How to Utilize Local Influencers to Boost Brand Awareness?

Small service-based businesses can benefit big from local influencer marketing. Popular local content creators can help your business by building your brand awareness, growing your content bank, and increasing your ROI.

Utilizing the effectiveness of local influencers can help your business connect with your targeted audience on a more personal level while driving engagement. Local influencers are different in that they are valued for their authentic voice and develop deep and strong ties with their community. They have the power to influence consumer behavior and boost brand awareness.

Local influencers don’t essentially have a large following but their audience is loyal and highly engaged. Many local influencers can also focus on specific niches, such as travel, lifestyle, beauty, and fitness.

So, how can you benefit from the assistance of local influencers to boost your brand awareness? This guide will take you through a step-by-step process.

Overall, you should use the following steps to utilize local influencers:

• Define Your Goals: Start by clearly defining your campaign’s goals. This can include increasing brand awareness, sales, or web traffic.
• Find the Right Local Influencers: Research and find local influencers with a strong following among your targeted audience. 
• Build Relationships: Build a personal connection with the chosen influencers and develop a relationship based on mutual benefit and trust.
• Create High-Quality Content: Collaborate with them to create engaging and high-quality content that is highly relevant to your target audience.
• Track & Optimize: Create a system to track your campaign’s performance and optimize it based on performance data.
• Run Local SEO Campaigns: Create and run local SEO campaigns focused on geotargeting and location-based keywords.

Once your local influencer marketing campaigns start taking shape, monitor their performance and make adjustments to drive increasingly better results.

1. Set Your Budget

Keep in mind that most influencers generate a significant percentage of their revenues from sponsored posts. This means you should set a budget for this aspect of your brand awareness campaign. You should set the budget even before you start looking for influencers.

It will be helpful to know how influencers set their rates. The important factors include:

• Number of followers
• Type of content
• Duration of campaign
• Usage rights

2. How to Choose the Right Local Influencers?

You can find and connect with influencers across different social media platforms. Still, Instagram seems to be the leading platform for influencer collaborations, for small and medium-large businesses.

You can start looking for Instagram influencers among your current followers and customers. Satisfied customers are able to provide authentic word-of-mouth promotions. Keep in mind that organic engagement tends to have a more effective impact.

You can have more than one local influencer promoting your brand. Interestingly, anyone who likes your brand can become an influencer for you. Whenever someone tags your business in their post, carry the conversation forward and engage with their post. Besides liking and sharing their post, you can also send a freebie so that they can continue promoting your brand. 

Many times, local influencers also approach brands for collaboration. So, always check DM requests and look for potential local influencers who can match your niche and brand vibes.

It is further recommended to use these steps to find local Instagram influencers:

• Conduct local hashtag research
• Perform a search for micro local influencers in your niche. For instance, you can conduct a search for “food influencers in Orange County”
• You can also use influencer marketing platforms to look for locally relevant influencers
• You can also seek the assistance of local influencer agencies

1. Start Small

When you think of influencers, it is not essential to partner with celebrities right away. You can start small, by connecting with local influencers with a smaller following. In terms of local markets, which are relatively smaller, micro and nano-influencers can actually be more suitable than macro-influencers. The former may have deeper connections with their audience than someone with a larger follower base. This is because the local community may be the only followers they may be catering to. Thus, they can be more effective at engaging your targeted audience.

According to studies, 82% of consumers claim that they are more likely to follow the recommendations of a micro-influencer than others. Besides, you have budgetary reasons for working with micro and nano-influencers. They are not as expensive as their macro counterparts.

1. Tips for Successful Local Influencer Campaigns

It is further recommended to follow these tips to create successful campaigns:

1. Boost Brand Visibility & Leads

You can increase brand visibility and generate leads using the following methods:

1. Create Sponsored Posts & Shoutouts

Collaborate with local influencers to promote your products/services using sponsored posts to boost your brand visibility and attract a local audience. Use their credibility and influence to pitch your offerings. Offer clear guidelines and key points during such collaboration. This helps in the effective communication of your brand story.

Encourage your selected influencers to create engaging and authentic content. The content must emphasize the worth and benefits of your products or services. An important objective is to trigger curiosity among their followers for your brand.

Such sponsored posts can expand your brand’s footprint across the local market. The support received from local influencers can motivate their followers, which can further lead more people to your website or store. This can further help grow your customer base.

2. Make Guest Appearances on Podcasts & at Events

You can also use local influencers at events to attract a larger audience. The influencer’s local influence can help bring greater credibility to your event, attracting more attendees.

You should also collaborate with local influencers for guest appearances on webinars and podcasts. These events can help you engage with their audience. When these influencers discuss and share valuable insights and provide brand exposure, they help boost your brand’s local reputation.

When you interact with their target audience, make sure to provide quality content, deals, or insights that encourage them to engage with your brand.

1. Create Collaborative Content

You can collaborate with local influencers to create co-branded content. This can help engage their followers and increase your brand awareness. Collaborative content can feature the influencer endorsing or using your products or services. It can include:

• Videos
• Posts
• Blogs
• Social media campaigns

The influencer’s storytelling skills and creative talent can enable you to create content that you will not be able to do on your own. This can lead to creating content that connects well with the local audience.

The key is to seamlessly integrate your products/services into their content. This can make it easier for you to grab the attention of their followers and encourage them to check your offers.

2. Build Brand Recognition

Local influencers can also help you boost brand recognition. Some of the steps that can help you in this regard include the following:

1. Promote Distinctive Features through Stories

Collaborate with local influencers to create authentic stories about your brand while highlighting key product/service features. Such content can help you build an emotional bond with the local audience. Personal endorsements and anecdotes from influencers can showcase the way your products/services made a difference in their own lives or the lives of others they know.

When local influencers share their authentic views and experiences, you will be earning the trust of their followers and grain brand recognition. Such a storytelling approach can make your brand stand out and create a long-lasting impression.

2. Measure Your Marketing Campaign’s Impact

As mentioned above, you should define and set clear goals and metrics to track the success of your marketing campaigns. You can track the campaign’s effectiveness by tracking KPIs including:

• Engagement rate
• CTR
• Conversion rate

You can also use unique discount codes or tracking links to assign web traffic or sales to local influencer contributions. Regularly analyzing the campaign’s performance can help you identify what works and what doesn’t. It is further recommended to conduct surveys to get feedback on brand experience after being exposed to influencer campaigns.

1. Conclusion

Local influencers can prove to be excellent sources for boosting brand visibility, building trust, and connecting with your target audience. When looking for the right influencer, you should look beyond the numbers. The level of alignment with your brand values and quality of engagement matter even more. Local influencers matter for brand awareness because they can create a more emotional and personalized connection with your targeted market. Their influence can make it easier to convert the audience into your brand advocates and customers. When you tap into the reach and potential of local influencers, achieving your marketing goals can suddenly become much simpler and faster.A successful marketing campaign requires proven expertise and long experience. Whether it is social media marketing, SEO, or local service ads, Clear Imaging, Inc. can help you with all your marketing campaign needs. Contact us at (800) 380-6942 to discuss your objectives, target market, and preferences. You can also contact us using this Online Form and we will get back to you at the earliest.