Is Influencer Marketing Right for Your Brand? 5 Questions to Help You Decide

Influencer marketing requires time, effort, and budget. You have to make sure it's a viable strategy for your brand before investing into it. So, we want to help you figure that out. We're not here to convince you one way or the other. Instead, we want to give you the perspective to make that decision yourself.

Let's go through some questions that will help you decide if influencer marketing is the right choice for your brand or not.

🧩 1— Have you achieved product-market fit?

Product-market fit means you've created something people want and are willing to buy. When you achieve product-market fit, you'll see consistent sales, and positive customer feedback.

If you haven't achieved product-market fit, the feedback from influencer marketing efforts might be misleading. You could misinterpret poor results as ineffective marketing rather than a product problem. But, if you have product-market fit, influencer marketing can get you more sales by amplifying your reach. It can't fix fundamental product issues.

For example, Kylie Jenner, despite her enormous influence, has faced several failed brand launches. MrBeast's restaurant chain, Beast Burger, shut down despite the creator's massive following. This shows that influencer power alone can't sustain a business long-term without a solid product foundation.

At the end of the day, your product is king—no amount of influencer endorsement can compensate for a product that doesn't resonate with customers.

🤔 2— Do you know your target audience really well?

Knowing your audience helps you do the first step of influencer marketing right — finding the ideal influencer. Because f you don’t know who your customers are, how will you figure out who influences them?  For example, if you know that customers are busy parents who are always looking for quick, healthy meal ideas you'd want to partner up with an influencer who's known for their 15-minute recipes, not a gourmet chef who specializes in elaborate five-course meals.

When you know your audience well, you can look for influencers who:

1. Discuss topics your audience is interested in
2. Use language your audience understands and relates to
3. Share values that are important to your audience

For example, if you sell hiking gear and know your audience loves nature conservation, you'd look for influencers who often talk about protecting the environment, not just any outdoor enthusiast.

This approach helps you find influencers who can naturally connect your brand to the right people. Their followers are more likely to be interested in what you're selling because the influencer already talks about related topics. For example, Loop Earplugs knows their customers are often people who are sensitive to noise. So, they team up with ADHD experts and psychologists. This works well because it fits exactly what their audience needs.

Here's a simple way to check if you know your audience well enough:

1. Can you describe your typical customer in detail?
2. Do you know what social media platforms they use most?
3. Can you list their top three pain points that your product solves?
4. Do you understand what kind of content they like and share?

If you can't answer these questions easily, you might need to learn more about your audience before starting with influencer marketing.

🌟 3— Does your product category have enough relevant influencers?

There's a lot of ground to cover before you actually start working with influencers. You have to create influencer outreach templates, influencer agreements, creative guidelines documents, and the list goes on. You also need to invest time into finding the right influencers, vetting them, and negotiating partnerships. If you can only work with a handful of influencers and can't find new ones to partner with over time, all the initial effort you put into setting up your program may not pay off in the long run.

If there are plenty of relevant influencers in your niche that you can continue to identify and bring on board, the work you do to set up your program can pay dividends over time. You can keep improving on your processes, build relationships with influencers, and run multiple campaigns at a time.

Also, if there's a small pool of influencers in your niche, they'll likely be in high demand. That means they can charge more and may not be affordable for your brand. And you should not have to settle for influencers who aren't the best match.

To judge if there are enough influencers for your niche:

• Choose 3-5 relevant hashtags for your product or industry. Search these hashtags on major platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Scroll through the top 50-100 posts for each hashtag. If you can easily find 30-70 unique accounts creating relevant content across these searches, it's a good sign that there's a healthy pool of potential influencers.
• Check social media accounts or hashtags of your direct competitors. Do they work with influencers? If so, how many different influencers have they partnered with in the last few months?
• Use tools like SARAL. It is an all-in-one influencer marketing tool that can help you find influencers in any category, if they exist. So if you can find your influencers on SARAL, it usually means there are enough influencers out there for your brand.

This method is quick and straightforward. Instead of manually searching through social media, SARAL does the work for you. It gives you a good overview of the influencer landscape in your niche.

The goal here isn't to pick specific influencers yet. You're just trying to see if there are enough potential influencers for your brand to work with. If SARAL shows you a good number of relevant influencers, that's a positive sign for your influencer marketing potential. You can check this for free with a 7-day trial of SARAL.

