Influencer marketing has exploded in recent years, with massive brands taking the opportunity to push their products to the masses via celebrities and creators. However, influencer marketing is easier said than done, as every marketing manager has to justify why influencer marketing is worth it for their company. Moreover, some influencers have bloated followings making it hard to understand their audience and impact on one’s marketing campaign.
Modestas Mankus, the founder of Talks Media Group, gave some tips for businesses looking to get influencers on their marketing strategy.
Understand Your Niche
Before jumping in and spending a lot of money on influencers, you have to genuinely understand your niche and the audience behind it. For example, there is no point in advertising gym wear with an influencer promoting a lazy, relaxed lifestyle. You may also find out that your niche is relatively small, and thus, the potential influencers are micro-influencers. Believe it or not, micro-influencers tend to have a higher engagement rate per following. Therefore, they can have a more favorable return, making your marketing campaign a success.
To understand your niche, make a sheet that showcases your values. Then, take an example influencer and write down theirs by analyzing their imagery, copy, and anything else that may hint at what values they carry as a brand.
Ask Questions
This may seem simple but always ask questions of the influencer you are getting in touch with. You need to understand them more profoundly, so you don’t have any backlash later on when they are pushing your product. Some questions you may ask are:
- How do you feel us as a brand relate to you? or
- Are there any areas of our brand that you feel mismatch with your brand?
Before spending your money on influencers, make sure you know exactly who you are dealing with.
Know Your Numbers
It’s easy to look at a profile and see an enormous number of followers. How many of them are genuine? Do your research before contacting an influencer and see if they have a substantial percentage of “fake” followers or buy likes and comments to boost their reputation.
Fake followers can look impressive to you initially, but they will hurt your campaign conversion figures.
Add Incentives
Incentives can make or break a campaign with influencers. If you offer an extra incentive as part of your deal, for example, “get an x amount of sales, and we will pay you y amount extra,” you’re more likely to get a more positive influencer who might even push your campaign further than agreed upon initially.
Incentives can also help negotiate a lesser fee for your campaign and give you a more secure deal that protects your marketing budget from disappearing without any results.
Record the Numbers
Your first influencer campaign is underway, but you soon realize there is no way to see their impact on sales. You’ve made a grave mistake that won’t help you going forward because you won’t have any reliable data to prove this campaign worked. Prepare your tracking codes, landing pages, custom coupon codes, and whatever else you can think of before setting up the campaign for launch. Make sure to give the influencer specific links to use with clear instructions.
Final Thoughts
Influencer marketing can be a great deal of fun and a big boost for your brand awareness and sales. However, each campaign you do should have specific objectives that are numbers and goal related. Brand awareness is great, but your follower count won’t do much to keep your business growing if you don’t target sales with your campaigns.
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