Influencer Marketing Done Right
Since it’s introduction to the marketing world in 2014 influencer marketing has become a cornerstone to many brands marketing strategy and for good reason!
With the right influencer and the right strategy, a brand can dramatically increase their social currency and their sales revenue from a group of engaged consumers that are genuinely interested in your brand. However, for every success story, there are hoards of brands sharing their negative experiences with influencer marketing.
If you’re considering including influencer marketing into your current strategy or if you’ve had a negative experience and are on the fence about continuing to work with influencers then read these tips to learn how to improve the performance and success of your next influencer marketing campaign.
#1. Audit your potential influencer’s account
Tens of thousands of followers means nothing if that audience isn’t engaging with the account, at the very least an influencer’s amount of comments per post should always be greater than or equal to 10% of their total following. But don’t just check the percentages of their first or second posts, what you’re looking for is consistency; often I’ll go as far back as 30 days worth of content to make sure the numbers add up.
As a side note, I also check to see what type comments the influencer is getting on their posts; if most of the comments are generic one-word phrases or just an emoji then chances are they bought that engagement and your money is better off spent elsewhere.
#2. Make sure they are actually a fan of your product.
Sure, you could work with an influencer that posts all day about fragrance or beauty products, but if they haven’t ever used and enjoyed a perfume or mask you’ve sold why bother? Chances are if they decide to work with you and they aren’t a genuine fan of your brand their enthusiasm will be lackluster and it’s going to be (consciously or subconsciously) communicated throughout the posts they use for the campaign.
#3. Know your KPI’s and communicate them clearly.
This seems like a very obvious thing to cover, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard from brands that had negative experiences with influencer marketing only to find out that the goal they wanted to achieve was never clearly communicated to the influencer they partnered with.
You can’t expect your influencer to understand what you are asking them to do for your business if you haven’t to clearly communicate that onset of the relationship especially because each goal requires a completely different strategy.
For instance, if you’re working with an influencer to grow your following then maybe a shout out or a partnered contest will do just fine.
But if you’re working with an influencer to increase your sales revenue then you need to work together to develop a strategy that reflects that.
Often times, when I work with brands to create influencer marketing strategies to increase sales revenue I seek out influencers that I know will allow us to implement certain systems to achieve those desired results. Since I have a thorough understanding of the Facebook/Instagram advertising platform and it’s targeting abilities I generally work out deals with influencers where they agree to give us access to their ads manager platform and run a set of pre-approved promoted posts/ads to their following based off specific targeting.
This strategy gives us the data we need to properly execute and scale the campaign to desired without solely relying on the person’s influence to get the job done.
Not every influencer is willing to give a brand such access, but you’d be surprised how many there are. Common Thread Collective has a great article about how they achieved a 4X ROI with $1,000,000 in ad spend by partnering with PubSocks and implementing a similar strategy.
#4. Go where the audience is, NOT where you want them to be
This morning I was listening to The Glossy podcast and today’s episode featured Instagram superstar Katie Sturino and her tips for influencer marketing. During the podcast, she went on a tangent about how certain brands demand that she post to specific platforms because they want to grow their audience there even after she has clearly told them that her reach on a particular platform is damn near nonexistent.
“This brand wanted me to do a post on Twitter and I told them, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be worth anything because I only have a few thousand followers on their (as opposed to her 200K+ following on Instagram) and I’m basically non-existent in terms of activity. The brand insisted that I post to Twitter anyway and the results were exactly what I expected…goose eggs.’” Katie Sturino
If you’re going to spend money to promote your brand you need to do so wisely and part of being wise means taking advice from the influencer that’s trying to save you from throwing your money down the drain. When it comes to working with an influencer ask them which platforms they have the biggest impact on and stick to those only if you want to grow your reach on a platform they don’t have relevance on then seek out another influencer that does.
#5. Let them do their thing
You have a brand aesthetic that you want to keep consistent, I get it, but so does your influencer and, as long as it doesn’t dilute brand integrity, it’s best to give them control over the aesthetics they use to promote your product in their feed, stories, etc.
The reason for this is that their followers are already used to certain colors, lighting, language and that the influencer uses and anything out of the ordinary will feel inorganic and like a sponsored post; and even though it is a sponsored post, the content should seamlessly flow with the rest of the content their followers are used to seeing.
It’s okay to loosen the reigns a bit, as long as their posts align with your brand and product architecture (which you should have checked for ahead of time) you’ll be just fine.
Influencer marketing can be a great way to expand the reach of your brand and increase revenue, but it’s best you never go about it blindly. The tips above will help you make the right decision when considering your next influencer to work with and increase the likelihood of a successful campaign.
