Influencer Marketing For Digital Products

Influencer Marketing offers Marketing Flexibility for Digital Products

The internet opened a world of possibilities for creators of digital products, especially with social media. Everyone has access to affordable tools for creating, selling, and distributing online courses, ebooks, and other digital content, and marketing is easy to set up.

Of course, that means more competition. Even with the best products, you may be struggling with selling your products and creating a thriving online business – which is where influencer marketing can be beneficial. It’s powerful and profitable, leverages existing trust with the audience, and gets your brand and product in front of the right people.

Benefits of Influencer Campaigns for Digital Products

You also have a unique advantage in the market with a digital product. Influencers, like everyone else, are impacted by the global supply chain shortages^[1]. A lot of brands are hesitant to invest in an influencer marketing campaign if they may not have their physical products or the raw materials.

Digital products aren’t affected by the supply chain shortages, fortunately, so you can double down on influencer marketing. Influencer marketing allows you to promote what you already have and deliver it instantly, so both you and the influencer can stand behind what they have to offer.

Content creators are still in high demand, however. Many brands using influencer marketing strategies are leaning harder on influencers to promote their products in the wake of the labor shortages^[2] that impact ad agencies. Brands need to be nimble and agile, which is a tall order amid longer-than-average turnaround times for marketing agencies.

Digital product campaigns are ideally suited for influencer marketing! An influencer gets brands in front of their target audience to engage with them on a deeper level and sell to them more effectively.

With physical products comes the challenges of shipping delays, manufacturing hiccups, and order tracking. With a digital product, none of those roadblocks are in the way. The customers can easily access or download the product immediately.

This saves brands money on shipping, product creation, research and development, and a whole host of other expensive challenges. A digital product is created once and can be sold over and over again.

That is what makes an influencer relationship so valuable for digital products. It can always be there. It’s never out of stock, and customers can always get access. Set up an integrated and automated delivery system, and the brand can essentially be completely hands-off.

The Flexibility of Influencer Campaigns: Influencer Marketing Examples

Influencer marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing. It can be virtually anything you want it to be, such as:

• Affiliate programs to sell more digital products
• Inviting influencers to join in a webinar
• Share success stories surrounding your product
• Challenges to fuel user-generated content
• Creating exclusive content for a course or subscription-based digital resource
• Sending an influencer a demo to promote live or review
• Publishing a guest post on an influencer’s page or blog
• Collaborating with an influencer for a pop-up version of your product
• Gifting your digital product in exchange for a testimonial
• Sponsored content promoting your product
• Appearing as a guest on podcasts or video content to discuss your product
• Organizing live training for your digital product with your influencer
• Contests and giveaways for product discounts or early access
• Influencer Marketing Strategy Benefits

Promote Brand Awareness

If you’re hoping you can sit back and wait while your digital product gains traction, you may be waiting a while. The internet is inundated with digital courses, ebooks, webinars, and other digital products, so you need marketing to get your product in front of people and promote brand awareness.

Influencer marketing is one of the best types of marketing to accomplish this and show your ideal audience what you have to offer. These influencers typically have large, dedicated followings and people who trust their recommendations, so you have a built-in audience that could turn into potential customers.

Reach New Audiences

You may believe that you’ve gotten your product in front of all of your target audience, but there are always new avenues to explore. You could miss huge portions of your ideal audience just based on the limitations of advertising and the sheer number of people on social media platforms.

Influencers have their own audience that may be interested in your product but yet unaware of your brand and what you have to offer. Influencer marketing in your niche is the best way to promote your brand to a new set of prospects.

Foster Digital Community

Brands that build community are often more successful. Brand communities can grow and develop on an influencer platform, especially with an influencer that already has a large number of followers, high engagement rates, quality content, and plenty of trust.

If an influencer believes in your brand, they can use that to encourage positive perception and feedback from the audience to start a conversation about your brand. Word-of-mouth marketing can grow from there.

Create Brand Trust

Consumers are savvier than ever and can access tons of information about brands online, so it’s no longer about choosing the cheapest product. Influencers have unique leverage in this area, since people tend to trust word-of-mouth referrals or recommendations from people they know and trust.

That’s essentially what an influencer is – a trusted “friend” of the audience and the source for new product recommendations. Nothing builds more trust for your brand than having it promoted by someone the audience trusts. This is even more valuable if you can build a long-term relationship with influencers in your niche.

Leverage the Power of Influencer Marketing

A digital product needs a solid digital marketing strategy to get them out in front of the right audience. Amid labor and supply chain shortages all over the world, influencers are one of the best marketing solutions for your ebook, web course, or other digital content. With the right influencer, you can have a trusted source promoting your product through word-of-mouth referrals, branded content, and creative marketing methods on social media networks.

How to Run an Influencer Marketing Campaign for Digital Products

Now that the why is understood let’s dig into the how!

Start Here

As with any marketing campaign, start with a clear goal in mind, be it sales, reach, awareness, or engagement. Create every marketing touchpoint to match this objective. The goal will also inform how the influencer marketing campaign is deployed.

Create The Perfect Product

The most important element of a digital product influencer marketing campaign is a product that the target audience actually needs. What obstacle will it overcome? What problem will it solve? What process will it make easier?

The influencer’s audience is built on trust, shared interests, and authenticity. They will only endorse something they believe their audience truly needs. If the product research has been done and the end result is highly practical and deeply desired, marketing it with an influencer will be more effective.

Find An Audience Match

The next crucial element is a well-niched audience. Look for influencers in the same niche who may have an aligned audience. Who follows them? Who else do those followers follow?

Dig into audience identity and find a strong match. Read through the comments and discover how the audience and influencer interact together.

Integrate The Influencer Into Digital Product Campaign Strategy

Once a perfect-fit influencer match is in place and negotiations are sealed, integrate them into your digital network. Remember that their audience is connected and invested in the influencer, not the brand. Do what fits naturally with that influencer’s style and skill set.

Invite them to post as a guest on the company blog. It should be something practical and helpful to both the brand’s audience and their own. It could be a product review or case study that takes a deep dive into the user experience, or it could be something more lifestyle oriented. Keep it engaging.

Host them on a podcast episode to talk about something relevant. This could be an interview or a topic collaboration.

Have the influencer design content for the website. This could be banners, graphics, video content, or a testimonial page.

Recruit the influencer to provide ad creative such as photos and videos of them interacting with the product and sharing their story.

Create a digital product or course together with the influencer. Put this joint expertise to work and design a new, custom digital offer. This will naturally increase awareness of other offers.

Host a live event together. Generate buzz and awareness with a value-driven live event. Turn that into smaller evergreen pieces for long-term payoff.

All of these tactics create a touchpoint the influencer can share with their audience. These resources and content pieces will raise brand awareness as well as drive traffic.

Ready To Get The Conversation Started?

Influencer marketing isn’t something that can be tacked onto an existing marketing plan. It requires an entirely different skill set in order to be deployed effectively. Reach out to our influencer marketing agency team to strategize how to leverage an influencer marketing plan for digital products!

[1] https://themarketersdaily.com/2021/11/17/influencers-impacted-by-holiday-season-supply-chain-shortages/

[2] https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/11/23/missguided-influencers-are-taking-the-place-ad-agencies