Influencer Marketing Guide: How to create an Influencers Strategy

Influencer marketing is a great way to promote your brand, but is it the right strategy for every business? Learn more about influencer marketing here. Influencer marketing, also known as branded content or working with creators, is a surefire way to expand the reach of your brand on social media.

These influencers, often experts or celebrities in their niche, create content endorsing the brand, sharing it with their audience through various channels like social media platforms, blogs, or videos. The goal is to leverage the influencer’s credibility, reach, and engagement to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and ultimately boost sales. It’s a powerful way for brands to connect with consumers authentically through trusted voices in their communities.

How to create an Influencers Marketing Strategy

A successful influencer marketing strategy will help you to build brand authority, grow awareness, boost traffic and acquire new customers. Most brands are aware of the power influencers hold, with 90% of marketers believing influencer marketing to be an effective strategy. However, to get the best results from your efforts, you need the right influencer marketing strategy.

Set your campaign goals:

What goals do you need to meet? What can you do to track your key performance indicators? How will you judge the success of your influencer marketing campaign? You need to have a solid set of goals for the best outcome. Every strategy starts with setting the right goals or rather – objectives and key results (OKRs) – as many marketers use this system of measuring success. Focus on building long-term relationships rather than one-off transactions.

The campaign goals you focus on will depend on your wider business goals:

1) Do you need to drive sales and conversions for one of your key product segments?

2) Or are you focused on goals like reaching a certain percentage of engagement or reach?

Decide from the start what you are hoping to achieve, as this will help keep you focused throughout the process and also measure results later. Possible campaign goals include:

Define Who You Want to Influence:

For any influencer campaign to be successful you first need to know who you are trying to influence. It helps to be specific. The tighter you can define your target audience, the easier it is to find influencers who are relevant. Our target audience comprises individuals who share a common interest, need, or demographic profile that aligns with our brand’s offerings. These individuals may vary in age, gender, location, lifestyle, and interests, but they are unified by specific traits or values that make them receptive to our messaging. If you Develop audience personas then it is a great way to make sure you understand who you’re trying to reach. Maybe you’re trying to reach more of your current audience—or an entirely new audience.

Set Clear Objectives:

If you set clear objectives then it’s imperative to establish clear and actionable objectives that align with our overall business goals. Our objectives serve as guiding beacons, directing our efforts and measuring our success along the way. These objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Firstly, we aim to brand awareness, elevating our visibility within our target market by leveraging the reach and influence of key opinion leaders. This involves increasing brand mentions, expanding our social media following, and driving traffic to our online platforms.

Simultaneously, we seek to drive meaningful engagement with our audience, fostering interactions and conversations that deepen brand affinity and loyalty. We’ll measure engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and click-through rates to gauge our impact.

Find the Best Influencers for Your Campaign:

To identify the optimal influencers for your campaign, it’s crucial to conduct thorough research and analysis. Begin by defining your campaign objectives and target audience. With these parameters in mind, delve into the influencer landscape, seeking individuals whose content, values, and audience demographics align closely with your brand. Select influencers whose content naturally resonates with your brand’s niche or industry. Look beyond follower counts to prioritize engagement and authenticity. Micro-influencers often offer highly engaged, niche audiences that can deliver impactful results.

Once you’ve identified your target audience and defined your goals, this should be pretty straightforward. It’s only a matter of finding who influences your target audience and how you want to influence them. Based on this, you’ll be able to identify key influencers who can create the types of content you need to achieve your campaign objectives.

Collaborate to Create Quality Content:

Collaborating with influencers to create quality content is a pivotal aspect of any successful influencer marketing campaign. It involves fostering a partnership built on mutual trust, creativity, and shared objectives. When influencers communicate with their followers it is to inform, entertain, educate, or inspire them, usually in relation to their specialist niche. Thus, for influencer marketing to work, any content that the influencer shares about your product must also be informative, entertaining, educational, or inspiring.

A social media influencer who has worked hard to build a following will not accept a deal that makes their own personal brand seem inconsistent. After all, influencers are content creation experts. This is why they prefer to be called creators. You’ll get the best value from their work by allowing them to showcase those skills. It’s a good idea to provide some guidelines about what you’re looking for, of course. But don’t expect to stage-manage the entire campaign.

Consider the Three Rs of Influence:

Influence is made up of three components:

1) Relevance

2) Reach

3) Resonance

1) Relevance:

Ensuring relevance is a cornerstone of effective influencer marketing collaboration. It’s about aligning the influencer’s content, audience, and values with your brand’s identity and objectives. A relevant influencer shares content relevant to your business and industry. They need to have an audience that aligns with your target audience.

By prioritizing relevance in influencer selection and content creation, you can create authentic and meaningful connections with your target audience, driving engagement, trust, and ultimately, driving results for your influencer marketing campaign.

