The Ultimate Guide to Crafting a successful influencer marketing strategy
“Building an influencer marketing strategy is critical to driving consideration and demand. The sales funnel is no longer linear. It’s dynamic, and consumers today are seeking 3rd party validation before purchase. A well-planned influencer marketing program will not only provide 3rd party endorsements but it will also help deliver stronger brand relevance, better search engine rankings and an army of brand advocates to use at your disposal.”- Michael Brito
(Global Head of Analytics, Zeno Group)
Influencer marketing has been the buzzword, and brands are increasingly eager to integrate this form of marketing into their marketing strategies. Influencer marketing is the new normal, as it has proven to be highly effective in driving more ROI than other marketing methods. Influencer marketing is the fusion of traditional and modern marketing since it uses the power of recommendations and endorsements through highly effective social media channels. In the market where customers don’t prefer to see ads popping up on their mobile screens, influencers have been successful at sending across the brand’s message in a very subtle and creative way.
Studies have shown that 93% of brands have used influencer marketing and consider it to be a mainstream advertising strategy. It has become more critical than ever for brands to be found in ever-increasing digital spaces and meet their potential customers where they are. However, influencer marketing is not as easy as it sounds. What goes into influencer marketing? How can it help your brand? What does one need to consider while planning an influencer marketing campaign? This article breaks into chunks the essential aspects of crafting a successful influencer marketing strategy. Let us begin with understanding what influencer marketing is and how it has the potential to leverage your brand’s success.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is modern word-of-mouth marketing where brands collaborate with influencers to reach out to their potential customers. Brands choose influencers to promote their products and services. Influencers, in turn, endorse the brand to their audience in an authentic way. This helps build credibility for brands and can amplify the reach and brand awareness amongst the masses. The initial trend of celebrity endorsements has now taken a different shape where micro and nano influencers are endorsing products to their audience, with whom they share a very personal bond. Influencers, unlike celebrities, have become more approachable to common people, and they look up to them and trust their words for product recommendations. Influencers now hold the power to influence buying decisions of your prospective customers, and hence you need to have a solid influencer marketing strategy in place.
Ways in which Influencer marketing can help your brand
Influencer marketing can help you with a variety of objectives such as brand awareness, higher reach, and increased engagement. Besides these, the following are a few advantages of including influencer marketing for your brand:
1. Increases brand awareness
The first and foremost objective that influencer marketing helps you achieve is increasing your brand awareness. When you reach out to an influencer for collaboration, you rest assured that the audience base of that particular influencer will get to know about the products and services you provide. As compared to digital ads, the impact of influencer marketing can be predicted and later measured with the help of KPIs such as reach, engagement, impressions, views, click-throughs, and leads.
Influencers have a unique connection with their audience. There’s a trust factor that exists between the influencer and their audience, that has been built on creative and authentic content that the influencer shares with the audience. This makes the audience carefully weigh and further consider the influencer’s recommendations and consider buying that particular product or service from the brand recommended by the influencer. If the influencer trusts and uses this brand, it has to have something!
2. Builds credibility
3. Provides valuable content to your audience
Unlike traditional ads that simply boast your product, influencer marketing gives you the opportunity to play around with creative content. You can subtly embed the benefits of your product or service into valuable, informative content that the audience loves to consume. Doing this shows that your brand genuinely cares for its customers, thus creating a positive brand image in the minds of people.
By collaborating with a niche-specific, relevant influencer, you can easily reach out to your target audience. This saves you any extra efforts required to reach out to your target audience. With the influencer already engaging with your target audience, you can quickly tap into their likes, dislikes, and interests and alter your content accordingly.
4. Increases visibility and reach
5. Generates quality leads
Influencer marketing brings in leads that are genuinely interested in your product or service. In fact, 51% of marketers say that they have acquired better leads through influencer marketing. These are called quality leads, and converting them into customers becomes relatively simpler. This, in turn, drives more conversions, ultimately contributing to the revenue of your business. Influencer marketing becomes an asset to your brand because it allows you a higher return on investment.
6 Steps to Craft a Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy:
Now that we know what influencer marketing is and how it can work wonders for your brand let us now see what makes a successful influencer marketing strategy.
Before planning an influencer marketing campaign, one of the essential steps is defining the campaign’s goals. Defining specific goals can help you get a solid foundation to build your influencer marketing strategy. Knowing what to expect from your campaign is the first step to creating a successful influencer marketing campaign. Make sure you set SMART goals that make it easy for you to track the progress of your campaign.
