One of my most invaluable learnings in influencer marketing?

👀 One of my most invaluable learnings over the last decade in influencer marketing?

Look beyond the obvious verticals.

It happened to me far too many times in my early days.

I was convinced a specific content vertical would crush it… only to have it totally flop.

If you’re new to influencer marketing, or find you’ve saturated your options, here’s a friendly reminder:

Brand alignment when selecting influencers isn’t just about content themes.

It’s also about audience and creator values.

Just because you’re a travel app, doesn’t mean you should only work with travel influencers. The people who watch travel vlogs aren’t the only ones who travel!

If you’re a cooking game, your options aren’t limited to food & cooking creators.

Your cozy, relaxing puzzle game? Its top-performing vertical could just be True Crime.

You’re severely limiting your scope if you’re looking only at what aligns on the surface level.

That’s not to say you need to avoid what seems obvious, you absolutely should still test these verticals.

But it’s important to remember that you shouldn’t stop there.

Testing is one of the most important parts of building a sustainable and scalable influencer marketing strategy, and that starts with being open to explore content verticals that go beyond the obvious.

And where do you start with that?
Trust – the – data – even if you’re not personally sure about the content.

Look at the audience demographic fit, performance metrics, and the brand safety, and if those seem to match, give it a shot.

And who knows?

Unexpected top-performing verticals can also give you new customer insights that you can build into your strategies across other marketing channels too!

For my fellow influencer marketing pros, have you ever had an unexpected vertical or subvertical turn out to be a top-performer?