Looking for the perfect influencer can be a daunting task, but what if they were already in your customer base? Leveraging your own customer base for organic influencers can be beneficial for brands looking for authentic influencer partnerships. Working with customers as influencers guarantees that they already understand your target audience and are genuinely interested in your brand.

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Partner Up with Your Customers-Turned-Influencers

Partnering with customers can also make influencer campaigns more authentic. Working with influencers who are already customers and have used the products or services before makes them more believable advocates, and therefore more effective in promoting the brand.

Creating a loyalty program to encourage customers to become brand influencers is a strategic move to solidify brand loyalty and foster a community of advocates. Such programs not only reward customers for their purchases and engagement but also motivate them to share their genuine experiences with a wider audience. With exclusive perks, discounts, or early access to new products, brands can incentivize their most loyal customers to post photos or videos on social media. This approach amplifies the brand's reach through authentic voices but also strengthens the relationship between the brand and its customers, encouraging a cycle of positive reinforcement and continuous brand promotion. Not all platforms allow you to create such a program, but Loyoly does.

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Find the Hidden Organic Influencers in Your Customer Base

Finding these organic influencers in your customer base can be done retroactively using Influencer Hero’s Customer Influencer Finder feature. With this powerful tool, you can discover hidden influencers among your customer list and collaborate with them effortlessly. Across industries on average 1% – 3% of your existing customers are already influencers!

‍By collaborating with these influencers, you can tap into their existing audiences and reach new potential customers. With just a few clicks, you can start building a relationship with your newfound influencers and collaborate on campaigns that drive results.

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Incentivize Your Identified Organic Influencers

Once you have identified key influencers, you can activate them by incentivizing them with a mix of monetary and non-monetary compensation, keeping the influencers engaged and involved, leading to longer-term partnerships and better content. This also helps you save costs because you don’t have to send them a product as they have already purchased it themselves.

Working with customer influencers can lead to easier onboarding, better-matching audiences, longer-term partnerships, better content, and reduced time and resources spent on outreach and negotiation. Most importantly, influencers with an organic interest in a brand make for more authentic advocates, which is critical in today’s saturated ads landscape.

Read a step-by-step approach for Creating a Performance-Driven Influencer Marketing Program in our Ultimate Influencer Marketing Guide here.

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