🍄 4— Do you operate in a highly regulated industry where influencer claims could pose legal risks?

Some industries like health supplements, CBD products, financial services, and alcohol brands often face strict regulations on how they can be promoted. For example, in the US, all forms of tobacco advertising, whether it's through influencers or not is banned.

For health supplements or CBD products it's not illegal to promote but you have to be careful about the claims you make. You would have to closely monitor what influencers say about your product or it might land you in legal trouble. It’s a lot of work and you might not have the bandwidth or resources.

So, ask yourself these questions before jumping into influencer marketing:

1. Are there specific laws about how your product can be advertised?
2. Do you need to include specific disclaimers in your marketing?
3. Are there restrictions on who can endorse your product?

If the answer is yes to any of these, influencer marketing might be challenging for your brand. We're not saying it’s impossible and you can't do it. But you'll need to be very careful and may need legal help to make it work safely.

If you decide to leverage influencer marketing while staying within legal limits, SARAL can make things easier for you.

Our social listening feature helps you keep an eye on what influencers post. This can reduce the risk of legal problems. You won't need to manually take screenshots or track posts anymore. SARAL automatically listens for your influencers' posts and tracks their content for you.

🤝 5— Are you prepared to dedicate time, and effort to manage influencer relationships?

Influencer marketing demands more than just paying creators to plug your product. It's a relationship-driven game where you're connecting with real people.

Imagine spending your Sunday afternoon on a video call with a creator, walking them through your product and how to use it. You're showing them the little quirks and features that make your brand special, hoping they'll love it as much as you do.

This is the reality of influencer marketing. It's personal. It's time-consuming. Sometimes, it's messy. And as a small brand, this isn't something you can just outsource. It's on you.

You'll be:

• Reaching out to influencers over DMs, or emails
• Writing personalized emails to pitch your brand
• Hopping on calls to explain your product
• Hosting events to meet your influencers
• Reviewing content and providing feedback

It's not like running ads where you can set it and forget it. You're dealing with people, each with their own personalities, schedules, and creative visions.

So, ask yourself: Are you ready for this level of hands-on involvement? Can you dedicate time each day to nurture these relationships? Are you excited about the idea of collaborating closely with creators?

If you're thinking "Yeah, I can do that," then you should go for influencer marketing. But if this sounds exhausting, it might not be the right fit for you right now.

To influence or Not to influence?

If you've decided influencer marketing is right for you…

…you'll need tools to make it work.

When you're just starting out, it's tempting to run everything using Google Sheets, notepads, and your personal email. But you'll quickly get overwhelmed.

Kristina, the founder Poseidn, a beverage brand has a valuable tip for DTC founders who're skeptical about signing up for different marketing tools and try to DIY everything —

When you're somebody like me who's doing everything, you must have a good platform for every aspect of your marketing. That way, you don't have to stress about every different thing because everything is under control. Don't hesitate to get help from platforms. It's all about finding ways to stay organized while juggling multiple tasks.

We agree with her.

😰 Keeping track of dozens of influencers, their contact info, campaign details, and performance metrics is a nightmare. You're constantly switching between tabs, losing important information, and forgetting to follow up. Before you know it, you're ready to give up on influencer marketing altogether.

But the problem isn't influencer marketing itself – it's trying to manage it all manually.

✅ This is where a tool like SARAL comes in. It's designed to be an all-in-one solution for influencer marketing. Instead of juggling multiple spreadsheets and tools, SARAL brings everything together:

1. Finding influencers
2. Reaching out to them
3. Managing relationships
4. Tracking campaigns
5. Measuring results

Let’s talk and see how SARAL can help you..

If you're still on the fence about influencer marketing…

…try it for only two weeks. With SARAL, you can dip your toes into the influencer marketing risk-free for 7 days. Use this time to:

1. Explore potential influencers in your niche
2. Reach out to a few and gauge their interest
3. Try running a small campaign
4. Generate some social mentions or posts about your brand

This hands-on experience can give you the clarity you need. You'll get a real feel for the process, the potential, and whether it's a good fit for your brand.

👉 No long-term commitment, no pressure - just a chance to see influencer marketing in action for your specific business. Start your free trial with SARAL today