KOL Marketing Strategy, A Plus To Brand Value

Have you heard about KOL Marketing strategy? Do you know what terms the acronym KOL correspond to? Would you like to know how this strategy can help you give credibility to your brand?

If you want to answer this and many other questions about this marketing strategy, don’t miss out on everything I tell you in this article.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

What Does The KOL Marketing Strategy Consist Of?

To understand what the KOL Marketing strategy consists of, first of all it is important to know what the acronym KOL corresponds to.

The term KOL is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is the acronym for Key Opinion Leader. In Spanish, it translates as LOC or Key Opinion Leader.

But what exactly is a KOL in Marketing?

We can say that a key opinion leader is an expert in a certain subject whose opinion is highly valued in a certain area of ​​knowledge. And, as a consequence of his good reputation in that field, he is listened to and his opinion is valued by a wide audience.

Therefore, now we can say that the KOL Marketing strategy is based on the use of key opinion leaders to connect with the audience and give credibility to the brand, which in most cases, requires a specific demographic objective or a certain segment.

This allows the company to allocate a specific budget line to reach its specific target audience, in an authentic and powerful way, through an authority figure in a certain field.

And as a result, thanks to their reputed opinion in their specific field, their actions or opinions about a certain product or brand are capable of influencing the consumer purchasing process. In short, the KOL Marketing strategy adapts perfectly to the new relationship model between brands and their customers

Are A KOL And An Influencer The Same?

It is quite common to consider both figures equally. But, as I will try to explain to you below, although there may be key opinion leaders who are influencers and influencers who are key opinion leaders, not in all cases both roles overlap

Therefore, to understand their differences, it is essential to know whether it is more appropriate for your brand to establish a KOL Marketing strategy or an Influencer Marketing strategy.

The main differences between a KOL and an Influencer are the following:

Source of your credibility

An influencer’s audience is basically in the different social media in which they have a presence. It is usually present on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Therefore, your credibility comes from your social profile, your content and your perceived authenticity.

On the contrary, a KOL may have a presence on social networks but these are not their main communication channel. His credibility comes from his professional experience, his knowledge and the time dedicated to deepening his knowledge of a certain topic.

Profile of your audience

An influencer attracts the average consumer. That is, they do not have a specific and concrete audience. Your audience can be very varied. What interests his followers is his attitude, his personality and his lifestyle. In most cases, your audience identifies with the influencer but does not belong to their same demographic segment.

On the other hand, KOLs attract a very particular and specific demographic group. Your audience values ​​your opinion because of your experience and knowledge on a certain subject. His followers look to him for more specific advice and knowledge.

Profession

An influencer is usually a famous and well-known person. His audience is usually made up of fans or people who love what he does or says. Normally, these are singers, actors or athletes whose followers want to know everything they do and want, to the best of their ability, to imitate their performances.

While a KOL is usually a professional of recognized prestige in a certain area. His audience is made up of people who like to listen to him because they trust and respect his wisdom and knowledge. Generally, key opinion leaders are doctors, economists, engineers, marketers, dentists, etc. Therefore, your opinion is highly valued by your audience.

Marketing effectiveness

An influencer can help enormously to give visibility and credibility to mass consumption brands whose target audience is an average consumer.

On the other hand, a KOL can be very appropriate at the launch stage of a certain campaign to provide credibility to it. As well as, for very specific products or services that require the user to be very convinced before making the purchase decision.

What Are The Main Benefits That The KOL Marketing Strategy Provides?

There are six great benefits that KOL Marketing can bring to your corporate brand strategy:

Reach your specific audience

Key opinion leaders can be one of the most effective options for reaching just the right audience or your niche. If you manage to choose the most suitable KOL for your target audience, you ensure that the people you are interested in see it and end up becoming customers.

Build trust

The KOL Marketing strategy can help you build relationships of trust and credibility with the public. Keep in mind, key opinion leaders are respected people. Therefore, any message from your brand said by them helps improve user confidence in your product or services.

