You have just opened your own clinic. You have it in the right location, close to your target audience. You have the equipment and the right staff. You will surely feel confident that it will succeed because you have many years of experience as a medical professional. However, you will still need a marketing plan. Even the biggest and the best hospitals and clinics require marketing.

There can be so many approaches. You can advertise in the local newspapers, medical directories, and journals. Don’t ignore digital marketing, especially social media, because this is giving better returns in many ways in recent times. Social media marketing can be very important for the success of your clinic. Here are some key business and marketing tips that can show you how to use Instagram to make it work.

What Kinds of Instagram Influencers Are There?

Influencer marketing is very effective. In 2020 alone, it has grown by an impressive 57%. This is why it is critical that you work with the right influencers.

Instagram influencers can be divided into two groups:

1. By the number of followers
2. By content type

• Those having more than 200,000 followers are Macro influencers.
• 25,000 to 200,000 followers are Power influencers.
• Those with less than 25,000 followers are Micro influencers.

Macro or mega influencers are usually the celebrities. These people are very much active and highly visible on social media. They also generate a lot of engagement. The Power influencers are just a little behind. Many of them are well-known professionals, thought leaders, and television personalities. Micro or nano influencers offer a narrower reach, but the engagement is often high.

Consider the content type when you want to appeal to a niche audience. For example, you may want to leverage credible Instagram profiles to reach out to photographers, chefs, models, gamers, etc.

How much should you spend on an influencer? There is no specific rule about this. But the generally accepted formula is 100$ for 10,000 followers. So, if your influencer has 100,000 Instagram followers, you may have to make a payment of 1000$.

How to Find the Right Instagram Influencers for Your Brand?

There are two reasons why the number of followers is important.

1. You can calculate the fee for sharing content about your clinic.
2. You can also calculate the avg. engagement rate for the posts.

When you work with influencers on Instagram, you are depending on their ability to say a good word about your business, which will reach a large section of the population because they have many followers. But you also want good engagement because this is where influencer marketing will give you the edge over traditional marketing. This engagement will come when they comment on the post, like it, and visit your profile.

Here’s a way of calculating the engagement rate:

• Add all forms of engagement on the post – likes, comments, shares.
• Divide the total/by the total number of followers
• Multiply by 100

On average, the engagement rate in 2% for each post. If it is anything lower, then you are not working with the right influencer. Find a new person for your social media business marketing.

Influencer Metrics

The number of followers should be the main consideration while selecting an influencer. It is generally believed that the influencers who can give you the best results are those with the maximum number of followers. However, this is not always right.

Let us take an example to understand this better. Let us assume that you run a clinic for Botox treatments. You find two influencers – 

1. Someone with more than 50k followers. Most of the Instagram followers are teenagers.
2. An influencer who only has 15k followers but 80% of them are in their 30s or 40s and most of them are females.

If you just look at the number of followers, then you will end up targeting the wrong market segment. When you select the right influencer (the second option), your overall reach may be less, but you will still reach out to the right market. So, when selecting the influencer, you should focus on more than just the numbers.

Figure out the Relevance with the Influencer’s Niche

Best, try to find influencers who have some relevance with your industry. It is going to be very beneficial for you if you can find such people. For example, if you are offering Botox treatments in your clinic, try to find Instagram influencers who have already opened up about getting Botox treatment. Luckily, you will find many of them like Cindy Crawford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears, Nicole Kidman, Vanessa Williams, and Brooke Shields.

They would all be right influencers for your clinic. Try to find out whether any of these celebs or others like them are looking to collaborate. They won’t have to go overboard selling your business. All they need to do is just say that Botox treatment is very effective and safe. One simple statement can go miles in giving your customers the confidence they need.

You can also approach local beauty influencers, those who are active on Instagram and have a decent number of followers.

While selecting the influencer, always narrow down the specific category. For example, those who have opted for the Botox treatment will always give you better results than just random beauty influencers.

Analyze the Influencer’s Previous Marketing Campaigns

There are two more considerations:

1. Analyze the influencer’s previous marketing campaigns.
2. Make sure that you avoid the Influencers that are walking advertisements. There has to be credibility. Otherwise, the message is going to be lost. It simply won’t be effective.

Never analyze just a single campaign. Always check several marketing campaigns and collaborations of an influencer. Avoid people who have endorsed or promoted the business of your competitors. You can be in trouble if you don’t look at these details. If your followers find this out, then you and your brand won’t appear authentic.

