Don’t let your campaign strike out!
Influencer marketing isn’t just another fad. In fact, it’s one of the oldest marketing techniques in the book, reimagined for the digital era.
Social media has transformed how circles of influence work in real life. For example, our shopping decisions are affected by bloggers, YouTubers, and reviewers. This is word of mouth 2.0. Instead of hearing about that cool new thing from your neighbor at the grocery store, you hear about it from your favorite Instagrammer.
Marketers are keenly aware of the power of these campaigns. A poll by Tomoson found that for every dollar spent on an influencer marketing campaign, companies can make $6.50. TapInfluence reported that influencer marketing can increase ROI up to 11 times.
The potential is there, but influencer marketing campaigns can be hard to measure. In order to justify a campaign, we need to provide clear ROI. In this article, we will show you how to do this, and how to make sure your next campaign is a hit.
1. Find the right kind of influencers
Others judge us by the company we keep—in real life and online. This is why it’s crucial to choose influencers who share your values and support your mission. When you partner up with an influencer, he or she becomes a reflection of your brand through the power of association.
Value-based marketing has been embraced by companies in various industries and across the B2B and B2C marketplace. Company culture has become a huge selling point. The increase in consumer choice means that your customers can increasingly choose to support companies that align with their own personal visions.
Partnering up with someone that supports your message is a win-win. If the two of you are on the same page, their followers probably share your priorities, making your relationship a good match.
Once you’ve narrowed down the list, decide what type of influencer you’d like to team up with. Micro-influencers can be a great fit for smaller brands as they tend to have a highly engaged following between 5,000 and 100,000 people. In certain cases, micro-influencers can actually bring a much stronger ROI than big social media names.
2. Have a clear rewards system in place
How much are you willing to invest in the campaign? How are you going to compensate or reward influencers? What’s your ideal customer acquisition cost? These questions can help you come up with an appropriate rewards system.
Create a rewards system that works for you and your influencers. Be sure to also manage these expectations with your influencers so there are no ugly surprises. The compensation or rewards need to make sense for both of you. Don’t be tempted to throw a lot of money at a big name if you don’t have a clear way to measure results. At the same time, don’t underestimate the value of micro-influencers and their highly engaged followers by offering them pennies. You are likely to burn your bridges before you even finish building them…
3. Pick the right kind of campaign
There are many different types of influencer campaigns. The best one for your needs depends on your campaign goals, your relationship with the influencer, and your brand. Pick the right kind of campaign for their platform and your objective. Here are some ideas to start you off:
- How-to campaigns: Get influencers to share their favorite ways to use your product. This is a great one to use for bloggers in an awareness-raising campaign. Just make sure you avoid the temptation to spoon-feed them words. Keep it authentic, otherwise, the campaign loses its momentum and power.
- Product reviews. This is great for YouTube influencers. Unboxing videos are great for showing the product in a genuine way.
- Giveaways. These are really effective for Instagram influencers. Contests for photogenic products like clothing, beauty products or confectionary do really well here!
Your options are endless. Just make sure that the platform and objective work well together.
4. Set clear objectives and communicate expectations
A successful marketing campaign needs a clear objective. What do you want to get out of this campaign? Do you want to raise awareness? Get people to sign up for a webinar? If you don’t know what you want, you can’t measure it.
Focus on one objective at a time. Doing too much at once dilutes the purpose of the campaign as well as its message.
Once your objective is crystal clear, decide how to measure it. This will depend on the type of campaign you run.
Make sure you properly communicate the goals of your campaign to your influencers. This will help them to create authentic content.
5. Track campaign traffic
Tracking where your traffic comes from is always a good idea. MavSocial’s integrated UTM codes make that a lot easier. The Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) helps results-obsessed marketers answer three key questions:
- How is traffic coming to your page?
- Why is traffic coming to your page?
- Where is the traffic coming from?
Use UTM codes to track traffic from influencer marketing campaigns. This can help you measure clear ROI and show you which partnerships are working well. MavSocial can also help you plan, create, and monitor campaigns.
Knowing why, how, and where your traffic is coming from means you can focus on the platforms and partnerships that bring in the best results.
Knock Your Influencer Campaign Out of the Park
Influencer marketing campaigns are a great opportunity to team up with partners who share your company’s values and get in front of a brand new audience. A well-crafted influencer campaign can complement your SEO, PPC, and content marketing strategies as well as increase your reach.
If you set clear objectives, pick the right influencer, run a campaign that plays to their strengths and tie it all into an overall marketing goal, you’ll turn your campaign into an undisputed hit.
Try MavSocial today to help you plan and create your campaign.
