3 Things To Do Before You Work With Local Influencers

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Working with local influencers in your area can be one of the easiest ways to create some buzz and build brand awareness. But before you decide to partner with an influencer, I want to make sure you have a few things done and set up on your end first to make sure you're ready to receive all the new followers or clients that may be coming your way.

I've been a blogger myself for over 11 years at Southern Flair. I've worked with national and local-to-me business in countless ways.

I've really tried to think about what makes some partnerships highly successful vs others that may fall flat or not have the return you had hoped for.

1- Know who your ideal client is... deeply

Most importantly, I believe it comes down to making sure your product or service is something the influencer's audience wants.

I know that sounds super simple.

But it comes down to deeply knowing who your ideal client is -- and who it isn't.

If you're really honed in on your ideal client and you know exactly how to speak to and super serve them, then the influencer will be able to just amplify message.

This will also help you make sure the influencer's audience is the right fit.

Not every influencer's audience is your audience and that's OK. Just like every person in the world isn't your ideal client... and that's fine too.

2- Have an established online presence

The next thing you need to have down before you work with an influencer is an established online presence.

We'll talk specifically about Instagram here.

Let's say you partner with an influencer, and the influencer is driving traffic back to your Instagram profile. If you haven't been showing up consistently or there's not a ton of information there, you're missing a HUGE opportunity to really capture these new people's attention and convert them to loyal customers right off the bat.

Inside The Localpreneur Bootcamp, I have my students clearly hash out their Instagram bio first because this is the first thing people see.

The idea is that people should be able to know exactly who you are, where you are, and how you can help them within seconds.

It's like your elevator pitch.

They will make their decision if you're for them or not in SECONDS.

Your bio should be clear and compel them to take action -- whether that's booking with you, getting on your email list or following you.

I also help my students create something called a Local Clarity Grid.

This too helps capture their attention within SECONDS.

It's not about the pretty photos or professionally designed graphics.

It's about are you being clear through your photos/feed on who you are, where you are and how you can help them?

This is going to compel them to click the follow button and ideally take you up on your offers.

You can test this yourself now - if someone lands on your feed and has never heard of you, if they just glance at your feed...

Are they clear on who you are?

Is it compelling?

Are you offering value?

If you're feed isn't optimized, it's not going to be effective for you to work with an influencer yet. Because people are going to click over and not be interested or they're going to follow you but not really sure why or who you are and it will fall flat.

3- Have a goal

The only way to know if your partnership is effective is if you track it and evaluate it.

Your goal can be something short term, like get a certain amount of followers from the collaboration.

Or maybe you you have a goal to make a certain amount of sales.

Keep track of this for each and every partnership you do.

As you do more of collaborations, you'll be able to evaluate which ones performed better and then you can get curious about it.

Think: Why did this influencer partnership go better than that one? Or what did more sales happen that time vs this time?

It's all an experiment and worth evaluating.

Tracking things like new followers, revenue generated, impressions, and click rates will help you choose influencers to partner with in the future.

It will also give you insight as to what offers worked best or which messaging worked best.

If things aren't resonating - it's either not the right offer to the right people or your messaging isn't clicking with the right people.

Track everything and be willing to go back through it and really look at it.

Pre-Enroll Now To The Localpreneur Bootcamp

If you're ready to uplevel your online presence and get booked with a steady stream of clients, then I invite you to join The Localpreneur Bootcamp!

Pre-enrollment is now open for our FALL 2021 group, which kicks off September 3.

But you can enroll now during the summer and get instant access to all the content, so you can implement NOW and start gaining momentum... even in the "slower" summer season.

Plus, you'll get BONUS 1:1 coaching calls with me only during pre-enrollment!

Get all the details and enroll here.