1. Define Your Goals
Specific
Set specific goals. For example, instead of saying increased brand awareness, say we need 10k+ views, a thousand comments, and 100 new followers through this campaign.
Measurable
Assign relevant KPIs to your campaign to help you measure your goals. This is a very important metric since it shall help you in tracking the progress of your campaign. Through measurable goals, you can assess what works, and what doesn’t and accordingly revive your marketing strategy.
Achievable
Make sure you consider every affecting factor before deciding on the goals. You need to make sure that your campaign objectives are achievable in the given time frame.
Realistic
Set realistic goals. Decide on leveraging each of the campaign’s parameters in a gradual manner. For example, 100 new visitors to your website through the first post of the influencer. Five hundred on the next, and so on. Unrealistic goals will create hurdles that might lead to the failure of your campaign.
Time-bound
Set a time frame for each of your goals so that all your resources are used effectively. Running your campaign for an indefinite period of time without visible results can result in a lot of wasted time, effort, and resources.
2. Know your audience
You need to know your audience well before planning your influencer campaign. Define an audience persona. Understand the age and demographics of your audience. Consider doing a detailed study on the different aspects that influence your audience. What are their interests? Their likes and dislikes. What do they care for? Knowing answers to these questions will help you create content that will relate to your audience, and you can tap into their areas of interest.
Influencers are the drivers for your brand when it comes to influencer marketing. Hence, it is very important to choose the right influencer for your campaign. Make sure you choose influencers that are relevant to your niche and have an audience that has similar needs and interests as that of your target audience. Make sure you skim through the influencer’s profile to get a better understanding of the type of content that works best for the influencer. Gauge metrics such as engagement rate most viewed content, and reach for the influencer you choose. Make sure you choose influencers that are genuine and authentic to their niche.
3. Choose the right influencer
4. Choose the right social media channel
Besides choosing the right influencer, it is also important to choose the right social media platform to publish your content. You need to analyze which social media platform does your audience consume the most. It is necessary to target the right social media platform to effectively reach out to your audience and create content that works best on the given social media platform. For example, if your brand targets millennials or the GenZ, you need to leverage influencers on Instagram, as the GenZ audience shall prefer this platform. If your business deals in helping professionals, you cannot miss out on optimizing your campaign for LinkedIn since it serves to be the largest professional network.
Understand what type of content works for the influencer’s channel. It is necessary for your content to be consistent with both the brand’s voice as well as the influencer’s voice. The audience will only relate to the influencer if he or she is being their true self, and not when they sound like just another advertisement. Creating such a type of content can be tricky. However, make the influencer understand your goals and objectives for the campaign and help them create content accordingly.
5. Work with the influencer to create relevant content
6. Measure the success of the campaign
Last but not least, it is very important to measure the success of your campaign. You need to ensure that all your efforts are taking you in the right direction and that your campaign is working effectively. Refer to the defined KPIs, and check whether the results seem promising. Make sure you find answers to questions such as, which posts performed well? Which one’s received the highest engagement? What content attracted the majority of the new users? What went wrong? What needs to be fixed? Getting these answers can help you to track the results of your campaign, and you will have gained enough experience of what things to do and what to avoid by the time you launch your next campaign.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing has seen a tremendous rise post the Covid-19 pandemic. Brands have discovered the potential of positioning their product in the right niche to the right audience. However, a lot more goes into influencer marketing other than just marketing your product through an influencer. All you need is a strong strategy for influencer marketing to work wonders for your brand.
As a global influencer marketing agency, we at Confluencr have closely studied the influencer marketing industry and have come up with unique solutions that drive significant results. We have served a diverse range of brands with a striking 15000+ influencer network and 500+ content-driven brand campaigns for 200+ leading brands across India. We have got the perfect ingredients in place for a successful influencer marketing strategy and can help you build yours. Reach out to us at [email protected], and we would be happy to help!
Factors that impact on ideal influencer
In a walnut-shell, influencer marketing can fruit quite a bunch if strategized aptly. Maybe, even a million. Be sure of your Whos, Whats, and Whens and you’ll do just fine.
However, if you’re still not sure about your content plan or reaching the right influencers or finding an influencer marketing agency for your brand, reach us at [email protected]. Don’t worry; we make a living out of it!
