Nowadays, brands have in their hands an incredible opportunity to reach their target customers, we are talking about influencer marketing. It is increasingly common to see influencers in action on every social platform. This is why companies have to develop a successful strategic plan to efficiently promote their products and services to their audience. In fact, there are studies that suggest that campaigns made with influencers can get $5.78 for every dollar of average investment.
In this post we will explain what you need to build a complete influencer strategy.
What is Influencer Marketing?
The first thing we need to be clear about is what influencer marketing is. It is a type of social media marketing that focuses on the union between brand-influencers and carries sponsorships. These personalities on whom the campaign revolves are people who have a large community and high engagement on their social profiles.
Generally, influencers are experts on a particular topic and that is why their followers turn to their favorite figures for advice and extra information about a product or service. In the case of brands, they sponsor and reward influencers through payments or benefits, such as free products or big discounts.
The power of influencers for your marketing strategy
Due to the great fragmentation that now exists on social media, it is increasingly difficult for brands to capture the attention of consumers, enhance brand sentiment or directly, get new customers.
In fact, the results of a study conducted by Oracle, point out that 37% of consumers trust social media influencers more than brands. In addition, 80% of consumers have purchased products as a direct response to relevant content they consumed on their social profiles. This leads us to conclude that ultimately, consumers put their vote of confidence in these figures because they see them as credible and trustworthy. We understand why the influencer marketing industry is estimated at over $16 billion and continues to grow exponentially.
What is the state of the influencer marketing industry like?
Back in late 2013 and early 2014, when Instagram started launching ads for the first time, it was enough to stand out from the competition with quality images and little else. It is true that influencers still focus their efforts on the aesthetics of their advertising pieces to increase their audience, even so, the influencer marketing industry has grown so much that there are many personalities who have wanted to take advantage of their social followers for their sponsorships.
And why is this happening? As we have explained above, consumers are currently highly influenced by what they see and hear on social media. In fact, several studies claim that 49% of consumers trust the recommendations of influencers, which confirms that there is no better time than now to develop an effective influencer marketing strategy.
Far from this type of marketing being a fad, 89% of companies conclude that the ROI of influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other channels. In addition, 51% of marketers say these personalities help get more quality customers.
We are witnessing that, with the help of great content possibilities and more technology, influencer marketing allows brands to expand their reach and achieve quality results thanks to curated content that speaks directly to their target audience.
What is an influencer marketing strategy?
An influencer marketing strategy is one that takes advantage of digital content creators who have great influence in specific sectors or target audiences when making purchasing decisions. With an optimal strategy, you can work hand in hand with these personalities to promote brands, products or services.
What are the advantages?
There are several benefits of developing campaigns through influencer marketing, we will list several of them. Firstly, with these people it is easier to connect with your audience as they generate greater trust and credibility. In addition, it is a useful tool to enhance the feeling of your brand as they can serve as speakers of your company’s story. Another aspect to highlight is that, through the constant creation of content, in addition to completing the timing of publications, you can reach audience members who were previously interested in your product or service.
Build a solid influencer marketing plan by following 5 key steps
It is clear that before promoting your brand with these personalities, it is necessary to develop a strategy to optimize the performance of your campaign and allow you to track progress at each point in the process.
Step 1. Define your budget and goals
It is essential to establish from the beginning what are the objectives you want to achieve and what is the quarterly or annual budget you have so that your strategy remains constant during the campaign. Some objectives may be: increase sales; increase brand awareness and brand identity; improve engagement; improve your web positioning in the main search engines.
As for the budget you have to allocate to this type of influencer campaigns, it will depend on the personality you want to count on: it does not cost the same to make an influencer marketing campaign with an account of 500k followers, than with one of 2M followers.
To give you an idea, macro-influencers usually earn from $5,000 to $10,000 per publication. However, microinfluencers earn between $100 and $500 per content. Keeping this in mind and depending on what the objectives of your strategy are going to be, you will make the decision to hire one personality or another.
Step 2. Choose what the main message of your campaign will be
The next step to follow is to establish what type of campaign you are going to build and what message it will revolve around. It is important that the influencer marketing strategy we are going to develop inspires your followers and gets them to interact with your brand. Some typical campaigns that brands usually do are: sweepstakes, sponsored content, mentions, discount codes or guest posts.
However, it is also effective to use a conversational message that aligns with the brand’s values. By using target keywords that are trending in your industry, you can attract your target audience.
Step 3. Find the perfect influencer for your campaign
No matter what the industry, you can always find someone who can influence your audience’s buying decision. Whether it’s social media influencers, opinion leaders or B2B experts, you have a wide range of options for finding the perfect figure.
In order to evaluate influencers, you can ask questions such as whether that person publishes content that might interest your audience; whether they are a credible figure; or whether their personal style fits your brand’s values and guidelines.
Once you have established which influencers you want to campaign with, it’s time to contact them. Depending on whether they are a macro or micro-influencer, you can contact them through their social media, website or email address.
Step 4. Manage the influencer campaign
Once you have contacted the influencer, you will need to define the campaign requirements, content calendar and reporting activities. In other words, you will have to manage the details of the campaign.
If there is one thing to be careful with is not to confuse influencers with your employees, these personalities are ambassadors of your brand who are working with you to help you build a community of future customers. With that in mind, you can meet with the influencer to provide styling guidelines ahead of time to ensure you meet expectations. As well as explain how you usually work with brands, including monetary compensation, discounts or free products.
It should be clear that managing these personalities is critical to the success of your campaign.
Step 5. Track your results exhaustively
As with any marketing strategy, it is necessary to monitor the results in order to improve the campaign. Keeping in mind the objectives that were set at the beginning, you will only need to measure and analyze the data.
Identify if the content is generating interaction among your audience or if there has been a high conversion rate. It is important to study all the variables of the campaign to be able to generate better results in the next one.
Boost your brand with influencer marketing
Once the influencer marketing strategy has been planned and developed, the only thing left to do is to test campaigns and generate commercial results. The most successful strategies are constantly evolving. Companies need to establish theirs in a solid way that will enhance the long-term future of the brand no matter how much the industry is constantly changing.
