Compared with other overseas marketing methods, many people are keener on KOL marketing, especially for cross-border e-commerce. In addition to semi-finished products, most of the fast-moving consumer goods, fashion goods, household goods, and daily necessities can choose KOL marketing. Sellers can choose different KOL grades and marketing methods according to different stages of their own store or brand operation.
From the review, product function explanation, to big brand comparison, guide consumption, different KOL, and marketing methods can meet the different needs of sellers. KOL has more affinity than the stars, the promotion of the products is more natural, and the appeal is not inferior. However, how to find KOL to bring traffic to their stores has become a major pain point for many sellers.
Select Platform
In general, many sellers prefer YouTube, followed by Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snap.
YouTube traffic is arguably the most popular video platform for global search traffic, and it is the place where “stock” can be generated. The higher the video rating, the higher the number of video views. YouTube is more suitable for drainage, generating short-term sales, and is more conducive to building a brand’s reputation. Foreign consumers who want to see a product will generally go to YouTube.
Instagram is a social platform. Its user engagement is slightly stronger than on YouTube, but traffic is like a stream of water, fleeting. Instagram is more suitable for brand awareness and has an advantage in powder absorption and brand broadcasting.
Facebook’s strength lies in the accumulation and repeated use of fans. However, although the number of people used is large, the delivery rate is very low due to algorithmic limitations.
Twitter is mainly a number of media-type accounts that are self-proclaimed every day.
Pinterest and Snapchat are two new social platforms. Pinterest is the main social network, and there are many designers. Use Snapchat for college students, young groups, and traffic is average.
In summary, if your product has a special group of people, it has a good effect to find the KOL on Pinterest and snap chat. If your product is a general product, YouTube and Instagram are recommended because of the large traffic and wide coverage which will make your product get more exposure.
Looking For KOL
Site Search
In the search box on the platform website, enter the product or industry keywords, the company, or the brand name of the peer, there will be a lot of KOL. If the number of KOL found is still very small, consider expanding your target keywords.
Think about which sub-sectors your products belong to, what areas they are used to, what are the different user groups, and summarize more topic keywords. For example, if you are selling a drone, a large part of the drone users are outdoor enthusiasts, you can search for travel or outdoor. The drone also belongs to photography, you can also search for photography.
After you find a target YouTube KOL, you can look at the account recommended by his channel and the account associated with the YouTube system recommendation. Some KOL content forms are changeable, you can add some modifiers to the product keywords, such as review/test, how-to/tutorial, and holiday deals/buying guides.
Google Search
If the product is for a specific country or region, finding a local blogger is a great option. Blogs are a mainstream form of media with a broad user base of segments. These bloggers can effectively reach local target users, and the main way to search is “industry category + blogs in + countries/regions”. For example, if you are looking for a blog for window film in France, then you can search for “window film blogs in France” on Google and you can find many target bloggers.
Use The KOL Platform
The advantage of the KOL platform is that it is convenient to communicate. The platform can provide traffic data of the KOL account, which is convenient for you to judge the quality of the KOL. Some platforms allow you to send a campaign to many KOL in batches, saving you a lot of time.
However, the number of KOL on the platform is limited. Sometimes, many unrelated KOL will come to the door. You also need to contact and negotiate on your own, and the KOL on the platform can be found directly on social media.
There are a lot of KOL platforms, and it is divided into many types. The most common one is Famebit. Famebit is a company of YouTube, so the number of KOL is more, and the data is more accurate. And one advantage of Famebit compared to other platforms is that it does not need to pay first. You can start the campaign first. When you successfully hire a KOL, the platform will charge a certain percentage of commission.
You can also take advantage of the free data on the KOL platform. For example, look for KOL through socialbook.io. Screening at the frame is free, you can set the KOL type and fan range. After screening, don’t click to see the data, because it is charged.
You can copy the KOL ID you want to view, open YouTube, paste the search ID, and open his channel.
Find An Agency
The agency can choose the right KOL according to your needs and budget, from contacting the KOL, optimizing your campaign, plan a variety of content ideas, to the later affect tracking. One-stop service to help you save a lot of time. Especially for companies that don’t have any experience in KOL cooperation, the agency is a good choice.
The agency will not be limited to a certain channel when looking for KOL, and they will have a fixed relationship with many KOL. The cost is more flexible, unlike the platform that needs to charge a fixed monthly fee or annual fee. There are a lot of KOL agencies, such as virtual nation, hire influence, and mediakix which are relatively high evaluations.
Review KOL
The real influence of many KOL does not match the number of fans at all, and often the data is brushed. What’s more, if the KOL is not properly selected or the information conveyed by the KOL is wrong, it will hurt your brand. And not all KOL is suitable for promoting your brand. If you do not do a good investigation in advance, you may waste more time later.
KOL can be analyzed from the following dimensions
Number of fans
According to the number of fans, the KOL can be divided into three levels: micro, macro, and mega.
micro:1000-10w
Although the fans are not many, the participation of fans is generally high and fans are more trustworthy. KOL focuses on a certain niche professionally and ROI will be higher. They are also more willing to spend time interacting with their fans. Micro KOL is better to hook up, a lot of evaluation is at no charge.
macro:10w-100w
The traffic is large and the participation of fans is poor. In addition, the quality of the content is more important, and the fees are also high. To achieve cooperation with macro KOL is more difficult, generally, have to charge.
mega:100w+
The traffic is particularly large and the charges are higher.