Also, avoid the influencers who would recommend brands too often. You will find influencers who promote several brands in a month. Their profiles have already become oversaturated. The audience is sure to get confused about what to follow. They won’t buy.

Also, remember, when you collaborate with an influencer, you are essentially tapping into the person’s reputation. So a bad reputation is also going to rub off on you.

Choose the right influencer for your brand to reap the full advantage of influencer marketing. Look at the numbers but also give audience engagement and other key factors the importance they deserve.

Today’s marketing landscape is highly varied and full of options. Companies and businesses are straining to keep up with trends and figure out what marketing investments actually move the needle. Sometimes they succeed, but many times they waste precious time, energy, and resources. 

There’s a better way: the rise of influencer marketing has made available a highly profitable marketing strategy that, when done right, can significantly change the way your business finds and connects with its audience.

What is Influencer Marketing?

“Influencer marketing” refers to enlisting influencers, individuals who have curated a social media following within a particular niche or interest commonality, to market your brand or product(s).

The Benefits of Working with Influencers to Market Your Business

Including influencer marketing in your business’s marketing mix can be a lucrative strategy for optimizing your marketing efforts. Influencer marketing has been shown to create several strong advantages for companies that do it well:

• Influencer marketing boasts a strong return on investment. Studies and figures estimate that influencer marketing can yield a return of $5 or more for every dollar spent. This figure also has the potential to be increased substantially because unlike other forms of marketing, influencers often accept compensation in the form of product discounts, samples, and reciprocal promotion outside of monetary compensation.
• Influencer marketing can yield higher quality leads and customers than other marketing channels. This is thanks to the deep, cultivated relationships influencers develop with their audiences that make consumers more likely to readily accept and engage with brands or products influencers recommend. This can lower customer acquisition cost, shorten onboarding time and resources, or increase revenue per customer when using influencer marketing to source leads.
• Influencer marketing garners significantly higher social media engagement than in-house social media content. Social media engagement makes up a significant portion of average consumers’ time and influence, especially in younger audiences. Because influencers are experts in social media engagement, using influencer marketing can help your business thrive in this playing field much more quickly and efficiently than trying to develop your social media marketing game in-house.
• Influencer marketing can help you broadcast data-driven stories. Using data to tell a story or share a compelling message is vital to many marketing efforts. Doing this well requires creativity, narrative mastery, and aesthetic appeal. Influencers work in these currencies already, and rely on their talent for storytelling and creating compelling content to be successful. This makes influencers a huge asset when crafting a campaign – especially one that relies on data or using data points to convey a message.
• Influencer marketing can keep your company in front of trends. Engaging in influencer marketing requires engaging with the trends influencing your markets. Influencers can provide a huge asset for your company or business because they expose you to the heart of emerging trends. Engaging influencers to market your brand gets your company closer to the epicenter of your market and can also provide critical insight into what trends may emerge in the near future.

Tips for Getting Started

If your business or company is interested in employing influencer marketing, here are a few tips for how to move forward:

Look at Existing Influencer Campaigns in Your Vertical or Industry 

Take a look at what your competitors are doing. Look at best practice for similar verticals. Gain an understanding of what’s already being done and how your company might either emulate or improve on current trends.

Identify the Market or Market Segments You’d Like to Reach 

Influencer marketing can be hugely varied but tends to center on particular demographics more strongly than others. It’s important to define the possible ages, geographic locations, gender(s), interests, and other identifying features of markets you’d like to reach. Make sure the influencers you might engage have active audiences that match the needs of your business.

Gather and Then Refine a List of Potential Influencers 

Do your research and prospect a wish list of promising influencers whose content, storytelling, and personality might fit well with your brand, before making contact. This will help you craft your pitch and have a better idea of what your business needs are so that you and any influencers you speak with can more quickly gauge a good fit.

Create a Clear Project and Proposal 

Working with influencers should be navigated intelligently and strategically just like any other type of marketing. Thinking through your objectives, assets, timeline, strategy, and deliverables will make the experience much easier and more profitable for everyone involved when you decide to engage an influencer to help you with your marketing.

Test First 

Not sure if influencer marketing is a good fit? Unlike some more traditional forms of advertising, influencer marketing can be tested and tweaked using modest resources and can provide a low-threshold alternative to other marketing channels that make it easily accessible for a range of business types.

Whatever your business’s size, needs, or industry, influencer marketing could prove a highly lucrative marketing strategy and create significant gains and growth if done right. Now is the time to explore what difference influencer marketing might make for you.