Diversify Your Influencer Marketing Portfolio for Better Results

Diversifying isn't just for Wall Street. Even DTC brands need this when partnering with influencers for promoting their products.

It's tempting to lean towards one big influencer instead of many upcoming creators. But there's a better strategy to consider.

And if you're a DTC entrepreneur hungry for revenue and steadily increasing brand awareness, this blog will give you the roadmap to diversify your influencer portfolio.

What is meant by a diversified portfolio of influencers?

Multiple influencers in your portfolio

In the investment world venture capitalists don't just place a mega-bet on one potential unicorn startup. They give a little bit of cash to a whole bunch of them.

It's like betting on 100 dark horses in hopes that one becomes the next unicorn. 🦄💰

A diversified portfolio of influencers operates on a similar principle.

👉 Instead of banking everything on one mega influencer, brands should spread their bets, partnering with multiple influencers.

Partnering with multiple influencers ensures you have several people advocating your brand, increasing the chances of your message resonating with diverse audiences.

Trying to make your content go viral these days is like trying to win the lottery. It's tough without 30-50 influencers talking about you every week. The odds are stacked against you.

Different levels of influencers in your portfolio

👉 It's also about having different types of influencers promoting your brand.

• Mega-Influencers: Think of celebrities or internet personalities with millions of followers. They give you instant visibility.
• Macro-influencers: While they might not have the universal fame of mega-influencers, their larger follower base means they can offer brands a larger reach and often talk about niche topics.
• Micro-Influencers: They might not have massive follower counts, but they've got a tight-knit community that listens to their recommendations.
• Nano-Influencers: They have a smaller circle, but that circle trusts them & engages with their content.

But it doesn't mean having Sally, Joe, and Bob, who all have the same fan base and promote in the exact same way.

Influencers in different niches

👉 Diversification also means influencers with different types of audiences if your product caters to different ideal personas.

Take Loop Earplugs for instance.

They partner with influencers who are into concerts & need earplugs. They also collaborate with those discussing ADHD to address a crowd that's sensitive to noise.

Loop also reaches out to new parents—those wanting a quiet night's sleep but need to be alert for their baby's needs.

The beauty of a diversified influencer portfolio is that you're not just banking on one approach to bear fruit. By spreading your strategy, you're increasing the odds of finding the right audiences in the right places at the right times.

The Misunderstood Equation

It's easy to think mathematically and assume that two influencers with 100K followers are the same as ten influencers with 20K followers.

On paper, the total count adds up, but in reality, it's not that straightforward.

Each influencer has their own unique relationship with their audience, making their reach and influence distinct, regardless of similar follower counts.

Despite having smaller audiences, micro and nano influencers have certain advantages:

• Authentic interaction: Their smaller audience size often allows for more direct and personal interaction, making their endorsements feel authentic.
• Better engagement: It's common for micro and nano influencers to have a higher percentage of their audience liking, sharing, and commenting on their posts compared to those with larger followings.
• Focused topics: Many micro and nano influencers have specific topics they cover. This specialization means that their recommendations in those areas are seen as particularly knowledgeable and trusted.

3 Challenges You Might Face When Utilizing This Approach

Finding & vetting influencers:

To find 30-50 influencers per month you will have to find hundreds of influencers as not everyone is going to say yes to partnering with your brand. You can do this by using the hashtag strategy that we use for all the customers of SARAL.

After identifying potential influencers, the challenge doesn't end.

Verifying their authenticity, ensuring their followers are genuine, checking their content's relevance, and analyzing their engagement rate are also essential steps.

This can be time-consuming and resource intensive, especially if you have a small team. 😩

But that should not be a constraint stopping you from growing.

You can use SARAL to do these tasks in one-tenth the estimated time.

Use SARAL's Discovery dashboard to find the influencers that talk about the same things that your audience is interested in.

If you already have a list of influencers, use SARAL's Chrome extension (get it here, it's FREE) to find more details about the influencers such as engagement rate, fair fee calculation, how many people engage with their comments regularly, etc.

😕 Inconsistent branding

Every influencer has their own understanding and style. Given the same set of creative guidelines, two influencers might interpret and represent your brand in entirely different ways.

And not every influencer will take the time to deeply understand your brand. Some might just skim through your emails, leading to potential misrepresentations.

The sheer volume of content from multiple influencers also makes it challenging to monitor and ensure consistent branding across all posts, stories, or videos.

The solution for this is creating an onboarding creative guidelines document. This will ensure giving creative freedom for creators and maintain brand consistency in influencer marketing campaigns

For a top-notch influencer guideline:

• Cover posting frequency, ownership, perks, payment methods, and essential links.
• Share successful content samples or a mood board to set the brand's tone.
• Brief them on your brand's story, mission, and values.
• Encourage questions and idea sharing. Provide a direct contact, maybe even a phone number, for clarity.

Share this document regularly with your influencers using SARAL's drip campaign that can be set up once and run on auto-pilot after that.

🎤 Overexposure

In influencer marketing, the adage "too much of a good thing" holds true.

If several influencers promote a product at the same time, audiences might perceive the endorsements as inauthentic or orchestrated, diminishing the genuine appeal that influencer marketing typically brings.

Constant exposure to similar promotional content can lead to audience fatigue. Instead of engaging, they might skip, ignore, or even unfollow the creators to escape the repetitiveness.

How can you tackle this? Here are two tips:

• Encourage influencers to interact with their audience around your brand, not just promote it. Q&A sessions, behind-the-scenes looks, or integrating a product as a prop in their vlog can be more engaging and less intrusive than straightforward promotion.
• Instead of having all influencers post simultaneously, stagger their posts over a period. Instead of having a flood of posts all in one day, you spread them out, creating a more consistent and prolonged brand presence.

Final thoughts

For brands ready to embrace this diversified approach, having the right tools, like SARAL in place can make all the difference

From identifying the right influencer match to tracking campaign performance, SARAL is designed to be your navigator.

It's an all-in-one influencer marketing platform that can help you:

• Find influencers
• Reach out to them
• Manage relationships
• Ship out your free products
• Create coupon codes, and track results

…and do so much more.

It handles all the tedious work so you can focus on building genuine relationships with influencers who love your brand.

Book a free demo here, and let us show you how it can help you build a successful, profitable influencer marketing program.