Each KOL fee standard may be different. Find what KOL also depends on how much your budget is, and how is your current brand strength. Basically, it can be calculated according to the standard of about 20 US dollars per 1,000 fans. The bigger the KOL, the more preference to cooperate with well-known brands. It is best for start-up brands to start with micro KOL. Many micro KOL video views and fan interactions are even higher than the macro.
Sponsored or non-sponsored
If you watch YouTube videos frequently, you will find that some KOL will say “this video is sponsored by xxx brand” at the beginning or end of the video, as well as the description. It is mainly in response to the US Federal Trade Commission’s FTC regulations. All KOL are required to indicate whether the content is paid for by the brand to avoid misleading the audience.
As for the choice of paying or not paying for the KOL, mainly depends on your promotional purposes or your content type. If you just want to bring a lot of exposure to the brand in the short term, do some simple product implantation video, and you can find the sponsored KOL. You can discuss with the KOL in advance what the video needs to say.
If you want to get the endorsement of the KOL, and prove the authenticity of the product function, especially to do the evaluation, it is best to find non-sponsored. This KOL generally only needs a free sample, and some will return the sample to you. At most, profit through affiliate marketing. It will not be affected by the brand side and will show the true side of the product as much as possible.
Published content relevance
It’s best to look at what products have been reviewed by KOL, which competitors’ brands have been worked with (preferably direct competitors), whether the channel’s theme is consistent, and whether it is related to your product positioning. Content relevance directly determines the conversion rate of your content.
Even in a category, you can subdivide a lot of markets. There are many small circles in the drone industry. Some specialize in evaluating high-end drones, some only play with model toys, and some only play with race drones. If you are at the general consumer level and look for someone professional, you may be ignored.
In the technology circle, the KOL can also be divided into two types, one is the professional evaluation of one category, and the other is the 3C consumer comprehensive category. The former tends to have fewer fans, the evaluation is more in-depth, more professional, and more non-sponsored.
The latter focuses on introducing the product’s feature selling points and has more fans, also more preferred to sponsored. You can choose based on the characteristics of the market. If your product is popular, such as mobile phones, then you can find some 3C consumer KOL. And if your product is in a niche market, it is best to find experts in a niche.
Fan engagement
A large number of fans does not mean that all fans really like him and trust him, not to mention that some KOL will buy fake powder. And the engagement of fans will truly reflect the influence of a KOL YouTube Marketing has 3 common data to evaluate the performance of the video, you can use these 3 data to evaluate a KOL fan engagement
Average views per 100 fans:
For example, if you have 100 fans, the average number of views per video is 20, which is 20%. Generally, mega KOL will be around 10%, the macro will be 20%-30%, and micro may be more than 30%, even more than 100%. The higher the data, the higher the popularity of the video.
This data can’t fully explain that a certain KOL is real and active because the amount of viewing can also be brushed. For example, I embed the video into other websites or emails, so the following two data should also be taken into consideration.
The number of likes per 100 views and number of comments per 100 views:
These two data can best represent the production level of the video, whether the content is valuable and the fan’s preference for the KOL. It takes a while for the average person to start interacting with the KOL and the cost of the fake is relatively high.
These two data also have industry standards. The general like rate is best at 4%, and the comment rate is 0.5%. However, there are really not many videos that meet this standard. You can use the social book, a free Google Chrome plugin, to directly view YouTube’s fan engagement data.
Fan characteristics
Maybe your target users are concentrated in a specific age, gender, and country area. In addition to the content-related, you should consider whether the fan group of the KOL and your target users are highly coincident with certain key features.
Some platforms such as Famebit can provide characteristic data of KOL fans. You can also directly ask KOL to provide relevant data, which can be exported from the YouTube background.
Authoritative
Whether KOL says is true and authoritative or not can directly affect the purchase decision of fans. You can look at the fans’ comments below each video. It is much more agreeable or not.
Contact KOL
You can usually find the e-mail address of the KOL you want to contact on the platform website. For example, you can find the e-mail under the relevant information “about” on the YouTube website and send the cooperation e-mail.
There are some wrong ways to send emails
No mention of the name, group advertisement
- Eg. Hello, dear friend, I give you money, you make a video for me!
- Syntax error
- Eg. Hi Anna this is Wendy you can make me a video
- Messy links
- No product introduction, just product links.
- Eg. Hi, Starry, please look at this! http://www.xxxxxx.com
Before you send a link, do a simple self-introduction and what your product is, and then tell him where the product link is. Otherwise, people will think that you are sending a Trojan virus, and completely do not want to see it.
Long-term cooperation immediately
Eg. Hi, I want to have a long-time cooperation with you.
Before deciding on long-term cooperation, you have to work with him at least once to see the results. KOL will also choose corporators. If you want to cooperate with them for a long time, at least first make friends with them.
Email tips
Have a good title. Be careful not to have sensitive words, such as “business cooperation, product promotion”, to avoid mail being blocked.
The content should highlight the strength of the brand. First of all, you should introduce yourself, and then write the brand name of your product. The product description should emphasize highlights and advantages.
Pay attention to the time of sending emails. To match the KOL’s schedule (note the time difference), you can use Gmailto send them regular emails to prevent interruptions to other people’s schedules.
See the professionalism of KOL from the quotation
There are generally two situations. One is that KOL will directly ask about your budget. The other will give you a complete quotation form, which will indicate the price of the post and the length of the post. It is best to work with the second type because it seems more professional, and may have worked with many people.
