Influencer marketing has established year-on-year growth in recent times. This result is not surprising as businesses are always willing to spend on advertising when they anticipate a positive return. Influencer marketing is managing to cut through the noise online, reaching audiences that don’t tend to respond to traditional marketing methods.
The agency Mediakix has estimated that global spend could even reach $10 billion as brands become more familiar with the concept, and processes continually get streamlined. If you are not active in the influencer space, your business could be losing out on countless new customers. There are, however, several simple strategies that can rapidly help you make your mark.
Create Achievable Goals
Many advertising campaigns fall flat because the business had no sense of their goals. You could, for example, aim to gain more followers, allowing you to promote to these people over an extended period. Alternatively, you may choose to build brand awareness, taking a long-term approach to the marketing process. Setting achievable goals will let you track how successful a campaign has been, similar to any direct marketing strategy.
Think about the Audience You Want to Attract
The most effective type of marketing will target a specific audience, ensuring the message is aimed directly at this group. Smaller businesses will usually not be aiming their products at a diverse audience, focusing instead on a niche crowd. You can reach this crowd when you know their demographic details, allowing you to correspond them with the followers of existing influencers. Even large companies can promote specific product lines to smaller groups, adjusting the marketing message via selected influencers.
Will You Take a Broad or Narrow Approach?
It is possible to have success collaborating with popular personalities, reaching a broad audience immediately. However, you can also build your brand working with a collection of micro-influencers who achieve excellent engagement rates from their smaller crowds. A broad approach will reach more people, but you typically will assume engagement rates will be lower. The narrow method of working with less established names can produce great results, though the reach will be less significant.
Find the Right Influencers
Finding the right influencers to work with can be a combination of general niche knowledge and technology. Staying on top of activity in your market will ensure you build contacts and become aware of the people commanding an audience. You should, however, integrate technology into the process to ensure these people are the right fit. Socialbakers have a tool that acts as a search engine for the influencer market. Upfluence uses an AI-powered approach, measuring reach and engagement rates for people in your niche.
Use Technology to Measure Return on Investment (ROI)
Sophisticated influencer campaigns will require a budget as established personalities understand their worth in the marketplace. Paying a fair price, while still ensuring you receive a positive ROI, is a vital part of the process. Tools like Influential.co allow you to track ROI using a variety of data points. Some factors, like the long-term growth of your brand name, can be trickier to track, but you can take as much data as possible and work out whether the campaign was a success.
Build Long-Term Partnerships
Some businesses treat influencer marketing like other paid advertising strategies. Working with influencers, though, offers the potential to build long-term partnerships that work for both parties. Rather than working with an influencer once, assess the benefits of expanding the scope of a campaign. If you are consistently gaining a positive ROI, it could make sense to develop a product line or make the influencer a brand ambassador for your business.
Many business owners dismissed influencer marketing in the early days. Understandably, social media didn’t seem to be the optimum place to reach new customers, with many users looking to avoid marketing messages. Times have changed, though, and most social sites have developed sophisticated ad platforms. Marketing has become a crucial part of social media, but the approach you take is critically important. Influencer marketing combines audience targeting with authenticity, ensuring customers get useful content, and businesses can make sales.
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