Influencer marketing has become one of the most widely used
strategies across all industries, with 84% of marketers planning at least one
collaboration this year; but many are still experimenting with what works and
what doesn’t, and how to get the most out of their campaigns. Whether you’re
new to influencer marketing or simply want to maximize your return, here’s how
to approach your campaign with an ROI-focused mindset.
Step 1: Determine your goals.
You can’t measure what you can’t define.
Although conversations around influencer marketing often
start with a perceived need to “get influencers” for a campaign, rushing to
engage top bloggers without defining your goals can shortchange your efforts
and skew your overall results. Not only will you have no clear metric by which
to measure your success, but you will also have to base many decisions on
guesswork, since your goals are what inform your strategy. Before starting your
influencer search, ask yourself what outcome you want to see. Not sure what
this means? Here are a few examples.
You might want to:
– Boost awareness of your brand
– Change perception of your brand
– Boost customer affection for your brand
– Introduce your brand to a new audience
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– Increase sales of a particular product
– Create content for Instagram and other social channels or
EDMs
We recommend starting every collaboration with a specific
objective in mind, so you can make the best use of your budget, select the most
suitable influencers and more accurately measure your results.
Step 2: Choose your approach.
Guided by your goals, decide how to approach your campaign.
Instagram posts by influencers might be a good option if you’re looking to
boost brand awareness, but if your goal is to increase sales of a particular
product, you will approach your campaign quite differently. Smaller, niche
influencers whose attentive followers are likely to act quickly on a shopping
suggestion will likely perform better for you. Moreover, channels like blog
posts, which make followers feel like they’re getting an exclusive tip, can be
more effective than Instagram for encouraging immediate purchases. If your goal
is to strengthen brand loyalty, meanwhile, an influencer event where you can go
beyond your product and tell your brand story can make the greatest impact.
Here are just a few tactics to consider as you plan your campaign:
– Social media content: Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube
– Live content: Snapchat, Instagram Stories
– Blog posts (ask to be included in an influencer’s
newsletter)
– Contests and Giveaways
– Influencer events
Step 3: Put your strategy on paper.
Before you post your collaboration, write down your
objectives, including expectations. A clear vision will ensure smooth
communication between you and your influencers, while preventing
misunderstandings about the number and type of posts you expect, the kind of
content you hope to receive, and how you would like your brand portrayed. This
exercise will not only help you communicate more effectively with influencers,
but it will also help you select the ones that best fit your brand by allowing
you to visualize your collaboration.
As part of our managed collaboration offering, we help
brands prepare guidelines for each collaboration type and each influencer so
there are no surprises, and we recommend that brands do the same. Setting
guidelines ahead of time is particularly important for collaborations involving
fluid channels like Snapchat and Instagram Stories, where tracking methods are
less clearly defined than they are for regular Instagram posts or platforms
like Facebook that offer clear metrics.
Step 4: Select influencers that fit your brand.
As anyone who has run an influencer marketing campaign can
attest, finding the right influencers takes diligence. It’s not just a matter
of finding influential bloggers; it’s finding ones that speak to your potential
customers. We recommend giving yourself enough time to look carefully at
aesthetics, engagement rates, Google Analytics, and content type to find the
best fit for your brand. This is where visualizing your collaboration in
advance really helps: Does a candidate dress naturally in your brand’s style?
Do his or her followers show enthusiasm through likes and comments for looks
that mirror your brand’s?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how large an influencer’s
audience is if those followers are unlikely to become your customers. However,
an influencer with just 10k dedicated followers can prove incredibly effective
if aesthetically you’re a good fit.
Step 5: Measure your results.
Measuring your results is crucial to both maximizing your
ROI and understanding how you can improve your next collaboration. This is also
where having clearly defined goals becomes invaluable. If your goal is
long-term engagement and brand loyalty, your immediate sales won’t tell that
story. Likewise, if your goal was brand exposure, simply looking at your reach
won’t tell you how many followers took notice of your brand. We recommend
assessing a number of factors to determine the success of your collaboration,
including the boost your own social following receives, increased traffic from
an influencers’ social channels, brand mentions on social media, and of course,
online sales.
From our Collaborations Results Page, you can easily see the
social media impact, web analytics, reach, and sales data for each influencer
appointed across all major social platforms. It also shows the Cost per
Engagement (CPE) for each influencer and across the whole campaign to give you
both short-term and long-term insights.
Step 6: Strengthen your relationships.
Influencer marketing is an investment in relationships,
which makes this last step as important as analyzing your results. Taking the
time to follow your collaborations with honest feedback — including gentle
guidance if an influencer doesn’t meet your expectations and genuine
appreciation if one goes above and beyond your requirements — will pay great
dividends in the future. An attitude of gratitude might just land you an extra
organic post.
