Influencer marketing is a strategy where brands collaborate with individuals with a significant online following and influence. These influencers endorse or promote the brand's products or services to their audience through various content formats on social media. Because of these social media personalities' power, businesses can leverage influencer marketing for lead generation. 

Leveraging the popularity and trust of influencers, brands can tap into their dedicated following to increase brand awareness and engagement. Ultimately, these leads can become paying customers.

Let’s have a look at how this works. 

Benefits of Influencer Marketing Lead Generation

Influencer marketing is essential for lead generation. It yields the following benefits:

Expanded Reach: Influencers have a dedicated and engaged following, often spanning across multiple platforms. By partnering with influencers, brands can tap into their extensive reach and expose their products or services to a wider audience. This expanded reach increases brand visibility and the likelihood of generating leads from previously untapped markets.

Authentic Engagement: Influencer marketing fosters authentic and engaging interactions between influencers and their followers. Unlike traditional advertising, influencer marketing feels more like a personal recommendation than a direct sales pitch. This authenticity creates a deeper connection with the audience and encourages meaningful engagement, resulting in higher-quality leads. 

Social Proof: When influencers showcase their experience or use of a product, it serves as social proof for potential customers. Seeing others positively engage with a brand through an influencer's content can influence their decision-making process and motivate them to become leads. The power of social proof plays a significant role in driving lead generation through influencer marketing.

While it can seem challenging, influencer marketing lead generation has proven to be a powerful tool. Influencer marketing can help you generate high-quality leads that have the potential to become your most devoted customers.

Tips for Lead Generation Using Influencer Marketing

Follow the tips below to ensure successful influencer marketing lead generation:

1. Identify Relevant Influencers

Selecting the right influencer is key to ensure a successful influencer marketing lead generation strategy.

It's vital to align the influencer's following with the brand's target audience. By selecting influencers who cater to the same demographic or interest group, brands can ensure their marketing message reaches the right audience. This targeted approach increases the chances of generating qualified leads as the audience is already interested in the influencer's content, making them more receptive to the brand's offerings.

Find influencers that have genuine engagement and appeal to your target audience. You can use tools like social media listening platforms to help you find the right influencers for your campaign.

You can also find influencers by simply searching for your keyword on social media. For example, if you're a skincare brand, you can use "skincare" to uncover the most popular accounts around your niche. 

You should look for content creators that have a strong following and engagement. See how these influencers interact with their audience, how they respond to comments, and if they have an active community. Micro-influencers, in particular, can be a reliable source of quality leads, as 82% of consumers are likely to act upon their recommendations. 

Remember to look for influencers who have a track record of endorsing products or services similar to yours. 

2. Take Advantage of Sponsored Content

Sponsored content can be used for influencer marketing lead generation. It refers to social media posts created by influencers and paid for by a brand that wants to promote its products and services.

Sponsored content works because it leverages the trust that influencers have built with their followers. When content creators endorse or recommend a product or service, their followers are more likely to trust their judgment and consider making a purchase. This trust significantly increases your chances of converting followers into leads.

To maximize the impact of your sponsored content, give influencers the creative freedom to produce the content. For it to work, sponsored content has to resonate with the influencer’s followers. Their style and tone of voice already resonate with their audience, and that’s precisely why they became influencers in the first place.

Although you don’t want to curtail your influencer’s creativity, you can still set some brand guidelines to ensure the final content reflects your brand values and style. You can also reshare the influencer content on your own account.

Don’t forget to announce the influencer’s endorsement of your product on your website for the best results. Just make sure to optimize the content so it will be visible in search engine results in the first place.

3. Leverage Influencers for Contests or Giveaways

Here’s another effective strategy for generating leads through influencer marketing — running contests or giveaways in collaboration with influencers. 

Companies often incentivize the influencer's followers to engage with your brand and potentially convert them into leads. It's a great lead generation tactic because it encourages participants to enter the contest by providing their contact information or subscribing to your newsletter. This is information brands can then use to nurture your relationships with these new leads.

Here’s an example of a giveaway promoted by an influencer:

The Sorry Girls collaborated with Google to present their followers with a Google Pixelbook laptop.

When planning a contest or giveaway, consider the platform on which it will run, the timeline, and the prizes offered. The prizes should be appealing to the influencer's audience. The timeline should include the start and end dates of the giveaway, as well as any other important dates, such as when the winner will be announced.

This strategy can not only generate leads, but it can also increase brand exposure. When promoting a giveaway, use a clear call to action across all content and encourage followers to share the giveaway post on social media and other channels. 

