There’s no denying that influencer marketing has taken the consumer world by absolute storm. Not only are brands investing more of their marketing budget into influencer efforts, but with 69% of consumers basing their spending habits on influencer recommendations, it’s no surprise that influencer campaigns have the authenticity to relate to consumers in a way the brands themselves just can’t. It’s definitely safe to say that brands are realizing how powerful of a tool working with influencers is!
Building partnerships with influencers can be challenging, but they can also be extremely beneficial to increasing brand awareness and brand performance. However, in order to get the results you are looking for, there are several things you should take into consideration.
First and foremost, remember that you are partnering with real people. Unlike media companies or actors for hire, your influencer partners have decided to associate their name, following and reputation with your brands, and as such you need to find the alignment between your brand’s values, messaging, tone of voice and visual brand guidelines with theirs. So the process is much more collaborative and requires patience, flexibility and open-mindedness.
In an effort to find this alignment, when we strategize an influencer marketing strategy, no matter the target audience, we encourage our brand partners to follow the below do’s and don’ts:
The Do's:
Define Campaign Goals
This may seem like an obvious one, but things can be challenging when there is no clear definition of the campaign’s objectives. Make your goals simple, accurate and achievable so everyone can understand what you are looking for. Setting coherent and straightforward campaign goals will determine all other aspects of the project. This is the motive, the “why”, the baseline that starts the entire process as well as the reference point to which we can come back during and after the project when we optimize our strategy and analyze our performance. These goals will also affect the messaging, tone of voice, social platforms or target audience - every aspect should harmonize and compliment each other to achieve them.
For example if your goal is to reach a younger audience, you will need to use social media platforms whose user base skew to young people and select influencers whose audience conjunct with this target demographics.
It is also very important to make sure the influencers you partner with are aware of your campaign’s goals so they can create their content accordingly - from brand messaging through product presentation and CTA, it all needs to come together to serve the purpose of your campaign.
Make An Influencer Brief
You’re choosing the influencers, so you should let them do what they do best - and that is create. They are the ones who know how to interact with their audience, so the creative concept should be synergetic in order for it to be effectively authentic. However, brands should always prepare an influencer brief to be followed - this is to ensure that messaging is kept aligned and that the product is being used, and therefore promoted, correctly.
A good brief should include everything you expect the influencers to take into consideration when promoting your product. Having comprehensible guidelines that the influencers can use while getting familiarized with your product and creating the content is an extremely beneficial tool to make sure your expectations are met and to streamline the communication with them.
Measure Your Performance
No matter the performance you are looking for (awareness, clicks, leads, sales, etc.), measuring the KPI’s is imperative to managing future successful campaigns. There are multiple tools to help brands measure their influencer campaigns’ performance, and by doing so you can identify the successes, opportunities and failures. Depending on your goals and the analysis tools you use, you can implement various measurement strategies and tactics.
A strong measurement mechanism will help you optimize the current campaign you’re running and to tailor future campaigns. This is also a crucial part in integrating influencer marketing into your overall marketing, and specifically online, strategy. In a data-driven decision-making world, being able to analyze your influencer campaigns accurately will set the ground for scaling up your activity based on results.
The Don'ts:
Don't Solely Rely On Follower Count
While follower counts can seem very attractive at first, there are other metrics to take into consideration when thinking about how to reach your goals. Firstly, does the influencers' audience align with yours? If not, they’re probably not the right partner for your brand. Does their content align with your brand’s messaging and value? If not, they’re probably not the right fit for your campaign. More elements to take into consideration include, for example, production style, engagement levels and reach.
Influencer marketing is all about the interpersonal connections between the brand, the influencer and the audience. As such, it takes more than a single factor to determine the alignment. Looking at as many factors as possible in your influencers selection process will help you set the terms for a successful campaign.
Don't Overlook Micro Influencers
Micro-influencers are a powerful tool and hold a lot of value for brands. Typically, micro influencers have a more niche community, so your product will be promoted to the exact audience you’re aiming to target or share the same interests in your brand’s niche, and therefore will be more influenced to buy it.
So don’t overlook micro influencers, they can definitely take your campaign to the next level and create some amazing content while boosting your brand’s reputation and engagement with your target audience!
Key Takeaways:
So whether you promote a direct-to-consumer brand, B2B SaaS product or a service for small business owners, always tailor your partnerships based on what the desired outcomes are. Then you can create a consistent brief that includes all your goals and expectations. This will help streamline your execution process and ensure alignment. Once this is all ready, you should start looking for the right influencers for your campaign. After the content is published, make sure you measure and analyze the results so you can optimize and scale your activity based on actual results.
Keeping all these things in mind when building campaigns will enhance your ability to unlock the true power of brand and influencer partnerships!
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