Influencer marketing on mainstream media is one of the most effective ways to get your marketing message out there.
Becoming a trusted authority in your industry is a huge time saver. You get to have a bigger impact with more people, sooner.
Yet, influencer marketing on mainstream media is seen as one of the most difficult areas of entrepreneurship to get into.
Balancing Your Time 🧭
This blog follows on from our previous post Being Intimate With Time Is Leadership! where we talk about using time wisely to provide balance in your life. Without that balance it is easy to become focused on the wrong things, losing sense of what your goals are and how to achieve them.
Any way that you can more effectively meet your goals is a huge bonus.
Even a ‘Basic Guy’ Like Chris Winfield Can Become an Influencer
I’d like you to meet Chris Winfield. Chris is a friend of mine who is in the PR business. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment.
Chris grew up in a small town in upstate New York. His parents weren’t rich; and like many of us he struggled with the question of what to do with his life once school had finished. He has told me many times “I was not meant to be an entrepreneur”, that he was not “one of those people”.
Every single person in his family worked in the school system but this wasn’t what he wanted to do. His first job was to work for a start-up, but that business didn’t end up paying him.
He made the important decision to go out on his own with his own start-up doing web design and SEO.
That is always the first important step. Deciding to create your own successes and be accountable for your own decisions.
There’s Always Hurdles – What Counts Is That You Get Over Them
But he had three problems to overcome.
One. He had no money.
Two. He had no connections.
Three. There were “about 5 million other companies that did exactly the same thing that I did.”
So he started to think through his problems: “What can I do to change this. I want money. I want connections, and I want to differentiate myself.”
Does this sound familiar? You’re probably identifying with Chris’s problems right now.
Ask Yourself “Why Not Me?” Then Work Out “How It Can Be Me”
So with these questions flying around in his head, and whenever he would see an influencer in Entrepreneur Magazine he would ask himself the question “Why? Why when I’m looking at this person in Entrepreneur Magazine, why do I want to work with them?” Or when watching an influencer on CNBC he would ask himself the question “Why do I want to be there?”
And then he thought “What if I could do that for myself? What if I could write an article for a newspaper or a magazine?”
He felt he was the most basic guy that you could ever imagine writing an article. Does this sound like the way you think about yourself?
Getting Out Of Your Own Way Is the Best Thing You Can Do
But he got out of his own way, and that’s exactly what he did! He wrote an article for the New York Times, which then led to him writing a bigger article, which brought him his first multimillion dollar client. And then he was hooked!
And now he’s gone on to create one of the most successful PR companies, Super Connector Media, with his partner, Jen Gottlieb. They are in the business of helping everyday entrepreneurs show up to the mainstream media and to be influencers with marketing messages that are simple, and that work!
Super Connector Media’s “Be on T.V. Bootcamp is Made for Media Influencers
I highly recommend you sign up to Jen and Chris’s Be on T.V. Bootcamp where they’ll teach you all the tactical tools that you need to be able to get on T.V. in 5 days. But more importantly, you’ll be surrounded by amazing people and a platform that will allow you to get a little bit more comfortable being uncomfortable.
It is a safe place to practice being on camera, where everybody’s on camera together. You don’t even have to have done a Facebook Live before and you don’t have to be good on camera.
If you hate being on camera—I started out that way!—then this is the place to work on it.
If you’ve been on T.V. a million times already, the Bootcamp is also a great place to be as they’re going to give you new strategies that you can use to continue to leverage the mainstream media today.
There are reruns until March 5th. Don’t miss out!!!
A Successful Influencer Overcomes Limitations
Everyone has a similar gut-reaction; when you see someone in your domain being really visible in the mainstream media spotlight, and you’re left thinking it should be you. But then you’re wondering how you could be the influencer instead of that person.
Most people will put it off telling themselves that they’ll do it later. But people, the time to act is now!
Influencers Get Over Their Limiting Mindsets and Become Visible
Get over your limiting mindsets! Look your fear straight in the face and recognize it for what it is. Then move past it.
It’s holding your life back! It’s pulling you down! Your business will never reach its full potential unless you get over your fear.
It’s stopping you from being visible! Because let’s be real for a moment here, if you’ve got something that can help people then it’s your responsibility to be visible to those people!
Influencers Treat These Things As Irrelevant
It doesn’t matter if you’re not perfect. I’m not!
It doesn’t matter if you’re not an expert. I’m not. I’m still learning something new every day.
It doesn’t matter if you’re not blessed with a gorgeous body and a beautiful face. Because beauty comes from the inside! What matters is that you are confident and believe in yourself, and that you have a good heart—this is what will shine through, your face will radiate with that goodness and you will be beautiful!
A Successful Influencer Uses Strong Messaging
One of the more empowering notions is that the thing you’re so good at really can be monetized if it’s messaged correctly!
Your message must focus on the result.
Because it’s the result that matters. The result of using your product or service. As important the features of your product are—it’s the results that really counts. It’s the thing that the mainstream media (and your target audience) care about.
Be clear about your mindset.
Believe in yourself and your product.
If you don’t have that confidence then you won’t be able to do anything.
A Successful Influencer Uses Simple Words and Keeps It Precise
You can have the coolest product in the world, but if you can’t explain it in one sentence, then don’t bother about trying to be an influencer. You’ve got to nail your messaging.
Don’t out-clever yourself by using big words. Don’t assume they know anything about what it is you deliver.
Have a clear vision and make it unbelievably simple: one sentence, short simple words.
>>> Popular business and coaching books are written in Grade 4-level words only. Your marketing messages must be written in simple words.
A Successful Influencer Uses Stories of Failure, Hope and Survival
Honest stories make your audience feel your message. They draw people in. Whenever you read an honest story, you get drawn into it, imagining you’re part of it.
