In the olden days, when a customer was impressed with your product or service, they would tell others about it hence driving more customers to your shop. It was called word-of-mouth marketing. Before the internet, this is how businesses became popular. Today, in the internet age, the exchange is still viable; the only difference is the vehicle carrying the message. Most consumers today value opinions come from a breed of influencers who include bloggers, forum moderators, and product reviewers. They are able to express their opinions on a given product or service faster and further than ever before.
There is no better and effective way to market your product than through someone that your audience views as reputable to vouch for your product; that is influencer marketing. To successfully add influencer marketing ideas to your marketing strategies, there are some aspects that you need to consider. They are:
Develop the influencer’s campaign goals, analysis framework, and metrics
For every marketing campaign, you have to have a goal in mind. With influencer marketing, you must have a concrete goal and communicate it to the influencers. Once you have a goal and shared it with the influencer, you need a success metrics to help track your performance and analyze the final results. For example, if your goal was to raise brand awareness, you can measure your success by measuring fan growth, video views, and brand recall.
Find the company’s ideal influencer
The company’s ideal influencer and the persona of the intended audience have to align. If you are trying to reach out to a new segment, partner with an influencer who can communicate to your new audience. Before you can settle on an influencer or a micro-influencer, you need to answer a few questions:
- How large is the influencer’s audience?
- How active is the influencer on different social media platforms?
- Are they relevant to your industry?
- What is the industry’s response to them?
The above questions help when evaluating how relevant the potential influencer is to your campaign. Looking at the potential influencer’s past partnerships can give you an idea of how successful they are.
Focus on a specific platform
Your social media strategy will influence the platform you choose. For example, if your main audience is on Pinterest, you will need an influencer with a substantial presence and a large following on Pinterest. Take the time to understand the community attracted by your influencer. It will help you identify if they are a perfect fit for your targeted audience.
Manage expectations by giving content deliverables and requirements
Having identified the best influencer for your niche, you need to think about their content deliverables. The success of the campaign is dependant on the ability of the influencer to create valuable content and the frequency they post content to your benefit or on your behalf. You might want the influencers to use certain keywords or hashtags in their post or even product placement.
Measuring ROI on your influencer marketing efforts
If you cannot measure it, it probably is not worth your time and effort. Results from the campaign should be collected and measured. There are three ways to measure return on investment, they are:
- Product visibility
- Traffic engagement through traffic data to your site and followers.
- Content tracking through clicks, likes, shares, brand mentions and comments.
For any marketing strategy you embark on, you need to focus on the purpose and the results. Influencer marketing can prove to be a valuable strategy as long as you know who your audience is, what you are doing and who you contract. Influencer marketing is just one trend marketers can choose to tap into and stay ahead.
