What is KOL Marketing and What Benefits Does It Offer?

What does KOL mean in marketing?

KOL means key opinion leader — a person with an established expertise within a certain niche. Many people talk about specific things on their socials, but to qualify as a KOL, they must have a considerable reputation and number of followers.

For you as a brand, the main interest in cooperating with KOLs lies in turning their subscribers into your own paying customers. Working with key opinion leaders is one of the marketing trends to follow if you want to gain a foothold in a niche-specific community and make a name for yourself.

KOL vs other types of marketing

Key opinion leader marketing may look pretty similar to the influencer or celebrity marketing, or even marketing through user-generated content (UGC). But there are, in fact, some essential differences between these types of promotion.

• UGC mainly raises your brand awareness through social media posts made by regular users.
• Celebrity/influencer marketing uses famous people to promote any sort of products to their audiences.
• KOL marketing is centered around an influencer with known expertise in the same niche as your products and services.

UGC aims to involve the audience itself in promoting your brand. Anything from Amazon reviews to social media challenges counts as user-generated content, and your goal is to make this process as organic as possible. This type of marketing can create a lot of commotion with the help of superfans and creators, but they don’t necessarily have to be somebody well-known.

Influencer and celebrity marketing is based on a person’s popularity. When an individual makes it big through acting, sports, or other achievements, people start to look up to them in some areas of their own life. The audience might form an emotional connection with a star and trust their word, or simply want to copy their lifestyle by buying whatever products they show. If you’re famous, fans will listen to whatever you say, and it has helped countless brands ever since the beginning of time.

Key opinion leaders are not exactly stars — they are experts. A KOL can be famous in their own right, but it always has something to do with their niche knowledge. Opinion leaders often start by running a specialty blog dedicated to something they are largely aware of or work with. With time, they turn into trustworthy know-it-alls in their chosen field.

People come to KOLs to find out about a curious new thing or find a product that will meet their needs. They want to hear an unbiased opinion and form their own judgment based on that — hence the name, “key opinion leaders”. The marketing strategy should reflect this important notion. If something is out of place or gets too pushy, your collaboration may come off as a forced product placement and hurt both of you.

Lastly, the most distinctive feature of KOLs is that they can be anywhere. Unlike social media influencers, opinion leaders can be found on TV, radio, in a print newspaper, or at an event. Some of them might not even have a social media profile at all, but it doesn’t make them less of a respected professional in their field.

Main reasons to engage in KOL marketing

So far, influencer marketing sounds like an easier way to get around. Why bother with expertise and authenticity if you can just pick a big-time blogger to be the face of your campaign? While this approach can help to get to a wide audience across the world, it lacks some important points of KOL marketing. Let’s look at the unique benefits of collaborating with key opinion leaders.

Building credibility and trust

The expert status of your collaborator means a lot to potential customers. People trust the key opinion leaders and depend on them to provide their honest thoughts on whatever they deal with. Praise towards your brand from credible and respected professionals will act as a seal of approval for their audience.

Getting expert insight

It’s not uncommon for brands to improve their products after getting some qualified criticism from key opinion leaders. If you let experts tinker with your goods, they can narrow down some non-obvious flaws or highlight unexpected advantages. In his video, tech blogger Hipyo Tech tells about the improvements ASUS made to their new series of keyboards based on the criticism he offered to their previous iterations.

Reaching a targeted audience

When experts promote you through their social channels, you indirectly get in touch with their audience. This gives you a double benefit. First, your brand gets exposed to new people who might have not heard of it yet or didn’t do enough research. Second, you get access to the exact people that you want to see as the clients for your business. And there is a good chance that some of them are on the market for your exact sort of thing.

Creating enhanced content

Collaborating with experts can create something that transcends your regular ad. 

No marketing team could have done a better job than what Top Gear did to the Toyota Hilux pickup in 2003. The trio drowned the car, dropped a caravan on it, even hired a demolition team — all to see if the Hilux can live up to its reputation as an unkillable car. The result — an episode that made TV history and turned the truck into a legend. Today, such a strategy could easily translate into memes and other viral content that will turn heads your way.

Authenticity

Realness is the name of the game. While paid reviews or sponsored segments are commonplace these days, audiences have long learned to see past the facade. Among other things, people turn to experts because they have learned to expect honesty from them. Many opinion leaders make it clear whether their endorsement was paid for, or if there’s some other form of collaboration happening.

Instead of outright paying them for a good review, try sending your product in for an honest opinion. If you let them share their real thoughts while surprising them with quality, KOLs can become one of the most essential fans you can ever get. And their audience will follow.