So what I often find is that people think their story has to be perfect.
But the really important thing to remember is that people don’t want perfect! No one wants perfect
> Your mess IS your message! <<<
Think about the parts of your story you don’t want to tell anyone. Maybe they highlight your failures or your naivety or that you’re not perfect.
People Will Identify With Your Mess
These are the parts of your story that are going to make people lean in. They’ll want to know more. Your imperfections will cause people to relate to you and you’ll become more approachable. And they’ll want to work with you. Because you get it! You get their struggles! You get their failures!
If they feel like you’re way up here, you know living in the land of perfection, and they’re down here, in failure, they won’t feel they can work with you. Because it’s too much of a jump!
A Successful Influencer Uses Stories of Failure, Hope and Survival
Honest stories make your audience feel your message. They draw people in. Whenever you read an honest story, you get drawn into it, imagining you’re part of it.
So what I often find is that people think their story has to be perfect.
But the really important thing to remember is that people don’t want perfect! No one wants perfect!
>>> Your mess IS your message! <<<
Think about the parts of your story you don’t want to tell anyone. Maybe they highlight your failures or your naivety or that you’re not perfect.
People Will Identify With Your Mess
These are the parts of your story that are going to make people lean in. They’ll want to know more. Your imperfections will cause people to relate to you and you’ll become more approachable. And they’ll want to work with you. Because you get it! You get their struggles! You get their failures!
If they feel like you’re way up here, you know living in the land of perfection, and they’re down here, in failure, they won’t feel they can work with you. Because it’s too much of a jump.
Influencers are Vulnerable
Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerabilities. It makes you not just human, it makes you approachable and learnable.
And we all want to learn from someone who has experienced failures and who has succeeded through adversity.
Don’t Worry About Bragging
If you’re worried about coming off too braggy. Then don’t worry because if you wanted to brag you’d already be doing it. It’s not in you if you’re sitting there worried about being braggy.
Believe me when I tell you that being on mainstream media is all about mindset.
What you need to do is use the H.O.P. mindset: “Help One Person” every single day. Now when you tell your story, when the only point in telling the story is to help someone on the other side of the computer or TV or reading the article then you’ll never come across as braggy. Because you’re telling the story to help somebody else.
Influencers Step Into the Shoes of Your Ideal Customer
Craft your story in a way as if you’re talking to your ideal customer, you know, that person you’re helping on a daily basis.
How would you tell them your story? Because the way you will tell them your story is most likely the way that will provide value to them and make them lean in. You’ll make them feel like “O.M.G. She’s just like me, like she went through that too! I want to work with her.”
It’s about thinking about talking with human beings, and not just putting on a show.
Successful Influencers Have a Strategy to Capture Leads
You will need a strategy to capture leads.
Let’s say you’re doing an interview—on T.V., in a magazine article, on your social media or someone else’s social media channel—then your audience is naturally going to look you up. They’ll find you by using Google or Facebook so you need a way to capture leads. (This is why it’s so important to keep your website and social media up to date!)
If you’re not capturing leads, you’re wasting your opportunity to build your list.
Use your media appearances on your landing pages, emails and social media posts. Plan to tie in your media appearances with your wider messaging.
The 20/80 Rule
Here’s the important part. 20% of the value is that initial mainstream media hit. 80% of the value is what you do with it.
Make sure when someone Google you that you’re coming up on the first results page, preferably at the top of the page
People will lose interest if they can’t find you immediately. Worse, you run the risk of your audience finding someone else in your field because they can’t go straight to your link.
If you’re not listing at the top of the first page in Google, then make sure you buy some ads so you are.
Influencers Key Into Those Burning Pains
Think about some of the burning pains your customers are waking up to every day, and what are some of their objections to working with you. Then what you do is key into that, then you create an email around that pain or objection, telling a story that focuses on that pain or that objection.
Write your email or post around your feelings when you first had that experience, and then all of a sudden you’ll find yourself starting to build trust, authority, and credibility. It’s unbelievable in helping to convert people.
Influencers are People of Authority
If you don’t have authority, people won’t look you up, they won’t enrol and become a lead.
If you can’t get people to enrol, then you won’t create transformation.
You don’t want to be that person.
Neither do you need to be jealous about what other people do in the World. The truth is, that if everybody’s doing what they need to really well, then we are moving the World forward. And there’s so much power in that. Own the power that what you do counts. Own the power that what you do Helps One Person each day.
Use Mainstream Media To Give You That Instant Authority
Here’s an anecdote. In fact it’s more than that because as mainstream media consumers we’ve all done this.
Let’s say you’re looking for a life coach. And you get two referrals from a friend. So the first thing you’re going to do is Google them. They’re both really strong referrals. Both their websites are both sparkly and they both charge the same with great results.
One referral is featured in Forbes and on T.V. talking about how they personally deal with imposter syndrome, and you think to yourself “Oh. I deal with imposter syndrome” (which, by the way, is a real problem with women entrepreneurs.) And then you look further and see her on a morning show talking about morning routines.
The second referral also looks great, has over 100,000 Instagram followers but is not featured in the mainstream media.
The second referral has no authority in the mainstream media, they’re never featured anywhere and there’s no T.V. about them.
Influencer Authority and Trust Go Hand-In-Hand
Who do you trust the most? Most likely it will be the first referral, the one who tells stories you can relate to in the mainstream media.
Borrow trust from a credible source. You will find that having a mainstream media presence will provide you many more leads. It’s just the way people’s brains work.
The only thing that can verify you as the trusted expert is mainstream media. They give you the authority.
That’s just how influencer marketing works.
