in their geographic location.
These may be local bloggers, journalists, public figures, fitness gurus, or moms who are trusted by local social media users.
These content creators recommend a brand or a product to their followers in an authentic manner and in returnreceive incentives from the business. Brands can get visibility, brand recognition, and leads through a local influencer marketing campaign.
3. Why is local influencer marketing so effective?
Local influencers are highly effective because they understand the geography, culture, and general preferences of the audience in a particular region. They have built their own community on the basis of local trust and authenticity.
When local brands invest in local influencer marketing, the possibility of establishing their brand presence and engaging their local audience is much higher.
4. How much do local influencers make?
Local influencers generally fall in the category of micro-influencers with less than 100k followers.
Local influencers can receive anything from free products and services to thousands of dollars per post or more depending on the nature of the campaign and the product or service being promoted.
Are You Ready to Collaborate with Local Influencers?
Local influencer marketing can be extremely exciting and challenging at the same time. There is no denying the fact that marketers and businesses have understood the enormous potential this marketing technique holds.
To execute successful local influencer marketing campaigns brands need to focus on finding the right influencers and designing campaigns that excite their local audience.
With the right balance of all the elements discussed above, you should be able to conceptualize and execute local influencer campaigns like a pro.
Do you need some help to get started?
Our team is here to extend a professional helping hand for all of your local influencer needs. Get in touch with us to explore the possibilities.
