Influencer marketing has proved (appropriately enough) incredibly influential in the world of marketing. Some people reckon influencer marketing can bring around 11 times the ROI (return of investment) that traditional banner ads can, while others say it’s an excellent way to reach an increasingly diverse and difficult to pin down audience. Whatever the reasons for influencer marketing’s success, it’s definitely here to stay.
With that in mind, it’s absolutely something you should be looking into for your brand if you’re after increased sales and visibility (and who isn’t?). There are right and wrong ways to go about conducting influencer marketing campaigns, and it’s not always easy to know where the line lies. Here are our top tips on how to launch a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Don’t forget blogger outreach
Influencers can come in many shapes and sizes. Social media influencers are perhaps the most sought-after people when it comes to organic marketing pushes, but don’t neglect the bloggers. After all, bloggers are reliable sources of information and purchasing decision logic when it comes to users. Bloggers are hugely relevant in this day and age since many people will visit reputable and knowledgeable blogs in order to get information on purchases they should make. As such, you should be hitting up great influencer services like iNet Ventures to get some bloggers on-board with your brand. Doing so could mean the difference between success and failure for your campaign.
Find the right influencers
You might be tempted simply to reach out to all and sundry in order to promote your products, but doing so would be a big no-no. Even if all the influencers you contact decide they want to work with you – which isn’t guaranteed – you’ll be spreading your product far and wide without ever really zeroing in on the right demographic for you. With that in mind, you need to do your research when it comes to influencers. Find out not only who is the most popular influencer in your field, but who works best for your product. Only you can know that information, so talk to your prospective influencers and get a feel for their tone before you commit.
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Define your demographic
Finding the right influencer goes hand-in-hand with knowing who your core audience is. As the old wisdom goes, “everyone” is not a demographic, so you shouldn’t be looking to simply market your product to all and sundry. Instead, figure out what you’re selling, who it’s intended for and what the best way to communicate your brand’s values to those people could be. Let’s say you’re making a gaming headset. First, you’d need to find out what the most populous gaming demographic is. Once you’ve done this, you’ll then need to zero in on that demographic and figure out what makes them tick. Tailoring your campaign – and your influencers – to your target audience is definitely going to show results.
Don’t be afraid to ask for endorsement
If an influencer agrees to work with you, that’s great – influencers can sometimes be hard to pin down, and won’t work with products they don’t personally believe in on many occasions. That said, you need to make the influencer work for you, too. Don’t be afraid to ask your influencer for testimonials, whether that be on your official website or on your or their social media. You won’t get very far if people don’t know what your brand is, so even if a Twitch star uses your gaming headset in every stream, if the audience doesn’t know what the brand is then they won’t be able to buy it. Ask your influencer to publicly endorse you in return for the products you’re handing to them.
Check your numbers
It’s tempting to simply say “I’m all booked up with influencers on my campaign” and call it quits, letting the work do itself. Good marketing people will always look at their numbers on a regular basis and make sure the campaign is working. Keep track of the ROI on the campaign and see if it’s working for you. If not, then once it’s over perform a post-mortem and see what you could do differently next time. Are you sure the influencer you picked was the right one for your product? Did you – and they – do everything you could to ensure the success of the campaign? Did you pick the wrong audience? There’s always something you could improve on, so don’t let failures get to you – simply dust yourself off and try again.
Choose your platform wisely
Sure, you might have a thorough understanding of Facebook, but that just might not be the right social media platform for you. Similarly, if your product just isn’t being served well by video content, then maybe YouTube or Twitch streams aren’t the way to go. You need to tailor your content to the platform and tailor the platform to your content, so if you’re not seeing results from Facebook then maybe it’s because you’d be better off on Instagram or YouTube. Examine your product thoroughly and make sure you understand its function and intended demographic completely, then do some market research into what kind of platforms that demographic regularly uses. Once you know this, you’ll know exactly where your campaign belongs.