Can the influencer really help?

Influencer marketing is when you partner with someone who has a significant influence on a particular industry, and they present your message or and content to their audience. Utilized correctly, these influencer campaigns can put your company or product directly in view or at the fingertips of millions of new and potential clients.

Why are we doing this?

Understanding your goals is essential when creating an influencer marketing plan. According to KIM KOSAKA, “Some goals you may want to consider for your influencer marketing strategy include the following:

• Brand Awareness: Getting more people to know, recognize, and like your brand.
• Building Brand Identity: Getting people to see your brand personality and values.
• Audience Building: Getting more people to follow and subscribe.
• Engagement: Getting more shares, comments, and likes for your content.
• Lead Generation: Getting more people to sign up for your lead magnets and offers.
• Sales: Getting more people to purchase your products/services.
• Customer Loyalty: Getting people to stay interested and connected with your brand.
• Link Building: Getting more links directed back to your site.”

How should it be conducted?

Once you have figured out your goals, you must choose how to set forth your marketing campaign. Kosaka has put together a list of strategies that can be implemented. Each influencer is motivated by different benefits, and understanding these benefits is key to getting much better results out of your influencer.

• Gifting: Giving free products and services to an influencer in exchange for a review or mention.
• Guest Posting: Creating and contributing content for an influencer’s blog.
• Sponsored Content: Paying for your brand to be featured on an influencer’s blog or social channel. You may or may not create the content for the post.
• Co-Creating Content: Partnering with an influencer to create content that is featured on your website, their website, or a third-party website.
• Social Media Mentions: Getting a social media marketing strategy going with a personality or brand to mention your brand, share your content, or post about you.
• Contests and Giveaways: Running a contest and asking an influencer to share your giveaway event with their followers or readers.
• Influencer Takeover: Allowing an influencer to take control of your social media accounts for a set amount of time.
• Affiliates: Providing a unique code that gives influencers a percentage of each sale they drive.
• Discount Codes: Giving an influencer a unique discount code for your product or service that they can promote and offer to their audience.
• Brand Ambassadors: Forming relationships with loyal brand fans wherein they mention or promote your brand, products, and services in exchange for exclusive offers, free products, or being featured by your brand.

Has your marketing plan worked?

Tracking your campaign is essential when understanding if your marketing dollars were being put to good use. Tracking these matrices can be tricky, but the success of your campaign depends on good analytic. Let’s track some of the following matrices to get the most of the analytics. 

• Brand Awareness Metrics: website traffic, page views, social mentions, time on site, site users
• Building Brand Identity Metrics: social mentions, PR coverage (number of articles or links)
• Audience Building Metrics: opt-ins, follows
• Engagement Metrics: shares, comments, and likes
• Lead Generation Metrics: opt-ins
• Sales Metrics: new sales, revenue changes, price per ticket
• Customer Loyalty Metrics: customer retention rates, renewal rates
• Link Building Metrics: number of links, quality of links 

Now that we have tracked the campaign and we have a better understanding of the numbers, and we can make adjustments to get the most out of our marketing dollars. We can also determine if the campaign was a success and report the results to the shareholders.

References:

Kosaka, Kim. (2019, July 11). Your Complete Guide to Creating an Influencer Marketing Strategy. Retrieved from https://blog.alexa.com/influencer-marketing-strategy/