Improve profitability

Many times companies spend high budgets with massive campaigns to reach their target customers. On the other hand, through the KOL Marketing strategy it is a more effective way to improve reach and positioning , reaching a more specific and ideal audience for a lower cost .

Enrich the content strategy

A brand, through its integrated marketing strategy, both through traditional and digital media, continually generates valuable content for its audience. But the content generated by a KOL provides an extra value of credibility, since the benefits of the brand are not said by the brand itself but rather by someone outside the brand and, furthermore, someone considered an expert in the field.

Build relationships

Nowadays, and as a consequence of the enormous competition in all sectors, both customer satisfaction and loyalty and building long-term relationships with them are vital for a brand. Through the KOL Marketing strategy you can enhance that connection and the beginning of a powerful relationship with the public.

Increase sales

KOLs or key opinion leaders can directly help the company’s sales. Any communication orchestrated by them about a certain product or brand generates an immediate boost in sales.

How Do You Implement A KOL Marketing Strategy?

When establishing the KOL Marketing strategy, you need to follow the following steps:

Set your goals

The key principle of any marketing strategy is to be clear about where we want to go. It is essential to identify the goals that we want to achieve with said strategy at all times.

Some of the most common objectives are to increase reach, improve brand awareness, grow the number of followers on social networks or sell more product.

Keep in mind that your strategy will be different depending on the objective you want to achieve. Therefore, it is important to define what is expected from the association with KOLs. As well as the direct and indirect benefits for the product in question.

Design the strategy

Once you are clear about where you want to go, the next thing is to plan how you are going to achieve that goal.

In the case of the KOL Marketing strategy, you will have to look for the ideal possible opinion leaders. That is, those that fit the target segment of your business and that may be the most effective in achieving the set objectives.

Additionally, the company must clearly establish what is expected of each key opinion leader to support the project and what compensation he or she will receive from the company.

Choose the right KOLs

In order to identify the most appropriate key opinion leaders, it is necessary to previously choose a relevance criterion. And then, accurate and reliable information is collected from each KOL.

When choosing the most suitable opinion leader for the company’s KOL Marketing strategy, it is necessary to establish the following criteria:

• AREA OF SPECIALIZATION: It is important that your experience and knowledge are relevant in the same specific segment of the company’s product or service.
• REPUTATION AND INFLUENCE: Another relevant aspect when choosing the KOL is its degree of influence and respect within its union. And also, evaluate whether its scope is local, national or international.
• DEGREE OF COMMUNICATION: It is necessary to know what level and practice each of the key opinion leaders analyzed has in writing articles, presenting in presentations, etc. Since, it is necessary to know if they have experience in those fields in which we want to use their services for our brand.
• PREDISPOSITION FOR COLLABORATION: Finally, it is necessary to analyze whether or not the key opinion leader has previously collaborated with other companies on work with similar characteristics. As well as, what has been the degree of success of said cooperation?

Establish the collaboration plan with the KOLs

Once the collaboration agreement has been reached with the key opinion leaders, it is essential to provide them with detailed information about the campaign. They have to know what they can and cannot say about the product that is the object of the action.

Also, a plan for implementing objectives and measuring results must be signed. It is necessary for the KOL to be clear about what is expected of him in terms of activities so that there are no misunderstandings and the partnership is beneficial for both parties. Both must meet their expectations for the collaboration to be a success.

Some of the activities contemplated in KOL Marketing can be:

• ARTICLE WRITING: The fact that an opinion leader writes an article for a specialized magazine or blog or to give advice on the use of the product or service can greatly help the company’s communication strategy.
• PUBLICATIONS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS : Depending on the social media chosen based on the business objective, you can publish text, photos, videos or live broadcasts that help give visibility and credibility to the product or service that is the object of the KOL Marketing strategy.
• PARTICIPATION IN CONFERENCES: This is another frequent activity in the KOL Marketing strategy. In this case, the key opinion leader participates in conferences, symposia or events providing detailed information about the product or service, talking about topics of interest to the company. In short, acting as a brand prescriber.
• CONTENT REVIEW: KOLs can advise the marketing team to support messages or develop product information in brochures and other advertising materials.
• ADVICE: Key opinion leaders, as experts in their field, can provide strategic advice to the company. And also, it can help estimate key market trends that help in the development and creation of new products.
• INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS: They can also be very useful when transmitting information to all company employees about market trends and the position of competitors.

