10 Step Guide To Influencer Marketing Strategy
1. Know Your Audience
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2. Set Campaign Objectives and KPIs
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3. Find the Most Appropriate Influencer Channel
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4. Determine Your Campaign Budget
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5. Identify the Right Influencers
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6. Reach Out to Influencers
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7. Communicate Goals and Expectations
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8. Craft an Influencer Agreement
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9. Set Up Goal and Metric Tracking
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10. Track Campaign Performance
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Table of Contents
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Know Your Audience And Their Interests Know Your Audience And The Social Media Channels Where They Live Online. Before you select influencers, you need to clearly define your target audience. Take some time to consider: Who is your target market? Determine demographics such as age, gender, education level, income, marital status, location, and more. What are their interests? Are they interested in fashion and beauty, healthy eating, gaming, the latest technology? What is their life stage? What is their phase of life? Are they a high school student, graduating senior, college student, home buyer, new mom, etc.? What are their behaviors? What kinds of products do they buy? What websites do they visit? How do they shop? After mapping out your audience demographics and interests, it will be easier to identify who influences their buying decisions.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Here is an example of how audience demographics, interests, and life stages can inform your influencer selection. Let’s say you’re launching an all-natural baby lotion targeted at new mothers. Amber Fillerup, also known as the Barefoot Blonde, could be the ideal influencer to reach young mothers who prefer natural products and are more likely to buy things promoted by other mothers on social media.
Demographics Women aged 25-42
@amberfillerup
Interests Clean beauty, health, natural products
Life Stage Young parent, new mom, home owner
Behaviors Strong affinity for products used and recommended by other moms 2
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Set Campaign Goals And Key Metrics Define The Goals of Your Campaign, And Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). At a high level, most marketing teams have two types of key performance indicators: brand awareness or direct response. In some cases, it’s a combination of both.
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Direct Response KPIs
Branding campaigns focus on expanding awareness of a brand and generating buzz around their product or service. Brand awareness KPIs include:
Direct response campaigns aim to drive a specific, immediate user action. Conversion-based KPIs include:
• Website traffic (e.g. views, uniques, clicks)
• Search interest (e.g. searches of a brand name, clicks from search)
• Social engagement and reach •
(e.g. likes, shares, followers, brand mentions, hashtag use) Media mentions (e.g. mentions, links from press)
• • • • • •
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Brand Awareness KPIs
Registrations Email signups App downloads Account creation Subscription Purchases
Influencer campaigns can drive both brand awareness and conversions, but it’s crucial that your brand sets very specific target KPIs at the outset. For direct response KPIs, it’s advisable to focus on a single conversion type. If an influencer encourages their audience to download your app, buy your product, and register for your newsletter in the same video, this lack of a clear call-to-action will likely result in viewers taking none of these actions.
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Direct Response Example
Nissin collaborated with popular Twitch gamer Pokimane, who humorously measured her noodleeating noise levels using a custom ‘Slurp Meter’ on-screen. The stream positioned Cup Noodles as a popular, convenient snack for hungry gamers.
David Wellington partnered with nature photographer, @fritzykitsy, who incorporated a DW watch into an artistic Instagram post. Fritz offered a discount code to his young, artsy, urban followers who might be interested in purchasing.
KPIs
KPIs
• • • • •
• • • •
Video views Engagement Brand mentions Search interest Media mentions
pokimane
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Brand Awareness Example
Click-throughs Purchases Revenue Discount code usage
@fritzykitsy
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
3 Find the Right Influencer and Social Media Channels Review And Evaluate The Social Media Channels That Can Best Achieve Your Objectives. The majority of influencers are categorized by their most popular social platform, but today many of them diversify their presence across channels (for example, here are YouTubers who started their career on Instagram). This diversity of platforms gives both the influencer and the brand sponsoring them a chance to promote across multiple channels. That being said, each channel has its own set of unique influencers, users, and content format. Let’s discuss the benefits of each channel for your influencer marketing strategy:
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Let’s discuss the typical demographics, content formats, and key benefits of each channel for your influencer marketing strategy:
Instagram Instagram has exploded in the last few years, and recently exceeded 1 billion users. This was announced in tandem with the launch of IGTV, which along with Instagram Stories represents a concerted push into the video space. Collaborating with top Instagram influencers is a great way to position your product or service in a visually striking and personalized way. Instagram has a lot of Millennial users, and strong usage among Gen Z and Gen X age groups. It attracts influencers in fashion and beauty, travel and hospitality, lifestyle, fitness, food, and more.