Cost-effectiveness

An obvious thing about KOLs as an influencer alternative in marketing is their lower cost. Experts don’t usually have the same amount of followers as blogging stars, so the price of collaboration will not go through the roof. Some niche channels may not even ask for any money for the review. Sending your products to be featured is standard practice these days, and it allows the author to keep creating content. A win-win situation.

How to find the right KOLs for your business?

To make the most of this type of marketing, you must consider a couple of crucial things. Do your desired experts have an online presence? Do they partner with brands? And, first of all, where exactly do you find an opinion leader that will be the right fit? Here are some tips to make the search easier.

Look for key opinion leaders using different methods

Depending on your time and money, there are several approaches to finding experts to promote your business:

• Directly searching through social media platforms, niche websites and subreddits, and even offline events
• Asking the communities that can guide you towards experienced and trusted people
• Consulting with established brands that have a history of working with KOLs
• Collaborating with an agency that can have a base of KOLs open to partnering up

Deep diving into the niche by yourself will allow you to get a more thorough understanding of it. There’s a good chance that you will gather useful connections and maybe even some new customers along the way. For a more time-saving option, try talking with businesses or agencies that have proven experts in their contact pool.

Conduct research on KOLs before reaching out to them

Most probably you won’t need intel on something like their favorite champagne or preferred pastime activity, but you still need to know what makes the person tick. 

Some experts will gladly work with your company while others are strictly against sponsorships and endorsements. Get a good idea of style and format that they are comfortable with. Be sure that your product falls into their area of expertise and interest. All of this will let you approach the KOL in a way that will make your marketing collaboration effective and meaningful.

Engage experienced social media KOLs

While key opinion leaders can certainly exist without any online presence, an expert with up-and-running socials will simply benefit you more. The power of digital marketing is that it is integrated into everyday life. By working with a KOL with some social following, you can engage their audience and funnel people into your channels. This way, you can gather leads, analyze them, and use them further in your PR and email marketing strategy. That’s why social media should be your main instrument when searching for people to collaborate with.

Optimizing the KOL marketing strategy

Now that you know what KOL marketing is and where to look for experts to work with, let’s talk about putting the most effort into the process.

Do your research and set your goals beforehand

Before you reach out to your potential collaborators, you should know exactly what you want to achieve. Gaining customers through marketing to new audiences is an obvious goal, but maybe you aim for professional evaluation and feedback? Before you build a strategy, set a clear expectation and milestones.

Contact the key opinion leaders

When you think that you have found a fitting person with enough following and proven expertise, approach them in a way that will let you establish a meaningful connection. You could start with a cold email or send a product package right away with a sweet personal note. Alternatively, you can invite them into your office or set a meeting at the next professional convention within your mutual area of work.

Define and communicate your objectives

When engaging with experts, let them know what it is exactly that you want from them and on what terms. This is the right stage to agree on the type and form of endorsement or feature, and the degree of freedom of expression that you are ready to see in the end result. If you want a positive opinion no matter what, it will most likely cost you way more than just a regular review.

Trust KOL’s recommendations

They are not called experts for nothing. They know their niche, their stuff, and their audience. If the key opinion leader tells you that something won’t work, you should trust them on that. Hear out their ideas on content and your brand’s place in it — after all, it’s still their channel and their own reputation. And be open to some criticism and suggestions regarding your product — such expertise is why you are here in the first place.

Dedicate resources, energy, and funds to foster the partnership and track the results

Time and money are essential parts of any marketing strategy, but they may be most integral when you deal with key opinion leaders. You see, they don’t have to be biased in your favor just because you buy their time. Instead, you can establish a long-term relationship and slowly turn the expert into the ambassador of your brand. Keep in touch, ask them for opinions on new products, and improve them based on feedback. The friendship will flourish, bringing in new results and expanding your collaboration possibilities.

Conclusion

KOL marketing has a lot in common with other influencer-based campaigns, but in some ways, it offers a completely different experience. Working together with key opinion leaders will let you grow your own credibility and trust in the eyes of the audience, leading to new fans and customers.

To really make the most of it, approach KOL marketing with this mindset:

• Pick the right experts based on their area of work and interest.
• Research and get to know their content and audience.
• Establish good-natured relationships and clearly define your expectations.
• Trust their expertise and listen to their insights.

Nurturing relationships with experts means that you can always count on honest feedback and recommendations based on their sense of professionalism. And it’s even better if you share a common passion for your chosen niche!