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1. Ask yourself: WHY?
“Make sure you have a clear idea of why you want to use influencers,”
“Boost brand awareness? Gain followers? Increase sales?”
Using influencers is about pulling the right levers to achieve results. “You need to envision what success will look like at the end of the campaign.”
Defining your goals in the early stages of planning will help you shape a consistent strategy throughout your campaign, and it will also give you an idea about the metrics you should track and monitor to measure your success at the end of the campaign.
Goals you may want to consider :
- Brand Awareness: Getting more people to know, recognize, and like your brand.
- Building Brand Identity: Getting people to see your brand personality and values.
- Audience Building: Getting more people to follow and subscribe.
- Engagement: Getting more shares, comments, and likes for your content.
- Lead Generation: Getting more people to sign up for your lead magnets and offers.
- Sales: Getting more people to purchase your products/services.
- Customer Loyalty: Getting people to stay interested and connected with your brand.
- Link Building: Getting more links directed back to your site.
2. How to find your influencers
“Hashtags can be an incredibly helpful tool in searching Instagram for appropriate influencers,” Google is always your best friend, I often search top mom bloggers, or Dance Instagram-mers, I get all the blog options that other people have summarised and go through the list looking at each one in detail.
A good tool can also be to track back links to competitor websites, using ALEXA . This information shows that the site is probably worth exploring for your influencer marketing strategy, as it has already built connections with other brands like you. Clicking through the backlinks will give you an idea of what types of content they publish
There are other tools and methods you can use to find influencers. And the following tools are also helpful for identifying social media and blogging influencers.
Don’t just focus on the obvious influencers in your industry, look at creative ideas to align with content creators, and other influencers aligned with the criteria you are looking for. Decide whether you want to go for Mico-Mid-Macro or celebs.
3. Embrace the micro-influencer.
What qualifies as a “micro-influencer” varies by industry, but it’s typically someone who has from 1000 — 10K followers — a smaller reach than a well-known celebrity but still valuable.
“Micro-influencers can give you a much higher ROI than big stars, and audience engagement tends to get higher as social niches get narrower,” That’s what you’re looking for: engagement. Working with a micro-influencer, can be more work, since you’ll have to identify multiple candidates and then have back-and-forth conversations with each, but it pays off.
Mid- tier may have a more targeted content plan slightly more followers and a little more pricier. Macro, well you might need to start dealing with agents and additional fees, depending on how excited they are to work with your brand. I would always try to connect with people that I know through my network, exhaust your pool of friends, then move along to other options. Remember, you don’t always need a budget, with the right activation plan and brief, or products you can get very creative in how you work with other influencers and creators out there.
4. Define your goals
Influencers are content creators at heart. As creatives, they’ll have great ideas, but there should be transparent campaign goals & provide a detailed brief to help guide the process.
“It’s important to be on the same page, and having a clear contract that spells out what each side will execute will help manage expectations for both your team and for the influencer,” They want the freedom to express their creativity in their own ways.” — so try to remain flexible on some points.
Brand alignment is key, too. “Choose people who create content you respect, that has the same feel you want to create, and you’ll set yourself up for fewer surprises.” I have often worked with brands who try to “will” the influencer’s to fit with what they want, and then are disappointed when the work looks different, look at their feed and all their channels and decide if what produce currently aligns with your brand.
Influencer marketing campaigns usually involve three types of relationship triggers: inspire, hire, or a mix of both.
Types of influencer marketing strategies you can consider:
- Gifting: Giving free products and services to an influencer in exchange for a review or mention.
- Guest Posting: Creating and contributing content for an influencer’s blog.
- Sponsored Content: Paying for your brand to be featured on an influencer’s blog or social channel. You may or may not create the content for the post.
- Co-Creating Content: Partnering with an influencer to create content that is featured on your website, their website, or a third-party website.
- Social Media Mentions: Getting a social media marketing strategy going with a personality or brand to mention your brand, share your content, or post about you.
- Contests and Giveaways: Running a contest and asking an influencer to share your giveaway event with their followers or readers.
- Influencer Takeover: Allowing an influencer to take control of your social media accounts for a set amount of time.
- Affiliates: Providing a unique code that gives influencers a percentage of each sale they drive.
- Discount Codes: Giving an influencer a unique discount code for your product or service that they can promote and offer to their audience.
- Brand Ambassadors: Forming relationships with loyal brand fans wherein they mention or promote your brand, products, and services in exchange for exclusive offers, free products, or being featured by your brand.
These are just general ideas for what you can do with your influencer marketing strategy, but there is so much more creative activations you can come up with in alignment with your goals and product.
5. Know your what you can offer
Be specific about what you have to offer, the activation goal and product or budget available for the activation.
“Especially with micro-influencers who are building their brands, what you offer doesn’t always have to be monetary,” Can you offer exposure, connect them with brands that will potentially like to work with them? Are you a brand they’ll be excited to associate their name with? Do you have a content studio they could produce videos for?” Put yourself in the influencer’s position to ensure that what you’re offering is of value in the first place. To them and their followers.
6. Qualify your influencers
AUDIENCE: It’s better to work with an influencer who has a smaller audience that closely matches your ideal market than to work with an influencer who has a very large audience that doesn’t include your ideal customers. So don’t qualify influencers based solely on the size of their audience. Pay closer attention…
ENGAGED: For social media accounts, consider their number of followers and audience engagement with their posts. Target influencers who have an engaged audience who frequently like and comment on their posts.
CONTENT: Do your due diligence in researching the other content the influencer shares to make sure it aligns with your brand and business. Spend time reviewing their posts, website content to make sure it:
- Is relevant to your brand
- Is high quality for your brand to be associated with
- Represents your brand’s beliefs aligned with your core values or mission.
7. Track and monitor
You don’t want to lose opportunities to work with influencers because your process was annoying or unprofessional. Have two people that are the direct contacts, reaching out and briefing each influencer.
Create a document that tracks: [FREE PLANNING DOC]
- Who they contacted
- Notes about the communication
- Plans for follow-up communication
- Status of the outreach
Plan ahead, by finding out your why — before you get started. Plan out your goals and what you can offer. Discover your audience by working with the right influencers who best align with your business mission and values.
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