5 Things to Know To Get Started With Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has emerged as an authentic and effective approach for brands to connect with target audiences. Many brands are encouraged due to the effectiveness as well as the affordable influencer marketing platform pricing plans. As traditional advertising declines in effectiveness, influencer partnerships provide a way to organically embed marketing messages within relevant content. However, executing a successful influencer campaign requires thoughtful preparation.

Defining Goals and Target Audiences

The foundational first step when architecting any influencer activation is explicitly defining the underlying goals and desired outcomes. Every strategic choice stems from campaign aims. Questions to clarify include:

• What specific purpose does the campaign aim to achieve? Is the goal to drive awareness and engagement, promote new product launches, improve brand sentiment, generate leads and site traffic, and directly build revenues through conversions and sales?
• Who specifically constitutes the target audience and buyer persona? What are their demographic and psychographic attributes like age, location, gender, income levels, interests, and values? 
• How will success be measured? Defining quantitative KPIs and metrics in conjunction with qualitative assessments of sentiment, engagement, and audience alignment allows holistic tracking towards goals.

Here are 5 things to Know to get started with Influencer Marketing

• Identifying Relevant Influencers

The diverse social media landscape presents a vast range of influencer partnership options spanning celebrity mega-influencers with millions of followers, subject matter experts and thought leaders, interest-based micro-influencers with small but extraordinarily engaged niche audiences, and even everyday authentic consumers. While fame certainly doesn’t directly translate to resonance or results, bigger names generally command substantially higher financial costs. Often, precisely targeted micro-influencers through influencer marketing software boast highly engaged communities intrinsically aligned with campaign goals and deliver tremendous impact relative to their smaller reach and lower costs.

• Outreach and Negotiation

When initially reaching out to prospective influencers, resist framing the relationship through a traditional advertising lens. Avoid conveying transactional impressions focused solely on driving brand outcomes. Instead, thoughtfully appeal to the individual influencer’s interests and values by explaining how potential collaborations could tangibly benefit them along with their audiences and communities. Highlight opportunities for influencers to produce compelling content aligned with their personal brands while organically promoting products and services they may authentically appreciate to their engaged followings.

• Content Creation and Amplification

After contracts are finalised, provide influencers with any needed products, messaging guidance, suggested hashtags, and other helpful creative assets to develop compelling content. Consolidate relevant information, links and physical materials in kits sent through platforms for simplified access. Throughout the creative process, nurture open communication channels for influencers to field questions, provide progress updates and discuss optimizations.

• Performance Tracking and Optimization

While influencers produce content, brands should comprehensively track quantitative metrics and qualitative sentiments across all activations. Key performance indicators relate back to pre-defined campaign goals around awareness, consideration, conversions and beyond. 

• Cultivating Lasting Influencer Relationships

While well-executed one-off campaigns still deliver value through thoughtful performance optimizations, the full transformational power of influencer marketing manifests through the ongoing cultivation of authentic relationships between brands and influencers. In the best partnerships, activations feel less like traditional advertising transactions and more like collaborative content passion projects organically aligned with both parties’ interests and intrinsic motivations.

Influencer marketing, powered by authentic partnerships between brands and creative personalities, provides a compelling opportunity to tap into highly engaged communities. However, thoughtful planning and sustained collaboration are imperative to earn impactful returns on influencer investments.