In the world of marketing, influencer marketing has been picking up a lot of steam. Influencer marketing has helped businesses increase brand awareness and even drive sales. It can bring up to 11 times the ROI of banner ads.
That’s because people are increasingly using ad blockers and cutting the cord with advertisers. A survey by PageFair showed that 11% of the global population used adblock in 2016. The survey also said that blocking ads would increase over the next few years.
With influencer marketing, businesses can still reach their target audience, even if they’re blocking ads. And better yet, they can reach their audience through content they actually opt into, making them more receptive to the brand’s message.
But to get the best results, you should know how to get your influencer marketing strategy right. Before you begin outlining your strategy, make sure you know what you are getting into. To help you out, we’ve listed a few things that will help you launch a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Before you begin looking for social media influencers to collaborate with, you need to determine your target audience. Which age group is more likely to buy your product or services? Which niche does your audience belong to? These are some of the questions that you must have clear answers to.
While defining your target audience, you should focus on locations, demographics, and interest areas. These factors will help you understand your target audience’s profiles. You can also use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to get a better understanding of your target audience.
Clearly understanding your target audience will help you find the right influencers. If your target audience is mainly millennials who follow fashion, you should look up social media influencers in the fashion niche.
It is obvious that many brands want to use influencer marketing to promote their businesses. But before you launch your influencer marketing campaign, you need to be more specific about your goals. Clearly defining your goals will help you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign.
Do you want to increase your revenue? Or do you want to get more followers and boost engagement on social media?
Whatever your goal is, make sure you understand what exactly you want to achieve from your influencer marketing campaign.
Once your goals are set, define the key performance indicators (KPIs) for your campaign. For each kind of goal, your relevant key performance indicators will be different. If you want to increase brand awareness, you should look at engagement rate, social media followers, reach, engagement and other factors. If your goal is to boost revenue, you should concentrate on metrics like conversion rate and click-through rate.
Defining your goals and performance metrics will help you accurately measure the success of your campaign. Based on the results, you may even want to change your strategy later on.
The content that you create with influencers needs to be tailored to suit the social media platform that you are working with. Each platform has its own strengths, and marketing results may vary depending on the channel you choose.
Instagram is all about visual content and aesthetics. So it works really well for businesses that are related to home decor, fashion, and art. On the other hand, YouTube is only about videos. So it is ideal for tutorials and product reviews.
Kano recently partnered with YouTube influencer, Linus Sebastian, to give a detailed review of their programmable magic wand. The video has almost a million views in just over a month and currently has 26k likes.
For an effective marketing campaign, choose the social media platform that is best suited for your product. Also, make sure your target audience uses the platform that you choose frequently.
Each platform on social media attracts audiences of different demographics. So, the best choice is to pick the platform where your target audience is. You can tailor your content according to the platform that you are picking.
This is also an important factor to consider while choosing influencers for your campaign. Most influencers are present on different social media channels, but they usually tend to have a preferred social media platform.
Finding the right influencers to promote your brand is the most vital step for your influencer marketing campaign. 45% of marketers face difficulty picking the right influencer for their brand, a study by Linqia showed. That is why it is important to do some research before deciding on which influencers to collaborate with.
First of all, you should make a list of influencers in your niche. Influencers who are popular in your niche will help you reach your target audience. You should also look at the values and lifestyle that each influencer is promoting. Ideally, you should pick an influencer whose values align with the values of your brand.
This is important for both you and the influencer to establish more credibility with the audience. In an interview with Reelio, OMD’s head of influencer marketing Katharine Ricci said that influencers know the impact of being a sell-out. They know that they can lose credibility if they recommend a product that doesn’t align with their values.
The Yielding Seed, a meal plan delivery service in South Florida, partnered with Angela Ayala to promote their products. She is known to follow an organic diet, so she can appeal to people who believe in healthy eating. This is in total sync with the motto of The Yielding Seed.
If you are interested in a particular influencer, you should go through the content they have created in the past. Look at the number of likes and comments on all promotional posts. This way you can get an estimate of the kind of reach you will get by collaborating with them.
Once influencers have shared posts related to your brand, you should keep a tab on the response they’re getting. Keep track of the number of engagements and sales generated by the campaign. You should refer to the key performance indicators that you consider most relevant to measure the success of your campaign.
Measuring your ROI is one of the most challenging tasks in influencer marketing. So, if your budget allows, you should invest in an influencer marketing tool.
If your campaign’s success didn’t meet your expectations, see what went wrong with the campaign. Did you focus on the wrong target audience? Or did you pick the wrong influencer? Tracking and analyzing your results will help you understand what will work best for your brand.
Your marketing campaign doesn’t have to be limited to a certain number of posts that influencers share on their channels. Even after the campaign ends, you can use testimonials from influencers.
You can post content that showcases their testimonials or even include it on your website.
This way, everyone who visits your profile or website will know that an influencer is vouching for your brand. An influencer’s endorsement will help your brand in building more credibility and trust.
You can also feature their testimonials in the promotional emails that you send out. Try to repost and repurpose influencer content to ensure that it reaches a larger audience
Influencer marketing can help you increase brand visibility as well as sales. With a large virtual audience blocking ads, influencer marketing is an effective tool to reach out to more people. However, to get the best results, it is important to lay out a good influencer marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing will not give you success instantly. But you can ensure that you get the most out of influencer marketing by following the above-mentioned steps.
Can you think of any other things that brands should consider before or after launching influencer marketing campaigns? Please share your thoughts on it in the comments section below.
detailed analytics dashboard to review the performance of influencer content in depth on YouTube, Facebook, and soon to come, Instagram.
With reporting, you can keep track of views, engagements and more, all in one place, automatically.
detailed analytics dashboard to review the performance of influencer content in depth on YouTube, Facebook, and soon to come, Instagram.
With reporting, you can keep track of views, engagements and more, all in one place, automatically.
By Content Partner
This article is contributed by a Smart Insights Content Partner. To find out how you can become a regular contributor and share your knowledge and experience with our readers, please see our Content Partnership options.
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