Influencer Marketing Strategy
Influencer marketing involves businesses depending on a prominent figure to endorse their product to the desired audience. Typically, these figures possess a considerable social media following or cater to a specific market segment.
When brands establish influencer relationships, they can utilize the wide audience of an influencer to accomplish their marketing objectives. However, if you are contemplating the recruitment of an influencer for your brand, where should you start? It can be challenging to narrow down your objectives, determine the type of influencer you desire, and define the goals you aim to accomplish through an influencer strategy.
To maximize the effectiveness of your influencer marketing strategy and narrow down your search, we’ve developed a template and guidelines to assist you in getting started.
Collaborating with influencers.
Influencer collaboration is a marketing approach where individuals with a substantial social media following are remunerated for promoting your brand to their followers. These influencers may request payment in monetary form or receive free products and services in exchange for endorsing the brand.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the majority of marketers (90%) will set aside funds for influencer marketing, and over half (62%) will increase their current budget. The study also mentions that most brands that have partnered with influencers are satisfied with the outcomes, specifically in terms of conversion rates and sales generated through the collaboration.
According to Convince and Convert, there is good news for companies that hired micro-influencers (meaning influencers with 15K followers or less) as they still achieved impressive results. The data shows that the top 13% of marketers are obtaining significant returns from collaborating with influencers in terms of measurable outcomes.
The reason marketers are increasing their influencer marketing budgets is because for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, they are receiving $20 or more.
Influencer marketing strategy
1. Begin by establishing your objectives.
By starting with a clear definition of the ultimate objective of your strategy, you can then proceed in a reverse manner to identify the necessary steps to attain it. Employing your goals as guiding principles will also establish the measures for determining the effectiveness of your strategy. These measures will assist in ensuring that your campaign remains aligned with your objectives.
Are you in pursuit of boosting brand recognition or inspiring engagement? Are you aiming to enhance your lead generation technique or focus on nurturing the loyalty and goodwill of your current audience? Dunkin Donuts serves as a remarkable illustration of how establishing clear objectives can impact your outcomes.
Charli D’amelio was hired by them to promote their products and boost app downloads. Following the viral success of her video, they introduced a beverage named “The Charli,” which quickly gained popularity among her 143 million TikTok followers. Consequently, Dunkin Donuts observed a 57% surge in app downloads when they released the beverage.
2. Recognize and provide a clear definition of your target audience.
The effectiveness and success of your influencer campaign can be determined by properly segmenting and identifying your audience. Once you define your audience, it will be simpler to determine which audiences would most effectively contribute to your marketing goals.
Your campaign can be influenced by your target audience, depending on the personas or ideal buyers your organization focuses on. Grouping consumers by demographics, psychographics, buyer lifecycle stage, or preferred channel is crucial in this regard. An illustrative example of this is Tinder, where the majority of their app users fall within the 18-25 age range. To cater to this specific audience, they opted to collaborate with influencers in the same age bracket to promote their app.
Tayler Holder, one of the influencers involved in the campaign, gained over 500k likes on a post featuring a photo of him wearing a Tinder-branded shirt. The accompanying caption simply states, “Swipe right and join us on @tinder.”
3. Establish a clear budget plan.
It is crucial to define your budget as it serves as a guide for your content creation and distribution options.
If you have a limited budget, you might choose to utilize an independent influencer rather than an agency. This is also an opportune moment to determine how you will reward your influencers. Certain influencers are content with receiving payment in the form of complimentary products and services.
Here is a breakdown of your marketing campaign budget, considering that every influencer marketing campaign varies based on payment methods and required resources.
4. Choose a type of campaign
The manner in which you advertise your brand using an influencer relies on the objectives you have and the preferences of the target audience. Influencer marketing campaigns encompass various examples such as guest posting, sponsored content, re-targeting, co-creation, competitions, mentions on social, discount codes, among others.
By collaborating with best-selling author Tim Ferriss on his podcast, Audible provided his listeners with the opportunity to avail a discount on Audible content through his personalized link. This association resulted in the delivery of an appropriate offer to the intended audience, benefiting Audible, Tim Ferriss, and his podcast listeners in the process.
5. Decide on the social media platform you want to use
During the pandemic, there was a positive development with the increased use of all social media platforms. Facebook remained the top choice among marketers last year while Snapchat was the least popular platform.
