When and Why To Find An Influencer:
Mara: Today I am going to be talking about influencers. We hear all the time about situations that don’t go quite right. A lot of the aesthetic practices that we work with will say, I feel like I wasn’t getting the results that I should have, or I feel taken advantage of by an influencer so clearly, it just doesn’t work. I’m here to tell you that although we see this all the time, there are a lot of ways to go about fixing this issue and preventing it from happening in the first place. So, we’re going to talk today about how your practice can utilize the power of today’s influencers, to really build your business, and get your practice out there. Now, you want to first determine what is it that you’re looking for. With this relationship with an influencer, are you looking for exposure, are you looking for awareness, are you looking for that actual ROI? What exactly are you looking for in the relationship you are going to be establishing with the influencer? We’re going to talk about the details of how to get what you’re looking for in a couple of minutes but first, you need to establish number one, what is it that you’re looking for? Number two, what is the demographic that you’re going after? Are you looking for a very young millennial market? Are you looking for a generation X? Are you looking for men? Are you looking for women? Are you looking for somebody that is looking for maybe a more natural approach? Are you looking for somebody that is very into beauty? Are you looking for someone that just loves fashion? Are you looking for somebody that is more of an active type? If you, for example, do a lot of breast augmentations on women athletes, then that’s a very specific demographic. If you and your practice do a lot of facial feminization, then that’s a very specific demographic. All of those are great demographics to hone in on. You want to make sure you know what that demographic is.
Connecting Procedures With Influencers:
Mara: Let’s talk about patients that are seeking a particular procedure. If you are a non-surgical practice, you want to make sure that you’re talking about which procedures are you looking to promote through influencers? Is that injectables, laser or radiofrequency, non-surgical fat reduction, are we looking for neurotoxins injectables, etc. If you are a non-surgical practice, you could even be looking at skincare and promoting both skincare services. i.e. derma planing, microdermabrasion, etc. Or you could be looking at selling skincare, so you want to make sure that you are very crystal clear on what it is you’re looking to promote and that you work with an influencer that, quite honestly, is able to help you promote that. If you work with an influencer who is just interested in talking about skincare and quite honestly, they’re not going to admit that they had neurotoxins or fillers, then that’s not the influencer for you.
Mara: Next I recommend checking with your social media audience, checking with your patients, letting them know that you are seeking to expand your marketing and you are now looking for those influencer relationships and ask them who they follow. Ask your team and your staff, who is it that they follow and which influencers they follow on social media. That’s going to really help you to narrow down and to start building those relationships. Now, when you reach out to those influencers, I would say maybe have a list of 5 to 10 crafted and customized pitch sheets. Let each influencer know what you love about their content, what you see in the relationship, what the value is that you can each bring to the table, and make sure that you are following and engaging with those influencers, commenting on their posts, liking their photos, etc. I for example had somebody that came to me and said, I would love to be a guest on your podcast. I’ve never listened to it, I don’t know what it’s about, but I think that I could bring a great topic. What this tells me is that he doesn’t truly have an interest in the podcast and he doesn’t know my audience. How can I expect that he can bring the audience, for Shorr Solutions the podcast, a really strong piece of content, and really useful tips because he doesn’t know you guys. You want to make sure, if it’s a podcast you’re looking to be on, you’ve listened to the podcast, that you’ve watched their stories regularly for a few weeks before reaching out to them. I also recommend going through the past couple of months to a year of their content in their feed. Look at what other brands have they engaged with. What have they truly stayed away from, it could be that they’ve stayed away from a topic because quite honestly a brand has never approached them for it. It could also be that they stay away from topics like cosmetic surgery for instance, and so we just want to be aware of that.
Expectations In Writing:
Mara: Now, once you have reached out to the influencer, you want to make sure you are setting expectations about the following things, and that once we agree to work together, that you are putting these things in writing.
You want to make sure that you are getting from them:
- Fact sheets, so you want to make sure you get information from them about their reach. So what is the reach of their podcasts or their social media channels?
