What Is Influencer Marketing And How To Add It To Your Marketing Strategy
Businesses Are Making $5.78 For Every $1 Spent On Influencer Marketing
If that ROI is even remotely true and applicable to most brands, then you can easily understand why leading brands are making influencer marketing their #1 priority. For brands who sell their products online, utilizing influencers who have a genuinely engaged audience allows companies to scale at viral speed.
But what is influencer marketing really, and why is everyone doing it?
In this post, we’ll define influencer marketing, show a few examples of how it’s used in business today, and provide 5 best practices for getting started with influencer marketing in your company.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing where self-made social media influencers partner with brands to promote their products and services to their followers.
Once a way to keep tabs on friends, social media has since exploded and now dominates the advertising world. Influencers who have grown large followings on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok offer their stage to brands in exchange for payment or free products. Marketing through influencers has proven to be the best ROI strategy by far.
Why Is Influencer Marketing Important?
The biggest asset you have as a business is brand awareness. The more people know, recognize, and trust your brand, the more they will purchase your products. Since 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as friends and family, using influencers to promote your brand cuts the sales cycle timeline drastically. Selecting influencers who have the same ideal audiences as your brand, allows you to give consumers what they want through a voice they already trust.
3 Examples Of Influencer Marketing Campaigns :
Neutrogena
Dunkin’
Daniel Wellington
5 Best Ways To Launch Your First Campaign
- Create Your Influencer Marketing Strategy
Your brand should identify both its overall marketing goals and its specific campaigns goals. For example, your overall goal for your organic protein shake brand may be to drive sales to your online shop, but your specific campaign goal is to spread awareness surrounding your upcoming launch of a new chocolate mint flavor. Understanding your specific campaign goals will help you narrow down which type of influencer to work with based on their tier, audience, and content. Knowing your goals upfront is also essential to accurately analyze the results of each campaign.
2. Discover The Right Type of Influencer
Once you understand your specific campaign goals, you can define which type of influencer will be the best fit for your campaign. Finding influencers who will represent your brand correctly and fit the right demographic criteria is crucial to getting the results you want. Once you have the ideal influencer persona, you can search manually or use influencer marketing platforms to cut down on time and energy.
In your search, look for profiles that have the same audience as you do and content that fits well with your brand. Watch out for red flags such as inflated followers, inflated engagement, controversial off-brand content, or a history of bad collaborations. Using the right influencer marketing tools will help you easily navigate the discovery process.
3. Reach Out to the Influencer
Once you understand what type of influencer profile you are looking for, you can begin reaching out to them. For your ideal influencer to make an informed decision on whether they’d like to promote your brand, they need to understand what your goals are, who you are as a brand, and what you want from them. A campaign brief outlines exactly what promoting your brand will look like. Keeping the brief short, descriptive, and to the point will increase the chances of a successful campaign. See what a brief should look like by using our influencer brief template.
4. Negotiate a Campaign Collaboration
Understand as a business what you are willing to offer the influencer in return for their promotion. Gifting products for reviews, affiliate programs, brand ambassadorship, and paid promotions are just a few of the ways you can run your campaigns. For more ideas on how to collaborate with influencers, see 15 Compensation Ideas for Brand and Influencer Collaborations.
After you’ve negotiated compensation, brainstorm internally or with the influencer ways to create your campaign content. See 18 Content Ideas for Successful Influencer Marketing Campaigns. Don’t forget that an essential part of the negotiation is legal contracting and compliance. It is your brand’s responsibility to ensure that the influencer follows FTC guidelines on marketing and that you own the right to use the influencer content once the campaign is over. For a more extensive guide on all things legal, check out 10 Must-Haves to Legally Protect My Brand for Influencer Marketing.
5. Measure and Amplify Your Results
As discussed above, many influencer campaigns are focused on goals other than sales. You must have a reliable way to measure the results from your campaign so you can understand what went right and what needs to be tweaked for next time. Various influencer marketing software or influencer marketing agencies analyze and measure the results of your campaign for you.
Once you know which campaigns performed the best and why you can prolong the life of the campaign through paid ad amplification. Since influencer-promoted content is the most valuable piece of advertisement you own, you can repurpose the content via paid marketing channels.
Whether your brand is just getting started with influencer marketing or you’re already a pro, remember that engaging your audience through influencers is one of the most important and investment-wise decisions you’ll make. Building authentic brand awareness is the key to your growth and influencer marketing is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get there.
The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing will teach you exactly how to run a successful influencer campaign without making the mistakes of your competitors.
