Did you know that for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, brands are gaining a whopping $6.50 in earned media? That’s a pretty big ROI when you really think about it! However, what you might really be wondering is which marketing tactics these businesses are implementing to drive such remarkable success.
Today, brands and marketers are busier than ever sifting through ever-changing industry best practices to master the most effective influencer marketing tactics to help boost their campaign ROI. With the rapidly growing popularity of influencer marketing among brands, it’s becoming increasingly important to know the right influencer tactics, especially when it comes to social media marketing.
The following stats will give you some insight into how marketers are using influencer marketing to amplify their brand’s presence.
In this post, we’ll take a look at which influencer strategies you need to know for various types of campaigns to amplify your brands’ presence and grow business.
Set Goals
In reality, marketing only really works if you map out long- and short-term objectives and goals. And an influencer marketing platform is no exception. You have to understand what you want to achieve—and what to look at to determine if you’ve done just that.
Prior to setting your goals, it’s critical that you understand your target audience, the type of messaging that resonates with them, and the action you want your followers to take. Ask yourself the following:
It’s easy to skip over these sorts of questions, but it’s essential that you dig deep and construct meaningful answers straight out of the gate. We know that we are trying to reach potential customers, but who are these customers, what are they interested in, and how is the best way to persuade them? Set aside the time to build detailed customer personas to identify and understand your target market.
Once you have clear, definitive answers to these questions, it’s time to lay out your brand’s goals. The trick here is to be as specific as possible. Sweeping objectives such as “get more followers” or “boost brand awareness” won’t cut it—those goals are a given.
Instead, set very specific targets or goals as they pertain to the campaign at-hand. Rather aiming to drive more traffic to your website, be more specific such as aiming to sell 10,000 products within one of the campaign’s launch or double your Instagram following within 90 days.
Now, will this guarantee that you will hit those goals? Not exactly. But specific goals will guide you in the right direction and help you stay on track so that you don’t lose focus and make strategic pivots in strategy when you see you’re not tracking to meet your goals.
It’s smart to be aware of micro-influencers, who have a lesser number, yet more engaged number of followers. According to recent numbers, 82% of shoppers are more likely to follow a micro-influencer purchase recommendation than they would a more unrelatable macro-influencer.
This type of influencer is capable of creating stronger connections with their audiences because they tend to have a more intimate following. And because of this, their followers are way more engaged–as well as trusting–and thus are more likely to follow their advice and recommendations, meaning that this kind of influencer marketing works.
That’s why working with micro-influencers on multiple social media platforms can be a really great tactic to run a successful campaign. Another reason why you should consider these influencers is because they charge less, so it is much more cost-effective than going with a well-known influencer with a larger following.
Leveraging micro-influencer and TikTok content creator collabs is a promising influencer marketing tactic that can really help you boost engagement levels amongst your target audience, and better yet drive traffic to your website and increase conversions.
If influencers are already talking about your brand without any sponsorship, it means that they are pretty fond of your brand. This means that they already have an ideal target audience that is likely to shop your brand, so this would make them a wonderful fit.
Upon reaching out asking them to promote your brand, you will find that you have a much better chance of generating maximum campaign ROI rather than paying the big bucks for a random celebrity endorsement that feels forced and overtly salesy. Always remember, when it comes to Influencer Marketing, authenticity is the name of the game, and quality trumps quantity when it comes to engagement.
Collaborate With Influencers for the Long-Haul
Efficient, effective, and consistent influencer collaboration is crucial to driving growth for your brand. And tracking down different influencers who can be your brand ambassadors in the long run is without a doubt a successful influencer marketing strategy.
Many famous brands collaborate with the same influencers on all their marketing campaigns. They don’t treat such associations as a one-time transaction. The result is a greater sense of trust and brand loyalty. Of course, this works provided that the influencer’s niche and interests closely align with the brand.
The beauty of influencer marketing lies in the content that these content creators produce. Influencers are quite talented individuals with the ability to create something even more compelling than traditional ads, considering they implement the right best practices and follow a well-thought-out creative brief. The obvious benefit? It saves you and your team both time and effort in brainstorming and coming up with new creative takes on your campaign.
Providing your influencers with enough creative freedom to produce something unique within the parameters of your creative brief is a smart tactic. In fact, one recent study found that 77% of influencers prefer working with brands that provide creative freedom for their sponsored posts. Allowing them to use unique platform-specific editing trends, throw giveaways, infuse their personality into your messaging, and more is a win-win for you both. The key is partnering with influencers aligned enough with your brand that you can trust them to take a few liberties.
The most effective marketing is that which is tracked and monitored with real-time performance data. It’s simple, really: it’s all about understanding whether or not what you are doing is actually getting you results. It’s critical to know if your marketing efforts are paying off, so that you can either make quick pivots if necessary, reallocate budget on lower-performing channels, or continue to iterate upon your strategy for future campaigns. So, if you are not seeing improvements across the board, you should dig deeper to identify why that is the case.
One of the easiest ways to track how many sales an influencer marketing campaign is driving in is with a unique code. You simply provide the influencer with an offer code that is exclusive to them and track how many sales are completed using that code.
Now, this isn’t exactly foolproof—offer codes tend to spread like wildfire across the web, with shoppers using the code without ever having come across your influencer marketing content. A more reliable approach is then to provide each influencer with a trackable, tagged URL that they can share with their audience. An affiliate tracking program can then automate the process of creating these URLs, in addition to tracking sales by the influencer.
At the end of the day, track everything—it’s the only way you can determine if your dollars out are driving the dollars in.
Let’s face it—influencer marketing, though not a new phenomenon, is only gaining more and more traction. This is due in large part to the popularity of content-dependent platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where non-brand-produced content resonates best with shoppers.
And, remember, it’s not just the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle industries that benefit from influencer content marketing–these influencers are becoming the faces of brands across all shopping verticals. And if done properly, your network of influencers can take your brand to unimaginable heights.
Influencer marketing is extremely effective but can be a little challenging to perfect—especially given the sheer magnitude of options and the heightened pressure to stand out in social feeds. That’s why it’s important to enlist the help of a reputable advertising agency like MuteSix to handle all of your advertising needs, which include integrating influencer marketing into your Paid Social mix.
From finding amazing influencers aligned with your brand to tracking marketing campaign results, MuteSix has an impressive track record of using influencers of all sizes to grow business through both their paid and organic efforts.
Sources:
https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Crowdtap_TheStateofInfluencerMarketing.pdf