Insights From an Influencer: 4 Reasons Why Brand Alignment Is Critical

Brand alignment is a critical consideration as brands seek the best influencers for partnerships. Organizations that fail to attract the best talent aligned with their message miss out on opportunities, and may alienate potential customers, clients, and partners.

Put simply: influencer marketing succcess relies on more than just finding a willing influencer with a big audience. True success boils down to finding an influencer who aligns with your brand values, and who has a similar target audience.

Optimal brand alignment occurs when the promise and purpose of a brand are embraced by internal stakeholders, as well as the external market. If partners, workers, and the leadership team do not fully embrace the brand values, how can influencers or consumers see the potential and promise of what a brand offers?

When it comes to finding the right influencer partnerships, brands should always review the bios of prospective influencers, evaluate any promotions or ads they currently have, and get a sense of how they worked on any earlier and present influencer marketing campaign initiatives. Taking a look at an influencer's audience engagement rates, and demographics can also be helpful in making a decision.

Proper Brand Alignment Is Critical

1. Expands Internal Engagement

If employees and other stakeholders do not see the potential and purpose of a product, communicating to a larger audience becomes disjointed and inconsistent. How workers interact with one another, how they see the brand, and how their efforts make them ambassadors that can build on the efforts of influencers matters.

Employees, the leadership team, and investors should know what their brand represents. Without a sense of brand alignment within, securing talent to influence the external message becomes difficult.

2. Builds Customer Trust

Reliability and consistency matter. Properly-aligned brand values create an environment where consumers have a reliable and expected experience that meets the promise of the influencer marketing campaign.

When customers witness consistency in a product they like, they embrace it with higher levels of loyalty. If they cannot see what differentiates a product from what competitors offer, brand loyalty suffers. An influencer communicating these consistent and reliable traits is imperative.

3. Secures the Brand Assets

Proper bland alignment protects the brand's identity and diminishes the potential for inconsistent messaging. The combination of employee and influencer engagement strengthens customer trust and loyalty, while improving perceptions of brand quality.

The proprietary assets of the brand, expanded by influencer marketing and associations, will increase perceived brand loyalty and quality. Focus on consistent messaging in a cohesive marketing campaign.

4. Bolsters Marketing and Improves Sales

Brand alignment should do more than increase sales or market share: It should meet these objectives in a more efficient manner.

Find influencers to target the 'ideal' customer, and transform prospective leads into successful sales. Remember the value of customer trust as a metric.

Add Influencer Impact

Mega influencer, Adhem Tana, offers this advice about influencer partnerships, “Some people may not have your best interest at heart, and just want to make some money with minimal business, a short-term exchange that may not give you results, which is why you need to set boundaries and know exactly what you want.”

A mutual exchange between a brand and an influencer is better than a short-term exchange that lacks clearly defined boundaries. Part of the influencer selection process involves external and internal brand research, having a comfort level in adjusting the brand's positioning, and defining specific brand guidelines.

With these steps in place, an organization and its influencer partners can establish and understand both internal and external brand alignment, and maintain the optimal level through regular monitoring, reevaluation, and reassessment.