What is Influencer Marketing? Basically, it’s when you find a social media personality with a strong following that reaches your target audience and you collaborate with them to promote your business’ product or service offering.  Call it word of mouth marketing 2.0.  If you’ve ever considered starting an influencer marketing campaign for your business, check out these 4 Simple Steps to Creating a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign. 

Influencer Marketing diagram

Step 1: Clarify your Campaign Goals

What specific outcome are your trying to reach with during your campaign? Do you want to raise brand awareness, encourage website traffic, or enhance sales? To help your campaign succeed and be more effective, clearly identify your objectives, for example:

  • Product development: Asking the influencer and their audience for feedback and insights on your goods or services.
  • Increasing your brand’s visibility among the influencer’s followers and beyond.
  • Sales: Increasing the number of people who purchase your goods or services through direct or indirect marketing.
  • Driving traffic to your website, social media pages, or other online domains.
  • Engagement: Increasing likes, comments, and other forms of social media interaction with your brand.
  • Building trust and credibility with your target audience by making use of the influencer’s reputation and fan base.
  • Lead generation is the process of creating leads that your sales or marketing team can pursue.
  • Understanding the demographics, interests, and behavior of the influencer’s audience will help you gain insight into your target audience.
  • Select the appropriate influencers: As previously stated, it’s critical to pick influencers whose personal brands coincide with that of your company and who have a sizeable, engaged following among your target audience.

Step 2: Influencer relevance is critical

An influencer’s followers are more likely to believe their advice and opinions when they are relevant to your target market. This may make it more likely that their followers will buy your product or services, or at least give it some consideration.

Targeting the right influencer, with followers who match your target audience, will ensure that your message is heard by prospects who are more likely to be interested in your product or services. Relevance in influencer marketing can also help in boosting the return on investment of your campaign. Using a relevant influencer will make your campaign much more cost-effective.

One final word on the importance of influencer relevance. When you take the time to focus on the relevance of your new influencer, it ensures that your message will reach the intended audience, increases the effectiveness of the campaign, boosts the trust and authenticity of the brand, and maximizes your ROI. There are millions of social media users and thousands with a large following. Don’t jump at the first person you find, check them out and make sure that they’re the right fit for your business.

Step 3: Set clear influencer expectations & requirements

Establish precise rules and expectations with your influencer. To make sure that the creative aligns with your brand’s message, look and feel, make sure to explain your expectations and requirements to the influencer in clearly. A few examples are:

  • Communication: The influencer should be receptive to requests for information, be simple to get in touch with, and offer frequent updates on the campaign’s status.
  • Branding: The influencer must use your brand’s name, logo, or other branding components in their material.
  • Content: The influencer should produce high-quality, brand-consistent content that supports the goals of your campaign.
  • Timing: The influencer must publish their material within a predetermined timeframe and ensure that message remains online for the duration of the campaign.
  • Audience: It’s extremely important that your target market and audience is represented in the influencer’s following.  If it isn’t, find another influencer!
  • Metrics: The influencer should offer specific data on the effectiveness of their material, including engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
  • Transparency: The influencer shouldn’t make exaggerated or fraudulent claims about your product or services, and they should be honest and transparent about their relationship with your brand.
  • FTC Guidelines: According to FTC guidelines, the influencer must disclose if they received payment, a gift, or a sponsorship for posting the message.

Step 4: Campaign launch

It’s crucial to keep in mind that a well-planned and implemented strategy is necessary for an influencer marketing campaign to be successful. To guarantee that the campaign yields the expected outcomes, it is important to be clear about your goals, select the appropriate influencers, and regularly monitor and optimize the campaign. A few important factors to bear in mind:

  • Set campaign objectives: The objectives of your campaign should be made very clear, such as raising brand awareness, increasing website traffic, or boosting sales.
  • Research movers and shakers. Find possible influencers whose followers share your target market’s interests and who are relevant to your audience by conducting extensive research on them. Find influencers with a significant following, great interaction rates, and honesty.
  • Determine who your target market is: Recognize the characteristics, pursuits, and tendencies of the target audience for your campaign.
  • Negotiate and draft a contract: After choosing the influencers you want to collaborate with, decide on the campaign’s conditions, including the kind of material to be produced, the length of the campaign, and the influencers’ payment. To make sure that everyone is aware of the terms of the agreement, draft a contract.
  • Contact influential people: Contact the possible influencers, describe your brand and campaign objectives, and enquire about their enthusiasm in collaborating.
  • Make a content calendar: Make a content calendar that specifies the kind of content that will be produced, the posting dates, and the message to be conveyed. This will help the campaign stay on course and maintain consistency.
  • Observe, improve, and adjust: Keep an eye on the campaign’s progress and make any necessary adjustments to the plan. Determine what is working well and what can be improved for the campaign, then adjust as necessary.
  • Make a plan for measurement and tracking: Create a strategy for measuring the success of the campaign using metrics like engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversions. You can use this to determine the campaign’s effectiveness.
  • Follow up and thank you to the Influencers: After the campaign is over, get in touch with the influencers to thank them for taking part and get their thoughts on how it went.

Summary:

A business can’t survive without consistently bringing in new leads and converting those leads into sales. Running an influencer marketing campaign is one strategy that your business should consider testing to help finding new leads. 

An influencer marketing campaign can give you a better ROI due of the lower cost of customer acquisition and there is more room for building trust and engagement. Depending on your product or service, prospects tend to make faster buying decisions based on the recommendations from influencers. There is already an established level of trust with their followers which makes this campaign a valuable way for a business to reach a new audience. By tapping into the power of influencers, you can leverage their reach and passionate fan base to grow your business’ following, brand, and reputation.  

Finally, do your homework.  Finding the right influencer that meets your target audience and budget will take some time. Take the time you need to make sure that you find the type of influencer that will help make your campaign become a success.  

Are you ready to start your own influencer marketing campaign? If you need help getting started, Click HERE to reach out to us.