Analyze results

The last step, and no less important, is to analyze the degree of achievement of the objectives set at the beginning of the KOL Marketing strategy.

It is essential to measure Analyze campaign success results to know which actions are working correctly and which others need to be modified or made adjustments to correct deviations and improve results.

Some Useful Tips In Your KOL Marketing Strategy

To achieve good results with your KOL Marketing strategy, you need to take into account the following useful tips:

Look at the past to create the future

Study in detail how other KOL Marketing strategies have worked, both from competitors and from the brand itself, if there have been any.

Learning from what has worked and past mistakes are the best way to improve future actions.

Choose an “Ideal” KOL

With this, what I want to tell you is that, when choosing a key opinion leader for your brand, do not base it on their number of followers or their degree of notoriety.

The important thing is that the style and message of the chosen KOL adapts perfectly to your brand and your message.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

On the one hand, try working with different types of key opinion leaders to see what works best for you with each of them.

And on the other hand, experiment in the KOL Marketing strategy with different forms of content, different media, etc.

Build long-term relationships

The important thing is that the partnership is beneficial for both parties. Both the company and the key opinion leader must feel mutually identified.

Keep in mind that fruitful and valuable relationships are only built from admiration and mutual respect.

Leave the KOL “room for maneuver”

Another fundamental aspect is that the KOL Marketing strategy is not too restrictive in terms of the way that the key opinion leader has to represent your brand.

They are well-prepared people who know how to do their jobs. Therefore, it is vital that key opinion leaders in their actions contribute their “grain of sand” and add touches of their personality to give it credibility.

What Are The Main Pitfalls Of The KOL Marketing Strategy?

As we have seen throughout this article, the KOL Marketing strategy can be an effective option to reach certain market segments. But if you do not work with a well-thought-out strategy, certain setbacks can ruin all your work. Therefore, it is important that you are clear about the main setbacks that you should avoid when planning your KOL strategy.

There is no clear campaign objective

Not only is it vital to be very clear about what the main objective of the campaign is, but it is also essential that it be realistic and achievable.

Depending on your product life cycle, your goal can range from achieving greater awareness to increasing brand interactions or increasing sales. But, whatever your goal is, it is essential that it be quantified.

Lack of communication between the parties involved

Another big problem with KOL Marketing strategy is a poorly constructed campaign summary. And it goes without saying that fluid communication between the brand and the key opinion leader is essential for the success of the campaign.

Therefore, the company must provide detailed information on the KOL’s needs. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to achieve the desired goal.

Wrong choice of KOL

Another fairly common mistake is the incorrect choice of the KOL. Your choice is vital not only taking into account your degree of influence. You must also take into account their credibility, experience and their commitment to the brand.

The KOL Marketing strategy may be at risk if serious and in-depth research is not done prior to choosing the most appropriate key opinion leader.

Tight control of the brand over the KOL

It is quite common for the brand to want to control in detail any performance of the key opinion leader it has hired, from the content created to the moment of publication. This very negatively influences the credibility of the KOL and the success of the campaign.

As you already know, a key opinion leader has deep knowledge and knows how to communicate with their audience. Therefore, the brand must give you room to maneuver to be convincing and motivating. Otherwise it won’t look authentic.

As we have seen throughout the entire article, the KOL Marketing strategy is not exclusive to large brands and companies with large resources. With creativity and motivation, small businesses can also incorporate their own KOL strategy into their marketing plan.

It is clear that the KOL Marketing strategy can be incredibly useful for brands that are just starting out or for those that want to establish themselves and gain strength in their sector.

If worked properly, the KOL Marketing strategy can be tremendously beneficial not only for the brand, but also for the KOL and for the consumer.

So, if at any time you have had doubts about whether to implement this strategy or not, from now on you will be clear about its enormous advantages.