Planning is the key to mastering anything. Planning your day can save you from a lot of fuss, planning your weekend can help you get more productive, planning your month can motivate you, and planning your year with long-term plans can shape your dreams into reality.
Yes, planning is the key.
You must plan an influencer marketing campaign if you want to make it a success.
Influencer marketing has been at its peak for a few years. It has become part and parcel of marketing strategies, and no marketing campaign is successful if it does not consider influencer marketing.
Let’s take a look at what is it actually?
What is Influencer Marketing?
You already have heard about social media marketing. This is the sprouting genre of the social media marketing that takes influencers from social media with a wider audience and followers. In this, you sell your products and increase your brand recognition and awareness with the help of the influencers.
Influencer marketing is growing daily as statistics show a growth of $3.8 billion in this kind of marketing budget in one year. In 2021, it was 10 billion, and in 2022, it reached $13.8.
It is to seek endorsements for your business and products through influencers and take mentions from them, which ultimately increases your brand awareness and audience.
Social Media Platforms for Influencer’s Market:
According to the statistics, social media platforms used for influencer marketing include all of them, i.e., Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
But the graph of influencer marketing is different for different social media platforms. There is 15% endorsement of influencer’s marketing on Twitter, 16% on LinkedIn, 36% on YouTube, 43% on Facebook, 45% on Tiktok, and 68% on Instagram.
This set of statistical analyses shows that most influencer marketing is trendy on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
One can access the importance of Instagram for business holders. Therefore, you should give due standing to optimize your Instagram profile and followers base. One can buy Instagram followers to increase their followers. Another trend that has been seen is to increase engagement with the help of different marketing tools.
Businesses buy Instagram auto likes to increase their engagement and reach as well.
Well, it has several benefits to the point of influencer marketing.
- Social Proof:
When an influencer reviews and recommends your product, it gets a higher engagement rate. An influencer is not someone who has a high number of followers but someone who has endorsement power. They can be well-known personalities who can convince people and give strong recommendations.
- Increase ROI:
Return on Investment (ROI) increases. It is a very budget-friendly form of marketing and trendy. People do not recognize the older and outdated marketing methods; hence, influencer marketing has been on trend for a long.
- Increased Followers, Audience, and Customers:
When someone with influence recommends your product, it increases traffic to your page. Your number of followers and audience increases, ultimately increasing the number of potential customers for your products or services.
Nano, Micro, Macro Influencer, and Celebrity Influencers:
Influencers with followers counting from 1K to 10K are called nano influencers.
Ones with 10K to 50K are called micro-influencers.
Whereas the influencers with more than 50K to 1M or more are called macro-influencers.
Celebrity influencers have more than a million followers and a higher reach. Even with low followers, their popularity gets them higher reach.
9 Steps to a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign:
If you want to start an influencer marketing campaign to sell your product or services and increase your brand awareness successfully, you must take the following steps:
- Determine and Specify Your Goals:
It is very important for your business if you define your goals beforehand. Goals play an essential role in determining the success of your business. A well throughout plan can carry huge success for you. Therefore, take time out and draft your plans with several revisions and thoughts.
Specify what kind of influencer/s you want to market your business. Ask yourself what kind of audience you want from influencer marketing. Specify answers to such questions and then move ahead.
- Determine the Nature of Content:
Plan and specify what sort of content you want to be produced by the influencers for your marketing. Make a list of formats and check out what suits your brand identity.
After collaborating with influencers, you must recommend formats of marketing as well.
You can get video reviews, collaboration giveaways, and unboxing by sending PR to influencers. Once you have decided on it, you can move to the next step.
- Connect to the Influencer:
Step three is to connect with influencers. This is a little arduous task, but you must do it with proper attention and entirety. Look at all the aspects of influencer marketing and the potential benefits it can provide you.
Make a list of influencers and decide what kind of influencer will suit your business to market. If you market solar panels and get a beauty blogger as an influencer, it will not work.
Make a list of 50 influencers if you need 10 for your business. Also, decide if you want to get nano, micro, macro, or celebrity influencers for the marketing of your business.
- Negotiations:
After deciding and shortlisting the influencers, it is time to negotiate with them. Take time and discuss with them your expectations from this marketing tool.
Try to make this communication effective and unambiguous, as an influencer can turn down your business if you do not develop a good professional relationship with them. It is important to negotiate terms and conditions beforehand so that it does not cause any inconvenience.
Also, try to build brand ambassadors from influencer marketing of your brand. It will increase your chances of getting incredible influencers with a higher reach that will benefit your brand in the long term.
These negotiations must include pricing and product giveaways. The influencer may demand keeping the product instead of a flat cash amount. Make all the negotiations before executing or carrying on the campaign.
- Setting Budget for the Influencer Marketing:
After consulting and negotiating with the influencer, you will know how much it will cost for this marketing campaign.
Your influencer marketing must be cost-effective and pre-planned. Instead of beating around the bushes, you should be readily prepared.
After determining the amount, set the required budget and save it. Instead of rushing at the time when the campaign kicks off, take this account step by step.
- Pre-Evaluate the Content:
The next step is to evaluate the content prepared by the influencers. No one knows about your brand better than you. Therefore, call for the re-evaluation of the content.
Once you receive the content, evaluate it with the eyes of your target audience. Is it appealing? Does it bring interest to the people? If yes, then you can approve the content.
- Publish the Content:
The next step is simply approving the content to get it published. It might be a review or unboxing, but whatever it is, it must be effective.
After publishing the content, you should start engaging with the content. The more work you will do on its engagement, the more reach it will get.
- Feature the Content as UGC:
After getting the content published, feature this to your website and social media account. It will help you get a wider reach. Feature the content in your Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, or Shorts by Youtube. Make it cross-promotional.
- Analyze the Result:
Don’t sit back to relax after getting the content published by influencers. It is time to analyze the results. You must look for better opportunities and never settle for lesser results.
Check user insights and engagement to analyze the results. Ask your influencers to share their insights and results through screenshots or file sharing. This way, you can compare the results and decide better for the next campaign.
PRO-TIP: It is highly beneficial to use discount codes and coupon codes to the influencers and poster sales to expand your brand awareness.
Conclusion:
Only one point is pivotal and the crux of the whole discussion, i.e., plan step by step for a successful influencer marketing campaign. It is rightly said, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Implement these steps in your planning and get effective and better results.
