maximize your influencer marketing strategy: part 1
October 8, 2020
written by
Mari Aipa
part 1: do you need influencer marketing and how to measure
Are you interested in working influencers into your marketing strategy but not sure about how to maximize this partnership? We get it! Working with an influencer can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re looking for from the get go. While budgets may be slimmer and you’re evaluating where you can make the most impact in your marketing strategy, more eyes than ever are on social media and paying attention to the recommendations and opinions of people they trust.
Influencers can be a great way to increase brand awareness, build engagement, and direct traffic back to your website. But what qualifies someone as an influencer and how will you know that they’ll provide the impact that your brand is looking for? Especially when everyone thinks they’re an influencer. Even people’s pets are in the game.
Having worked successfully with hundreds of influencers over the last several years, here’s a few tips we’ve picked up along the way to help you ensure you’re on the right track to executing an effective influencer marketing campaign.
Starting out.
If you’re just starting out, we will keep this simple with two questions. Do you have something to sell like a specific experience or a product? And who finds that product more appealing, Millennials or Generation Z? Determine where you’re going to stick your foot in the water and to whom you’re going to target. It may sound simple, but starting from square one and understanding what your end goal is will help you to identify the most successful partnerships.
Proving value.
Social media comes complete with analytics. Make sure that you know what they are in order to test any campaign’s effectiveness. Listing out some key performance indicators (KPI) keeps you on track and making sure that you’re making a business decision you can take straight to the top of the c-suite.
Engagement goals are the number #1 KPI. Clicks, Likes, Shares and Comments will vary from platform to platform. What about adding in brand mentions? How many do you need to feel like you did a good job and can justify the budget?
How about your reach? Did you add more followers? Did the traffic on your website jump after campaign posts?
Now that we’ve gotten the nitty gritty out of the way, look for our part 2. How to select an influencer and keep them accountable.