Tips to create a successful influencer marketing campaign

• People trust people more than they trust brands. Amit Mondal, Founder, Pulpkey writes how brands can leverage influencer marketing to build trust among its consumers.
• From setting goals to measuring results, he further shares how to strengthen your influencer marketing campaign.

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” - Seth Godin

If you’re finding out for an ironclad way to grasp the attention of your ideal audience, you should look no further than someone who already has their ear.

In short, you require an influencer. And to leverage the reach of an existing influencer who has created a strong brand reputation and a high following in a particular niche to endorse the product, support your brand or co-create content, with the purpose to increase brand awareness and drive sales is Influencer Marketing.

You can't skip hearing about the elusive, purportedly impactful powers of influencer marketing. Influencers are experts in their niches. Such individuals have influence over an audience you might be trying to communicate and can be helpful marketing to those buyers.

So here are a few things you need to keep in mind when launching an influencer marketing campaign:

Outline the goals of your campaign

Setting goals is absolutely important, as it allows you to plan and develop each next step as well as to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign. In influencer marketing, you’re leveraging someone else’s platform for your own gain. So before you find an influencer, before you create the content, and before you do anything else, you need to place the goals of your campaign. The goal should have three portions – the demographic data of influencer, what the influencer will help you do, and how the influencer will help you do it.

Choose a Type of Influencer Marketing Campaign

After setting your goals, it’s time to think upon the type of influencer marketing campaign that will help you accomplish your mission. There are mainly three types of relationship which triggers influencer marketing campaigns, i.e., inspire, hire, or a mix of both. Here you can inspire influencers to share your content or to message on their own. Or you can pay them to promote your brand. Or you can work with them using a little bit of both the types. To help you more here are the types of influencer marketing strategies you can contemplate:

· Sponsored Content: Pay to an influencer’s social channels (Instagram, YouTube etc) in order to get your brand featured. You may or may not create the content for the post.
· Gifting: Giving free services or products to an influencer in exchange for a review or mention.
· Guest Posting: To make creative and contributory content for an influencer’s social channels.
· Contests and Giveaways: To run a contest and ask an influencer to share your giveaway event with their followers or viewers.
· Influencer Takeover: To allow an influencer to take control of your social media pages for a specific amount of time, which has been already set.
· Affiliates: Here, you provide a unique code that gives influencers a percentage of each sale they drive.
· Co-Creating Content: Partnering with an influencer to produce a content that is featured on their website, your website or on a website of a third party.
· Social Media Mentions: A social media marketing strategy, where a personality or a renowned brand mentions your brand, share your content, or post about you.
· Discount Codes: Providing influencer with a unique discount code for your product which they can promote and offer to their audience.

Identify your target Audience

Once you have an idea about your goals and the type of influencer marketing strategy you want to implement, the next step is to know who is your target audience. Identify who will help you connect with the same.

Outline specific details about who you want to connect with or through your campaign before you start looking out for influencers. Also, spend time creating a buyer persona which includes both demographic and psychographic fragmentation. Once you identify audience, it will be easier to track the top people they follow and the websites they use.

Find out the Right Influencer

The influencer you choose will be representing your brand, so before you work with someone, do not forget to ask yourself, “Is this the foremost person to represent my brand?” You need to do in-depth research before you approach anyone. Look at all their social media profiles, verify that they do not have a bad reputation online or in the press before contacting a potential influencer. Also check they do not engage in issues that would sabotage the value of your services or products and make sure they are articulate, polite, and they write well-researched posts. Another important factor is don't base your decision on the number of followers of the influencers. Cross-check for the fake followers. Try to include micro-influencers too. They are the influencers with followers between 1,000 to 5,000 and have witnessed a higher success rate. Micro-influencers have a niche audience, mostly engaged with a more personal connection and accord.

Specify content delivery requirements

Once you choose an influencer for your campaign, get ready to begin the next phase, i.e., content management. It involves planning your campaign content strategy by setting guidelines and expectations for the brand, agency, and influencer. It will let the influencer know what’s expected from them and will also open the door for collaboration. You should also specify certain things, such as the number and type of posts expected from the influencer, which platforms the campaign will be activated on, and a timeline for when content should go live. Also, spell out usage rights and exclusivity.

Audit and Optimize Content before it is Published

To let your influencer’s authentic voice shine through, it’s best to let them create the content. However, you should take the time to audit, edit, and optimize that content before it gets published on their page or site.

Monitor the results

Check the analytics to gauge how the content is performing and optimize strategies if necessary, once the content is live. It's important to ensure that your influencer's campaign is achieving to the best of its ability to deliver ROI. Look back at the KPIs you specified when putting together your campaign strategy and answer these questions: Have you made progress? What have you learned from your audience? Which posts are performing the best? Which posts are underperforming?

Conclusion

In simple words, people trust people more than they trust brands. Influencer marketing allows you to leverage that trust to establish goodwill towards your brand. Therefore, the steps outlined above will help you find the best influencer and get the most out of your partnership.

- By Amit Mondal, Founder, Pulpkey