The best platform depends on your target market and the type of content you are promoting. For instance, if your target market is teenagers, Snapchat would still be the most suitable platform for you. You can refer to the Word Stream chart for further clarification.
6. Find influencers in your industry
Even though you might already have an understanding of the influential individuals in your industry, it is important for you to discover and monitor these important figures in order to stay updated on their discussions.
How to find influencers
When it comes to finding influencers, social media is undoubtedly the most convenient method. Start by conducting a topic-based search to discover ongoing conversations and individuals who are actively expressing their opinions. Track influential individuals and examine the accounts they follow. Engage in regular discussions that pertain to your industry, such as the weekly #ppcchat on Twitter.
Another option is to utilize free online tools such as BuzzSumo and Topsy to determine which individuals are sharing your content, or any other content, and to assess their level of influence. In Topsy, all you have to do is input the URL of a specific content piece and examine the outcomes.
To identify influential individuals and the content they share, BuzzSumo users can follow these steps: Click on the “Influencers” tab located at the top of the page and enter your search terms (such as “PPC”). Then, review the obtained results.
Results can be sorted by multiple criteria, including page and domain authority, followers, retweet ratio, and average retweets.
Another way to identify influencers in your field is by identifying conferences that are relevant to your industry and reviewing the list of speakers.
Have you ever noticed that certain people frequently appear in different industry publications as columnists and guest posters? These individuals are most likely influencers. Which names are frequently mentioned in your field? Which articles are consistently referenced?
By simply conducting a small amount of research, you will promptly find a compilation of influencers worth following and paying attention to.
7. Shape the conversation
It is crucial to understand that being an advocate for a cause or subject area is not equivalent to being influential, prior to becoming an influencer. For instance, passionately supporting content marketing does not automatically qualify you as a content marketing influencer.
In order to establish yourself as an authentic influencer in a particular field, it is essential to guide and establish the discussion, rather than simply endorsing the topic at hand. Are you posing unique and daring questions, or are you merely reiterating the statements of others?
When considering a topic, are your thoughts and perspectives truly groundbreaking or are you simply regurgitating what others have already covered? Do your ideas and viewpoints push against the established norms of your industry or do they go unnoticed amidst the plethora of similar content?
To become an influencer and connect with influential individuals in your field, it is essential to actively participate in the conversation and not simply agree.
8. Aim to influence the influencers
Many individuals believe that in order to become a successful and highly regarded influencer within their industry, they must aim to reach a large audience. However, the situation is more intricate than this simplistic perspective suggests.
When it comes to influencer marketing, it is essential to target the right audience rather than aiming for a large number of people. This is because in order for your ideas to be successful, you must have the support of other professionals in your industry.
Instead of bombarding Twitter with links to your blog post, it is important to ensure that the appropriate individuals come across and promote your content. How should you begin? By sharing content from other influential individuals.
Larry advises to start by showing interest in amplifying other people’s content. According to him, the principle of reciprocity suggests that people are more inclined to be interested in your content if you demonstrate interest in theirs beforehand.
When considering this matter, it is crucial to bear in mind that reach and influence should not be conflated. Rather, it is of greater significance that your content is exposed to the appropriate audience rather than a high quantity of individuals.
9. Do what works for you, not your peers
When attempting to establish your reputation, it can be tempting to observe and emulate the methods and techniques utilized by your colleagues or admired individuals. Although this approach may be effective on occasion, directly imitating someone else’s influencer marketing approach might not always yield the intended outcomes. Furthermore, it could potentially negatively impact your personal brand and undermine your credibility.
Instead of imitating someone else’s methods to establish yourself as an influencer, concentrate on the content you create. In addition to providing top-notch content to your usual audience, prioritize producing captivating and unique content tailored to catch the interest of influencers in your field.
Larry says to create content that is specifically crafted to gain the attention of influencers.
Last year, we conducted original research on Quality Score, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This data was disseminated through various mediums such as podcasts, articles, conference sessions, and presentations by Rand Fishkin. The reason for its widespread sharing was its novelty, as influencers are known to share fresh and intriguing content with their audiences.
Only if you produce valuable content will you be able to obtain endorsements from influential figures in the industry.
10. Build a happy community
It has been determined that sharing content from other influencers and producing your own original content are both essential in influencer marketing. However, a common mistake made by many, even experts, is not recognizing the significance of the community within their industry.