- What are their demographics, what are their geographics? If they have a national audience but you’re just looking for somebody in a particular geographical area, you only want someone in a certain borough if you’re in New York City, then a national audience does you no good.
- What are their typical sponsorship packages? It used to be that influencers would do these things on trade and that’s occurring less and less. Think of this as a media buy. Now I know that may not be what you want to hear, but you need to look at it like a media buy, and if you were to go to a television station or radio station, a print publication, or even a website that does advertising, you would be asking for all of these things. You want to make sure you’re asking these things as an influencer as well.
- You want to ask how much creative control you each have. Some influencers say they have 100% creative control in other words they’re going to post what they want, how they want. And you as a brand, you as the practice, you as a small business don’t get a chance to review it ahead of time. I would shy away from that because although yes you want their true and honest opinion, what you don’t want is a post or a story or something that just does not represent your brand correctly, something that’s not factually accurate and really portrays everything wrong. You want to make sure that you have this information, what creative control you both have.
- Ask them how are the deliverables monitored and measured? When do you get the statistics about how many eyeballs or ears were actually on your content. Find out how are those deliverables monitored, how are they measured and who and when are those going to be delivered to you.
- Do they have their own photographer or videographer? Can you use those images after they wrap up their proportions or relationship? You want to make sure that you’re finding out who owns the content. Do they own the content, are you able to obtain that content and maybe give them photo credit afterward.
- What are those content details as far as what are the deadlines, who should be tagged in photos, which social media channels are included, i.e. Facebook, Instagram Tik Tok, their blog, etc?
- Ask them to bring you a list of 20 hashtags that they’ll be using and you want to make sure that you are talking about what are the mandatory moments, and what is off-limits. What are they allowed to talk about in the journey as a patient and what are they not able to talk about.
- You also want to include, is this influencer going to pay for their services and how? I hear often, oh we did this on a trade. I’m not saying that that’s good or bad, but you want to make sure that that’s spelled out. If you are doing this on the trade you want to talk about how much you’re giving to the influencer. Is it in terms of units, the number of treatments dollar value as far as the retail, and what is it that the influencer is giving to you?
These are all things that we want to find out ahead of time. Remember, this is considered a media buy, and you wouldn’t go into what was known as a more traditional media buy without a contract, so you want to make sure you really have a contract. You also want to make sure ahead of time that you’re giving them a fact sheet about your practice. Make sure that they have the bios for the providers, the bios for the owners so that they’re able to speak about your practice in an educated manner. When was it founded? How long have you been in business? You’ve done over X amount of treatments or X amount of patients in this period of time. Why are you proud to be a part of the community? Why did you choose to work together? Give them high-resolution photos, high-resolution logos of your practice, and any branding elements that you might need.
Tracking ROI:
Mara: Look at how you’re going to track the ROI of their relationship. What is the return on investment and how are we going to track it? You can give them a referral link, you can give them a trackable code, and make sure that your team inside your practice, inside your business, actually understands the importance of logging this in your system. This could be within your CRM, this could be within your practice management system, you want to make sure you are tracking every time a patient comes to the practice and how did they find out. Enter that code exactly so that at the end of the campaign you’re able to pull what the results were. Did you get five people that mentioned code Shorr Solutions for instance? Did you get five people over a week or over a month, etc? Did they buy only what was talked about in the campaign, or did they buy more? Were you able to upsell, were you able to put them on a monthly membership, etc? We want to look at the ROI. We talked about this all the time that you want to look at a three and a half to one ROI, in order to consider the financial campaign success. With all of that, if you are still confused, you don’t know how to work with influencers you need help having that contract reviewed, you want your overall marketing campaign to just get a facelift. I encourage you to contact Shorr Solutions. We are here to help, our team is absolutely amazing. I encourage you to really make use of the fact that we are here for you, not just in your podcast, but one on one.
