Today’s marketing channels are far different from what we used to see a decade ago. One of the latest, and perhaps most disruptive changes in the digital marketing world is the rise of influencer marketing.

If you are looking to gain a significant edge over your competition, consider a partnership with one of these online stars.

Who Are These So-Called Influencers?

Social media influencers are icons on various platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and others. They usually have followings ranging from the hundreds of thousands to millions.

As their title implies, they are capable of influencing a buyer’s decision, thus making them crucial for any digital marketing campaign.

This brief, step-by-step guide will explain how to create your own successful influencer-based marketing campaigns. Read on to learn more!

Find Your Influencer

The first step of your campaign is the most crucial – you need to find the proper influencer for your needs. Luckily, finding one that fits your criteria and brand isn’t that hard. 

First, you must find an influencer that’s into the sort of products or services your company is selling. It doesn’t have to be too specific though. For instance, if you are selling organic skincare products, then you could find an influencer that reviews skincare or organic products.

By finding an influencer who’s already into what you’re selling, you’re most likely to reach out to a target audience that will be interested in your product offerings. This will also liken your chances of creating a successful digital marketing campaign, because it will be more authentic.

Depending on your niche, there could be countless influencers to choose from. Find someone who is very active with their followers.

Study Everyone Involved

Before you can start planning your campaign, you’ll need to understand all of the parties involved. Start with your influencer.

Look at who her competitors are and check out what types of campaigns she has successfully created so far. It’s also vital to figure out what platform she is most effective on.

For example, if your product would best be promoted by video, you’ll want to find someone with an engaged audience on a video platform like YouTube.

Also look at her audience. Do they seem like they’d be a good fit for your product?

Next, you need to study your competitors and what they are doing as part of their digital marketing campaigns. Like you, they could be planning or could already have an influencer campaign. Analyze what they are doing and see whether or not it has been effective for them so far.

Lastly, analyze your audience. This is perhaps the most crucial part of your marketing campaign. You will need to see which type of content most effective for them.

You might need to employ the use of social media analytics tools on your pages to see which content is most engaging and effective.

This part of the process essentially heightens your marketing campaign’s success rate. Through analysis, you are also able to create a campaign that’s more efficient, engaging, and memorable.

Create Your Marketing Brief

Once you find your influencer, it’s time to create a marketing brief. You should treat an influencer campaign the same as any other marketing campaign.

That means creating pre-defined goals to help you be prepared for what’s ahead. In your brief, make sure to include these important details:

  • Messaging and brand language. The key to any successful influencer marketing campaign is letting your influencer in on everything there is to know about your company and products. This includes topics she can and can’t address and words she should and shouldn’t use. This way, your influencer isn’t just a hired gun, she’s also a part of your brand, and, in some cases, your full-time employee.
  • Key dates. These dates will include the pre-launch and post-launch dates, as well as other key events over the duration of your campaign. Do you best to stick to your timeline, and instruct your influencer to do the same.
  • Budget. You’ll have to set up a budget for your campaign. This will include the goodies and promotional materials that you will provide for the influencer. While influencers aren’t as expensive as Hollywood celebs, keep in mind that those with a lot of followers tend to cost quite a lot of money.
  • Platform and media focus. If you have a budget in mind, you may want to let your influencer know what online platforms and types of content you want to focus on. Most influencers have multiple channels, so it would be best to focus on those where they have the best presence.
  • Define KPIs and goals. Letting your influencer run the campaign without a goal in mind would be a big mistake. Key performance indicators (KPIs) could be the number of views, likes, shares, and even sales, starting from the launch period of the campaign. 
  • Usage rights and other legal matters. This will protect you and your influencers from any possible legal issues that might arise throughout the duration of your campaign. Most importantly, this should highlight who has the rights to the content once the campaign is done.

Meet With Your Influencer

An influencer campaign is a two-way street; it’s your ideas in partnership with the ideas of the influencer. Upon giving her your campaign brief, meet with her in person and help her make revisions or additions to the plans if necessary. Influencers strive on creative freedom, so it would be a bad idea to shackle them into specific rules.

Influencers know their audience better than anyone else. So they should have a deeper understanding of what types of content and campaigns will work best.

Know Your Approach

There are many ways to approach influencer campaigns. It is vital for you to know the difference between each approach and how it can affect the success of the campaign.

One of the most basic ways to showcase your product or service is by letting an influencer review them. They do reviews for the benefit of their viewers who may be looking for that specific product or something similar.

Reviews include the unboxing videos and demos of the product.

You could also consider having your influencer create user-generated content through her favorite platform. Basically, the influencer will conduct a contest featuring your products. This could be a photo or a video that puts your product or service under the limelight. The top posts will be rewarded, thus encouraging more participation from the target audience.

What’s perfect for you will depend on your budget and the type of product or service you have. You can coordinate with your influencer to decide what will be most effective.

Analyze And Adapt

Just because the campaign is already underway doesn’t mean you can’t make adjustments. By using analytics tools, you can gauge the performance of the influencer and the campaign itself. If you see that it might not be enough to reach your KPIs, then you’ll need to act fast to give the campaign a boost.

Boosting campaigns with digital advertising is simple enough, especially on platforms like Facebook. Facebook Ads allow you to boost your content so that it will reach the News Feed of many users.

And what’s great about digital marketing is that you can easily make changes to your content. Work with your influencer to course correct if necessary. The more adaptive and quick to respond you are, the more successful your campaign will be.

Review Results

Reviewing the results of the campaign is a vital step in the process. Analyze your KPIs, sales, and other important data.

This will help you figure out whether or not the influencer you chose was the right one for the campaign. If you want to launch another influencer-based campaign, you can use the data to improve on what you have established with your previous campaign. Let her know the results because it could help her to up her game the next time you partner up.

While influencer performance and KPIs are vital information, it is also important for you to analyze target reception and sentiments. This can be seen via the comments section.

Aside from feedback from the campaign, you’ll also be able to see what your audience feels about the products or services you are selling them and how you’re selling them. Some audiences are very quick to notice influencer marketing, and not every audience appreciates it.

Bottom Line

Influencers can be a boon for companies and brands online. What they can offer your brand in terms of exposure and sales should not be underestimated. But make sure you go through the steps above to give yourself the greatest chance at success.

Leave A Comment

Leave a Reply