2) Reach:

Reach is the number of people you could potentially reach through the influencer’s follower base. Remember: a small audience can be effective, but you need to make sure there’s enough of a following to align with your goals. Maximizing reach is essential for broadening your brand’s exposure and driving engagement through influencer collaborations.

3) Resonance:

Resonance is the heart of influencer marketing, signifying the deep connection between an influencer and their audience. Partner with influencers who authentically resonate with your brand values and messaging. Authenticity breeds trust and credibility, fostering genuine connections with the audience.

Influencer Marketing Platform

Influencer marketing platforms serve as intermediaries connecting brands with influencers, streamlining collaboration, and campaign management. So, Here are some prominent influencer marketing platforms:

1) AspireIQ

2) Upfluence

3) Heepsy

4) Traackr

5) Grin

Do Your Research

Take a look at what your potential influencers are posting. How often are they sharing sponsored content?

If they’re already hitting followers with tons of paid posts, their engagement rate may not last. Explore the features and functionalities offered by various influencer marketing platforms to determine which aligns best with your requirements. Look for plenty of organic, non-paid content to keep followers interested, enthusiastic, and engaged. Keep this in mind when thinking about what you’ll ask the influencer to post, as well. Asking for too many posts in a short timeframe will make your offer hard for the influencer to accept, even if it comes with a large paycheck.

In-demand influencers get lots of offers. When you first approach an influencer, you’ll need to show that you’ve put in the time to learn what they do. Choose a platform that offers transparent pricing plans, flexible scalability options, and seamless integration with your existing marketing tools and systems.

Types of influencer partnerships

Influencer partnerships come in various forms, each tailored to meet different marketing objectives and audience engagement strategies. Here are the most popular influencer partnerships made between brands and creators.

Brand Ambassador:

A Brand ambassador partnerships involve long-term collaborations between brands and influencers. where the influencer becomes a dedicated spokesperson or representative of the brand. Brand ambassadors often receive ongoing compensation, exclusive perks, and greater creative freedom. To promote the brand across multiple channels over an extended period.

Affliliate:

In affiliate marketing partnerships, influencers earn a commission or referral fee for driving sales or leads to the brand through their unique affiliate links or discount codes. Influencers are incentivized to promote the brand’s products or services to their audience, as they earn a percentage of the revenue generated from their referrals.

Giveaways and Contests:

Brands often collaborate with influencers to host giveaways or contests, where influencers encourage their audience to participate in exchange for a chance to win prizes or exclusive rewards. Giveaways and contests can drive engagement, increase brand visibility, and attract new followers to the brand’s social media channels.

Giveaways generally produce a positive ROI, so you should aim to run a profit on your campaign. So, If you’re selling a product, that means your influencer budget and prize costs should be less than your expected sales return.

Event Collaborations:

Brands may collaborate with influencers to host or participate in events, such as product launches, brand activations, or influencer meet-and-greets. Influencers can help amplify event awareness, attract attendees, and create engaging content before, during, and after the event to maximize reach and impact.

Influencers FAQs

What do you need before you contact a prospective influencer?

Before reaching out to a prospective influencer, make sure you have a clear understanding of your business model and what success will mean for you. This will help you have a meaningful discussion about the project and pricing with the influencer. It will also give an influencer clarity about your marketing goals.

How do you determine your influencer campaign budget?

You can determine your influencer campaign budget by calculating an expected return on investment based on an influencer’s account size, reach, and engagement levels generated during previous partnerships. Apply your budget according to an established partnership model, such as an affiliate partnership, fixed payment, or product gifting.

How do you know what type of influencer you should approach for your business?

To identify the right influencer for your business, conduct thorough research to understand your target audience and find influencers whose content aligns with your industry. Assess their credibility, past collaborations, and engagement metrics to gauge their effectiveness. Request rate sheets and case studies from a shortlist of influencers to make an informed decision.

How do you measure a successful influencer campaign?

To measure the success of an influencer campaign, start by clearly defining your campaign goals and objectives (brand awareness, website traffic, sales, etc.). Establish performance indicators for your goals, such as reach or click-through rate. Compare influencer campaign performance against your predetermined benchmarks to see if the campaign exceeds your goals.

How do influencers make money?

Influencers can monetize their influence through various avenues, including sponsored content partnerships with brands, affiliate marketing, product endorsements, brand ambassadorships, speaking engagements, sponsored events, and merchandise sales. The key is to align with brands and opportunities that resonate with their audience and maintain authenticity.

Are there any legal considerations for influencer marketing?

Yes, influencer marketing is subject to various legal regulations and guidelines, including disclosure requirements, copyright laws, privacy regulations, and advertising standards. Influencers must disclose sponsored content transparently using hashtags such as #ad, #sponsored, or #paid, and comply with relevant advertising regulations set forth by government agencies and industry bodies.