4. Allow for Influencer Takeovers

Influencer takeovers enable influencers to generate content and interact with your followers using your brand’s social media accounts.

Influencer takeovers can help increase brand engagement and exposure. The influencer’s thousands — if not millions — of loyal followers will more likely tune in to your social media account for the duration of the takeover andl see what your brand is about. They may even interact with the influencer using your account.

Here’s an example of a takeover by micro-influencer Peach of the Full Psycle Instagram account:

During the takeover, Peach showed how she delivered fitness bikes to some neighborhoods in Costa Mesa. She also held a virtual fitness session.

As with your other influencer marketing campaigns, you want to set some brand guidelines for your influencer to follow. The goal, however, is not to restrict their creativity but to ensure their marketing strategy aligns with your brand values.

For the best results, complement this type of influencer marketing with conversational marketing. So, deploy a chatbot on the social media platform that’s the subject of the influencer takeover. You can give the chatbot the same name as your chosen influencer. So, when viewers want to ask the influencer some questions but they’re too busy to answer at the moment, the chatbot can generate an automated and personalized response.

5. Use Affiliate Marketing

Setting up affiliate programs for influencers can further enhance your lead-generation efforts. Around 80% of marketers believe affiliate marketing works best for businesses in the e-commerce industry.

In such programs, influencers give their followers a unique discount code or exclusive access to new products or promotions. In turn, influencers get a commission for each lead (or sale) they generate through their code. When setting up an affiliate program for influencers, make sure your product appeals to a wide audience. 

You can track the leads an influencer has generated using an affiliate platform like Refersion Marketplace or a website analytics tool like Google Analytics 4.

Such collaboration can be temporary or part of ongoing cooperation between the brand and an influencer. This mutually beneficial arrangement doesn’t just ensure an active promotion of your brand. It also helps drive leads to your website and attract new customers.

6. Hold Influencer Interviews 

Hosting influencer interviews is a great way to generate leads. By showcasing the influencers' expertise, you can also demonstrate your brand's commitment to providing valuable information. Influencer interviews can be an important component of any SaaS marketing strategy, particularly as industry experts can explain SaaS products in depth.

To identify industry experts, research their work, read reviews, and look for influencers with a large following. 

You’ll want to involve your audience when it comes to determining the questions to ask during the interview. This is a great way to build and nurture your relationships with them. You can ask them the topics they’d like you to cover via social media polls. Conduct a survey using your website chatbot, too. Landbot can even make your survey look like a quiz your audience can have fun answering. During the interview, you can also open the floor for additional questions your audience may have. 

Also, remember that building strong relationships with influencers is crucial for this lead generation strategy to work. Long-term partnerships can help improve your future influencer marketing campaigns, so nurture your relationships with your chosen influencer even after the event.

7. Co-create Valuable Content 

Working with influencers to co-create valuable content, such as webinars, e-books, or podcasts, can attract leads and showcase your brand's expertise. You can utilize such mediums even to sell your products as it will help detail your product’s features for the end customers better, giving them room to make decisions. In addition, collaborating on content creation allows you to leverage the influencers' reach, knowledge, and influence to promote your brand more effectively.

Co-creating content with influencers requires a well-planned strategy, including setting goals and expectations, providing influencers with adequate resources, time, and information, and ensuring the content is authentic. It's also essential to measure the results of your co-created content to ensure better campaigns in the future.

By co-creating valuable content with influencers, you won’t only generate high-quality leads and foster trust among your target audience. You’ll also increase brand awareness and position your brand as an industry leader.

8. Seek Influencers’ Help for User-Generated Content Campaigns

User-generated content is a great marketing tool that can show your products in an authentic and unique way. USG includes brand-specific, unique content created by customers and published on social media or other channels.

Collaborating with influencers to encourage people to create USG can be a powerful lead-generation strategy. 

To motivate the influencer’s followers to share user-generated content, ask the influencer to offer incentives such as discounts or complimentary products. Another effective way to encourage UGC creation is to get the influencer to create the type of content you’re looking for.

Make sure your influencer announces the hashtags to use for the user-generated campaign. This way, you can just use social media listening tools to see the types of content created using the hashtag. You can then repost your chosen UGC on your own social media platforms.  

Leveraging influencers for your UGC campaigns not only boosts brand awareness but also fosters trust among potential customers. This, ultimately, results in increased lead generation and conversion rates.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing offers a myriad of opportunities for lead generation. 

By carefully selecting the right influencers, collaborating on various content formats, and leveraging influencers’ influence, you can generate high-quality leads and get the most out of your marketing efforts. So, take the plunge into influencer marketing lead generation and watch your business grow exponentially.