Marketing and advertising strategies have greatly transformed over the past 50 years. While a strong advertising presence remains on print media and television, we’ve also seen a significant rise in the use of online and social media.
Influencer marketing is a way of accessing your target demographic by using popular figures on social media. It has proven to be very successful for many businesses. Which is why many companies now want a piece of the pie.
Read on to discover the best practices in influencer marketing to assure campaign success.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a relatively new way of marketing your brand or product; that is, 15 years ago it didn’t really exist. At least not in the same capacity it does now. It involves collaborating with popular influencers relevant to your target audience to promote your business and increase your revenue.
So what exactly is an “influencer”? Influencers are people with a large and/or loyal social media following. Those with typically less than 10k followers can be categorized as “micro” influencers. They can benefit your brand as often their followers are more loyal because they are part of a smaller, niche community. On the other hand, there are “macro” influencers, with a much wider audience base.
They are often perceived as experts in their niches, whether that be baking or beauty, and their guidance is highly regarded by their followers. Create digital brochures to support your influencer marketing campaigns, providing more in-depth information about your products or services for interested followers and style guides for influencers.
Influencers differ from traditional celebrities because they have built strong relationships with their fans through social media. They are then able to harness this to gain the trust of their followers, which makes people more likely to buy into products they advertise.
In fact, influencers are often just your average consumer who develops in-depth knowledge about certain industries. This empowers them to encourage their followers to buy a product, like a perfume or service such as web conferencing, that they use.
How can influencer marketing benefit your campaign?
So, how can an influencer benefit your marketing campaign? It’s all about your marketing objective. Influencers can help you reach audiences you may otherwise have struggled to access.
You can also rely on them to do a lot of the leg work for you as they develop engaging content, offer giveaways, do live Q&As, the list goes on. Moreover, you can invite them to take over your social channels for a limited time and upload content on your behalf.
There are numerous influencer marketing trends and strategies, all of which involve a lot of planning and a great understanding of your target audience and marketing objectives. Your chosen influencer needs to be on the same page as you and what you are trying to achieve.
What is the goal of influencer marketing?
As with most marketing campaigns, the goal of influencer marketing is to increase brand awareness and therefore increase profits. Influencer marketing allows big and boutique brands to attract more customers through a third party. It enables businesses to scale up by getting them more exposure and can provide a higher ROI than other marketing channels.
8 best practices in influencer marketing to assure campaign success
Here are the best practices in influencer marketing to assure campaign success.
Select influencers with care
If you have decided to go down the influencer marketing route, you need to be choosy about who you partner with. After all, they will be somewhat of a voice for your brand, so you must select the appropriate people for the job.
Ideally, you’ll want to partner with someone already interested in your brand, and even better if they have already posted about it online. If you recruit an influencer that has been talking about your brand, then it may seem like a natural fit to pair with them.
But you should also consider whether they align with your brand values and whether they can create content similar to your brand style.
What’s more, you’ll need to double-check who they’ve worked with. You might want to steer clear if it’s another business in direct competition with you as this could cause followers to feel as if the partnership is fake.
You should also pick someone professional, responsive, and easy to work with. The last thing you need is to create a campaign with someone who is difficult or doesn’t respond to emails when needed.
Create a solid campaign together
You need to set solid goals as part of your influencer marketing practices. In many cases, the influencers themselves can help you with this as they can also manage expectations on the return they feel they are likely to receive.
Consider what you want to accomplish. For instance, if you’re selling Webhooks integration you may wish to increase the number of subscribers. Your campaign goals determine the structure of the influencer campaign, who you partner with, and how you’ll monitor the success of your campaign. Identify the KPIs that matter most for this campaign and ensure the influencer is happy they are achievable.
Decide on compensation
How will you be compensating the influencer? Not every influencer requires financial compensation, some are happy with free products or services. Most cases require compensation per post, on various platforms. The cost may be less if it is a repost of the same video on many platforms.
Ensure you are clear with what you are willing to offer and establish a timeframe of how long after they deliver the content they can expect their agreed compensation.
For instance, your terms could state that you’ll pay the influencer 30 days after sending their invoice. This can vary from one agreement to another.
Decide on influencer compensation
Figure out the type of content
Think about the content you’d like to see from this partnership. Do you want them to post a Tiktok video about your brand, a static grid post, stories, or a guest post? Consider what will encourage the most engagement and how to make it look natural.
It can be beneficial to ask for multiple content formats. In this instance, mention how they should be delivered and the time constraints. For example, you could state you need 2 videos and 2 social media posts weekly. You may also want them to get involved with app content creation, and Drupal hosting may also be able to help the app run smoothly.
Make it clear you’re working together
By law, you need to disclose all sponsored content on social media. Where influencers have received money or compensation from a brand they need to use the hashtags #ad or #gifted, or simply state it elsewhere in the video or caption. You can also use “paid promotion” or “sponsored”.
If it is written in the caption, the disclosure must be visible “above the fold” before the “read more” cut-off. If it’s a video, the disclosure should be both audible and visible at the start of the video.
The sunset clause
A sunset clause is a line in the contract that dictates the length of time your sponsored content will appear on the influencer’s pages. Unfortunately, not all influencers are happy with leaving the content on their pages forever. Unless you define a time period, many influencers delete the sponsored content once paid or after a short while.
Send a brief
As you are paying for their marketing services, it’s best to send a brief to the influencer so you can ensure they create the content you want to see. The brief should include the goals and main focus of your campaign, for instance, are you focusing on a particular new product that you want to show their audience?
Also, consider the wording of the message, would you instead that they create a video and talk about the product, or would you instead the video was music-led and all product details were in the caption? Be sure to send them all relevant brand information to help them develop their content. As well as what you would like them to produce and release dates for each piece of content.
Also include which hashtags you require them to use, as you may use a specific tag for your campaign. This also ensures the message is consistent across all platforms and influencers.
Stay in touch
Keep in touch with the influencer throughout the campaign. Once you’ve sent them the brief, jump on a call to see if they have any questions about the campaign or the product. This way you’re also ensuring their experience with your brand is professional and friendly.
Make sure that they can communicate with you through the entire process, particularly so you can answer their questions if they have any. You can use cloud phone system platforms to keep in touch over the video to make it more personal.
Utilizing a CRM system can help you manage relationships with influencers, track the progress of your influencer marketing campaigns, and ensure effective communication throughout the collaboration.
Getting the best out of influencer marketing
Now you’re equipped with the 8 best practices in influencer marketing to help boost your campaigns! You can be confident when contacting influencers and creating successful campaigns together. Remember, be selective when choosing influencers to work with, as they will be associated with your brand for good!
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