When it comes to reaching their intended audience, companies are turning more and more to influencer marketing, in which businesses partner up with popular internet personalities to spread the word. But beyond just being seen, influencer partnerships can interact with consumers in impactful ways that drive them to convert or make a purchase. Influencer marketing’s power comes from the trust people place in the people they follow and engage with. Businesses can use this as a shortcut to trust by connecting with the same influencers their audience connects with. However, it’s an intricate strategy, and here are the steps to do it well.
The first step: be clear about what you want.
Start the influencer marketing campaign by making your objectives and goals clear. Decide what you hope to accomplish, whether it’s raising awareness of your brand, driving people to your website, generating leads, or increasing sales. Make sure your objectives are straightforward and well-defined because they will be the basis for determining your campaign strategy. Also, unless your goals are clearly set up, you won’t have a way to know if you succeeded.
The vital next step is for you to recognize the main group you will be aiming to influence.
To guarantee that you are effectively engaging with the audience of the influencer you are partnering with, you must first understand the key characteristics of your target audience. This means knowing their demographics, their interests, and, most importantly, their preferences. But how do you get that kind of information? You must conduct thorough market research to figure out all of these things and more—such as which platforms your audience is using and which influencers they are following—so that your influencer(s) of choice will be able to effectively reach them.
Step three is about discovering the correct voices. Now that you know who your audience is, it’s time to determine who can best help carry your message across. Some of these people may already be known to you—people you trust. They could also be a new face you encountered during the first two steps, now a person you’re sure can be trusted and who has the most potential to persuade others. Understanding what makes up a good persuasion opportunity will help you identify those voices.
Find famous individuals whose principles, specialized knowledge, and fans are in line with the qualities and followers of your brand. Think not only of the head count an influencer might bring but also of what their fans are like and what principles they hold dear. Look at the kinds of engagements the influencer gets from fans. Can the influencer prove their fans trust them? What is the quality of the shelf space you’re getting? Are you going to be left with a slip-display appearance at the end of the day if you use this influencer?
Develop connections and positive associations with the individuals that hold sway over your target audience.
Begin real relationships with influencers by using a variety of methods. This involves interacting with their updates, giving authentic compliments, and, most crucially, showing real interest in a partnership. Then, when it comes time to make your voice heard, very carefully craft pitches that are not only personalized but also in line with your shared values and your connection to their audience. The key to working with influencers—at least that’s how I see it—begins with their humanity; work to build them up in a real way, and they will work for you in kind.
By the fifth step, scope and terms for the campaign must be defined.
The influencer agreement or contract must set forth, in clear and distinct terms, the party seeking the campaign’s assistance and the party making the agreement: namely, the advertiser and the influencer. This document sets forth key details; it itemizes the campaign’s scope, objectives, deliverables, and expectations. It also spells out what each will provide, content and schedule-wise, and how the relationship will work over the life of the campaign.
One key area within this agreement is the discussion of compensation. What follows is best practices for payment.
The sixth step is coming together to create content; put your heads together to devise the work of creativity.
Work closely with influencers to create strong, real content that speaks powerfully to their followers. It’s the kind of content that moves the audience to take action—whether that’s liking, commenting, sharing or going deeper into the brand. In its way, influencer marketing is almost too successful. When something is this effective, one is tempted to do it all the time. It’s the “If a little is good, then a lot is better” Fallacy. But like all marketing methods, influencer marketing needs to be done in the right way and in moderation.
Step 7: Keep Tabs on What’s Happening and Measure How You’re Doing
“To monitor and analyze the performance of an influencer marketing campaign, you need to pay attention to the right metrics and use the right intelligence tools. Alongside this, you need to look at specific areas within the campaign that metric-wise are underperforming. This can be in the reach of the campaign itself or in the subsequent engagements that follow after the reach has been established. It can also be in the CTRs (click-through rates) and purer metrics like the impressionability of the following statements.”
The eighth step concerns the fostering of ongoing relationships.
(Original Text: Home Office—In the absence of regular “watering hole” encounters, you must work doubly hard with your direct reports to maintain a sense of team. Part of this effort lies in maintaining direct and frequent contact. Instead of going to their office or beckoning them to yours, you need to schedule “in person” conversation through calls made from your individual home offices. You also must take advantage of other ways to keep the team connected and the narrative of company morale upbeat. Your tool set here includes a rapidly evolving ecosystem of digital communication that I itemize below.)
Developing long-term relationships with influencers necessitates looking beyond one-off campaigns. You can’t expect a single partnership to bear significant fruit for your brand if you’re not going to stick around long enough to water and feed that opportunity.
That’s why the real path to success with influencer marketing lies in cultivating relationships over the long haul, where you get the chance to provide consistent support and feedback, collaborate on ever-green campaigns, and share in both the success and the value those partnerships generate.
The next step is to carry out your strategies and evaluate how effective they are at achieving the desired outcome. Once this has been done, the final step of the strategy development process is to make any necessary refinements and then implement the refined strategies.
Think about what happened in your campaign, get some input from people who had a hand in it or were affected by it, and figure out what you can learn from that to make your next influencer marketing effort better. Then, keep trying different things and taking feedback to heart so you can make each new effort even more successful than the one before it.
The tenth and final step is to remain completely ethical and compliant.
Influencer marketing must obey the law. It sounds simple, but many marketing teams find themselves venturing into uncharted legal territory when they turn to influencers for endorsements and product placements. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” are somewhat helpful in that they identify certain practices that will not pass muster. But the law in this area isn’t as developed as many marketers might want. And the best practices that do exist are often tough to follow—especially for micro-influencers who have limited time and resources for legal assistance.
This is a multi-step guide that can take businesses through the various aspects of influencer marketing so they can succeed and drive value from their work with individuals who can literally influence others’ decisions. It starts with the importance of making a deep, authentic connection with influencers and moves from there to the nuts and bolts of campaign creation and working together on content. Finally, it underscores the desirability of using data to inform your real-time decisions during the campaign while also using insights from the experience to make even better future moves.
