A warm welcome to the 50 new subscribers who have joined since the last edition!If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed, sign up below to join a high-value network of over 2,100 climate tech entrepreneurs, industry leaders and investors.In The Green Techpreneur (GT), I interview extraordinary climate tech entrepreneurs, investors and sustainability experts to share practical advice on how to build your business. Join us for connections, advice, ideas, and mentors. Follow the GT podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.GT Collaboration OpportunityWe’re looking for a sponsor with an aligned mission and vision to collaborate on content and promotions over a 6-month period. It would suit a climate tech investor, accelerator, or a B2B climate tech business. Get in touch at: marianne@thegreentechpreneur.ukIn 2022, influencer marketing was a $16.4 billion industry and it’s due to 5x to reach $84.89 billion by 2028. This phenomenal growth is down to just how effective it is; influencer marketing content delivers 11X better ROI than traditional marketing tactics. Why? 92% of consumers trust influencer marketing over traditional advertising.So for climate tech startups that need to make every dollar count, quickly spread the message and attract clients, a carefully targeted ‘guerrilla’ influencer marketing approach could deliver more and cost less than a PR campaign.Influencer marketing expert Gordon Glenister is the author of Influencer Marketing Strategy and a columnist on influencer marketing for the London Evening Standard. He stumbled into the industry “by accident” – “I couldn’t find a book that explained influencer marketing, so I wrote one and started the UK influencer industry with my business partner.”In this Green Techpreneur episode, he breaks down how to select and work with influencers as a climate tech startup.How do you judge whether an influencer is a good match?Look for shared values and engagementWhat’s important to your business? Does that reflect well in the type of content that you're seeing from that individual?Another thing to look for is their level of engagement. How responsive are they to their followers? And are they good at creating a conversation and growing their audience?Look into the relevance of their followers, where they're coming from, it's not about numbers, it's about quality.Are they working with your competitors?The last thing you want to do is work with an influencer who's working with all of your competitors day in day out. That's not going to make you feel special within your own brand.Ask for their media deckThe first thing you should do before engaging them is to ask for their media deck which is equivalent to a CV, you want to know how they've grown their audience, what their level of engagement is, what type of campaigns they've worked on before.Focus on long-term collaborationUnderstand what sort of success criteria you want, but also what the influencer wants. There's a reason we use the word collaboration because that's exactly what it is. It's about actually joining at the hip because there are two things that an influencer wants: one is a reward for the work that they've done, and also anything that sustains and grows their audience. So look for how you can create and help them with exclusive content, opportunities to come to your events, or something where you could bring them onto a panel.The more you brief the influencer and help them with understanding the markets in your area, the better. You wouldn't hire a salesperson and say ‘off you go and do your best,’ you would properly brief them.Don’t think transactionalDon’t think transactional, like ‘should I employ an influencer for one post?’ Think about the bigger picture and be creative and involve them. Think about ‘how can I help you? We're a startup we don't have huge amounts of money, but what I could do is I have this, I have that, and I have this’ and the influencer may say ‘wow, that's super cool. I can do some really good things with that.’How can you co-create an immersive experience?Oxfam brought influencers to one of their big hub centres and showed them the entire back office system of what they do when clothes come in the recycling centre. They gave them a complete, ‘behind-the-scenes’ experience, and that got huge amounts of engagement on the influencers content and on Oxfam's engagement as well.“I believe in immersive content. If you're talking about climate change, can you go somewhere together? Think about the impact you want from this. You can do some amazing things with influencers.”What types of content campaigns benefit from using influencers?* Co-created content* Podcasts* Inviting the influencer onto your podcast* Sponsored posts and videos* Competitions and contests* Tik Tok has been great for challenges* Tutorials and reviews of your products/services can be really successful* Social media takeovers - hire an influencer to work...
