Why should your startup consider running an influencer marketing campaign?
65% of consumers say they discover at least one new product or brand once a week through influencers. Additionally, when content from influencers on a product inspires them, 88% purchase the said item.
Therefore, influencers are a powerful force that can help your startup build awareness, generate leads, and drive purchases.
But how can you get started with your first influencer marketing campaign?
Implement the steps listed below when creating your first influencer marketing campaign.
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1. Determine your campaign basics
The first step when creating your first influencer marketing campaign involves determining your basics. These include:
Goals: Outline the reasons you want to run an influencer marketing campaign. These include driving sales, gaining leads, etc.
Audience: Whom do you want to be influenced to buy or convert? It could be people in your target audience or a new group of potential customers.
Budget: What will you pay the influencers? Do you intend to pay in cash, gifts, or discounts to followers?
Platforms to use: Which channels do the audience you wish to target frequent? Performance tracking plan: Have a team member with a master’s in data science help you with data mining. You can then use the analytics to identify patterns, correlations, and anomalies in your influencer data. Information you get can also help you predict future outcomes, increase revenue, and reduce costs.
2. Choose influencer marketing campaign types
Influencer marketing campaigns are a type of advertising that uses real people to advertise products. Just like all your strategies target people at various stages of your sales funnel, your influencer marketing campaign should do the same.
They typically have three different types of relationship triggers. These relationships can create an inspiring, hiring, or mixed strategy. The goal is to use the right mix for your brand and audience so it delivers results. This means choosing campaign types depending on goals.
A customized influencer marketing strategy should be created for each campaign because every company has something unique to offer its customers.
For example, if you want to increase sales, you can run an affiliate program or give the influencer a discount code to share with their followers.
Alternatively, you can collaborate with the influencer on a giveaway if you want to increase brand awareness. The influencer asks their followers to follow your account, tag a friend, or comment to join a contest.
Other campaign types include social media takeovers, sponsored blog posts, ambassador programs, product reviews or unboxings, etc.
3. Find influencers
You can use various methods to identify the best people to collaborate with for your influencer marketing campaign.
One, go to Google and do a hashtag search. This will give you all the popular posts with the hashtag on various social platforms.
Visit the links and check out people who get the most engagement on their posts and whether or not they are open to collaborations. You can also conduct your search on each of the social platforms, then collect their contact information.
However, this can take too much time, and you won’t have the necessary data needed to determine if they are a good fit.
In this case, leverage influencer platforms like Intellifluence, CreatorIQ, Tagger, etc., that give you data on the influencer’s follower numbers, industry type, engagement rates, etc. These platforms also provide you with data on the kind of audience the influencer targets.
And most importantly?
These platforms can help you find key opinion leaders or influencers with great knowledge about a particular subject.
These are influencers who’ve tried and tested products for some time and know whether it works or not. Their followers also trust their opinion more than they would a brand, which means they can help you drive more return on investment.
An alternative option would be to hire an influencer agency to help you find influencers, negotiate contracts and manage the campaign.
Then, once you find an influencer or influencers you can work with, create and have them sign a contract. This should include the length of the partnership, their deliverables, and the compensation method. It should also contain a cancellation policy and confidentiality clause.
4. Create content
Planning your influencer marketing campaign content can involve either creating branded content, giving the influencer creative freedom, or both.
With the former, you have more control and limited chances of having content quality problems with the influencer.
But what’s the best way to go about this option?
Create content conveying the brand message and have the influencer post it to their accounts. However, note that there’s no personalization, and your content may have very little impact on the influencer’s audience.
On the other hand, you can give the influencer guidelines on the type of content you want and grant them creative freedom.
But why is this the best option?
Allowing influencers creative freedom improves your content arsenal. They know what content their audience likes and will work hard to ensure it’s engaging and impactful enough.
Best of all?
You can create a library of their content and repurpose it on your account to increase traction. However, remember to get permission from the influencer to share their content, then post it as user-generated content, or transform it into ads that deliver great returns.
Note: Be cautious with the influencer you choose and the content guidelines you give to them. This way, you can avoid instances where the influencer creates content that exploits your values. Alternatively, review and approve content before they can publish it to their accounts.
5. Manage the campaign
You’ve by now executed your influencer marketing campaign, and it’s time to manage it.
Communicate regularly with the influencer and ensure your team’s available to answer their questions. Additionally, have someone available to reply to audience comments on behalf of your brand on the influencer’s posts.
Most importantly?
Identify key performance indicators that will help you track goal achievement and use them to track the influencer’s performance. Track the number of views, likes, comments, impressions, shares, etc., per post. Then, use the insights you get to advise the influencer on what changes they can make to their posts to drive better results.
But why track?
Managing and tracking your influencer marketing campaign helps you adjust tactics as you progress. It also enables you to identify influencers you can keep for future campaigns – those who deliver excellent results.
Finally, pay them for work done once the campaign ends or depending on your payment agreement with the influencer.
It’s time your startup leveraged influencer marketing campaigns.
These steps will help you launch your startup’s influencer marketing campaign.
And, as noted, it starts and ends like any other marketing campaign your startup runs. Identify your goals and objectives, track performance, then replicate findings in future campaigns.
Have you encountered problems with your influencer marketing campaign? Comment below, and we can offer more details to ensure you run campaigns that deliver outstanding results.
