Almost without even realising it, every time that you scroll through social media you are most likely being exposed to influencer marketing. This isn’t necessarily a new marketing concept. In fact, so many brands are doing it now that we have become so accustomed to seeing it in our everyday lives.
However, brands are realising the need to stand out from others, and to make their influencer marketing campaigns be the ones that you remember. To make this happen, it’s essential to have a carefully thought-out plan and to ensure that influencers are perfectly aligned with the brand. Keep reading to understand how your brand can do this.
Planning
A recent study indicates that almost 90% of marketers suggest that their return on investment from influencer marketing is comparable to, if not better than other marketing channels. Although, the key to having a successful campaign that falls within this statistic, is planning. An influencer campaign takes time and patience, which many fail to understand, attempting to dive in at the deep end and then struggling to comprehend why their campaign has not succeeded.
There are three crucial elements to consider within your initial planning process. So, let’s take a look!
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Goals
The first thing to consider for an influencer campaign, or any marketing campaign for that matter, is your goals. What is it that you hope to achieve? By outlining your objectives at the beginning, the remainder of your planning process will run seamlessly. You will be able to select influencer types, social media channels, and content based on these objectives. Some common goals from brands commencing an influencer campaign are to increase content creation, enhance brand awareness, attract new customers, and drive sales.
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Target audience
Second up, you’ll need to be thinking about your target audience. We’ll talk about this a little further on, but it is still a crucial step in the initial planning process. If you are aiming to target the same type of audience that you currently attract, then you may already have a buyer persona established. If not, then I’d suggest doing this as a priority.
However, if you are aiming to reach a new audience with this campaign, then you will need to identify the details of this group, considering their demographic and their interests. At this stage, you will also need to identify how this group of consumers behave on social media, such as which platform they use the most.
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Budget
You may or may not have a budget already in mind. Not only will this need to be determined, but you should understand where this money will be spent so that you can get a better idea of the type of campaign that you can run, whilst keeping within your budget. It’s easy to forget about all of the extra costs that come into play in an influencer campaign. Think about the incentive that you can offer to influencers, shipping and handling costs involved, any agency fees, and of course, the cost of the product that you will be sending out.
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Timeline
A lot of the time, brands create long-term collaborations with influencers, therefore being rather flexible with timing. However, it’s important to establish whether your campaign must meet a certain deadline. For example, you may be releasing a seasonal line to be promoted alongside a festive date or event. You may wish to run a campaign that promotes a sale or promotion. Influencers can have busy schedules, so keep this in mind.
Finding influencers
Being able to find influencers for your campaign is possibly the most challenging part of the process. Considering how popular influencer marketing has become, brands are regularly having to face issues of influencer fraud. There are two main ways to look for the right influencers. You could do this directly on the social media platform, or instead, you could opt for using an influencer marketing platform.
Let’s say you are wanting to work with Instagram influencers, then you can head straight to your Instagram account to look. Try looking through your comments, likes, mentions, and tags. You may find influencers that are already a fan of your brand this way.
Searching manually can be a time-consuming way. Alternatively, you could work with an influencer marketing platform like Heepsy, as this tends to be the most effective method for finding influencers. There are dedicated filters to narrow down your search, based on the type of influencer that you would like to work with. This is why your initial planning process is so important.
With millions of influencers across the globe, being able to specify your search will really help. All you have to do is input what you’re looking for, and the platform will provide you with the best results. Let’s say you have identified that you wish to work with a micro influencer, based in Spain, within the beauty category. This is how your search would look:
Analysing profiles
After conducting your search, there’s still a few important steps before you’re ready to contact influencers. The most overlooked step is the analysis of profiles. If this is forgotten, then you are likely to miss out on the success that could be gained from an influencer campaign. You’re not just looking to spot fake influencers, but also to understand the profiles that have the best-quality metrics. People often believe that the more followers, the better. However, this really is not the case. Let’s briefly go over the most important elements of a profile that you will need to analyse.
Engagement rates
Finding an influencer with a high engagement rate is without a doubt the key thing to take away from this article. You could find an influencer with a million followers, but if their audience is not engaged with their content, then your campaign could totally fail. High engagement rates indicate that followers are genuinely interested in the content that the influencer posts, which means that you can easily grab their attention with your product.
Audience insights
It’s easy to only look at the demographic of an influencer, and overlook these details of their audience. But remember, just because an influencer is 21 years old and located in Spain, it doesn’t mean that their audience will be too. With Heepsy, you can look at these metrics in detail, understanding the audience’s location, age, gender, and interests.
Authenticity metrics
The authenticity of an influencer can be pretty difficult to establish without an influencer marketing platform. Look out for any unusual comments, varying numbers of likes, or strange content. With Heepsy, artificial intelligence software enables suspicious behaviour to be detected which can then provide you with an estimated percentage of real and fake followers that an account has.
Take away
The key thing to take away from this article is the importance of carefully planning your influencer campaign. By doing so, the rest of the process will fall into place much easier. Whether you choose to work with an influencer platform or not, understanding your core objectives and analysing influencer profiles will allow you to find influencers that can successfully represent your brand and its values.