Youtube YouTube is the largest video platform is the world, and it enables creators to showcase experiences, products, and services in a long-form video format. YouTube is used by a wide range of audiences, especially people aged 18-34. This broad reach, coupled with the ability to easily embed links, makes YouTube influencer marketing campaigns effective for both branding and direct-response campaigns. YouTube has many prominent influencers across music, gaming, beauty, technology, and entertainment. 7
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Facebook With over 2.2 billion users, Facebook has the largest global reach of any channel. Its audience tends to skew older than Instagram or Twitch. Traditionally, Facebook fell behind other social networks in fostering influencers, but more recently they doubled down with a proprietary Brand Collab Manager for companies who want to partner with creators. Facebook Live videos, watched 3x longer than standard videos, are used by some influencers to reach Facebook’s global audience. While many influencers use Facebook as a secondary channel, a few have built their primary following on Facebook.
Twitch Twitch launched as a livestreaming platform in 2011, and has gained rapid traction amongst gamers. The majority of their over 15 million viewers are aged 18-34, and spend an average of 95 minutes per day on Twitch — over double the time spent on any other social channel. A slew of brands have stepped in to leverage this engagement — largely gaming companies, although brands like Coca-Cola, Old Spice, South Park Studios, and KFC are experimenting with Twitch influencer sponsorship as well. Twitch is emerging very quickly, and represents an exciting new channel for brands looking to innovate and reach highly attentive audiences.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Blog Blogs became the very first influencer marketing channel when food, lifestyle, and mommy bloggers began partnering with brands in the early 2000s. Blogs generally provide access to an older demographic (25-49 year olds) and allow for more lengthy, narrative storytelling. For brands, partnering with bloggers can also be a great way to drive brand awareness, sign-ups, website traffic, promotions, and other direct-response KPIs. Successful sponsored blogs also have the unique advantage of building organic search traffic over time, meaning a single blog post could lead to ongoing returns over several years as it appears in search engine results. 9
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Allocate Your Campaign Budget
Campaign Investment Usually Correlates To Your Overall Reach. Influencers Quote Rates Based On Their Total Following, Current Market Rates, And Advertiser Interest.
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Prices will vary across industries and channels, but generally large macro-influencers command thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, while mega-influencers may charge six figures for a single sponsored post. This is because large influencers offer very wide impact from a single post. Nano- and micro-influencers may cost anywhere from five bucks to several hundred dollars per post, and can be useful for targeting more niche audiences. They also represent more limited reach, therefore more effort, management, and time to scale your campaign.
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PRO TIP
Prices will vary greatly, depending on the social media channel. Click here for a more detailed pricing guide across various channels.
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Sizing up your budget will help determine if you can achieve the wide reach of macro-influencers and social media celebrities, or will be working exclusively with a smaller set of nano- and micro-influencers.
NANO, MICRO, MACRO & BEYOND
Mega-influencer
1M +
Macro-influencer
500K - 1M
Mid-tier influencer
50K - 500K
Micro-influencer
10K - 50K
Nano-influencer
1K - 10K Followers/ Subscribers
While some marketers believe micro-influencers drive higher relative engagement, this micro- vs macro-influencers analysis suggests the difference may be negligible. That said, for brands with a limited budget, working with micro-influencers can offer an affordable way to test a few smaller campaigns. 11
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Research the Right Influencers for Your Brand
Identify The Most Relevant Influencers To Partner With Using Search, Platforms, Or Agencies. There are plenty of tools and resources to help you identify influencers within your industry, but during that process it’s important to remember what makes your audience and brand unique. For example, not every fashion influencer is the right fit for every apparel brand. A clothing company might want to partner with influencers who represent the same age groups, clothing styles, or perhaps even body types that the brand caters to.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
There are many different ways to begin your influencer search — here are a few: 1) Manual Search One of the simplest ways to start finding influencers is by conducting your own research online. This involves: • Search Engines like Google. Begin by searching things like “top beauty instagrammers” or “most popular Twitch gamers” and collecting some top names to evaluate. • Ranking Tools like Social Blade, Tubular Insights or HypeAuditor. These can help you scan rankings by channel, subscriber count, or category, or to analyze the followers of specific influencers. • Social Media Channels. Depending on the social media channel, you can research content creators by category, keyword, or hashtag.
Category Search
Hashtag Search
Keyword Search
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Influencer marketing platforms and databases provide a hub for brands to find and recruit social media influencers for a campaign. • Platforms function as two-sided marketplaces that connect brands and influencers looking for particular requirements. • Databases are directories that enable companies to search, filter, vet, and track influencers across social media platforms.
PRO Ease Of Use And Scalability
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Platforms allow for simple search and selection of influencers, and quick review of their sponsored content. Campaigns can be initiated, managed, and paid for fairly easily.
PRO TIP If you have already identified a couple Instagram influencers that reach your ideal audience, see who they are following (and who their followers are following) to find influencers with similar interests.
Lower Cost
Compared to a hands-on agency, platforms can sometimes provide a lower barrier to entry in terms of cost.
Reporting
Platforms have built-in reporting features, allowing brands to review results through a dashboard as a campaign evolves.
CON Limited Influencer Choice
Platforms mostly have small-tomedium sized influencers, while larger influencers typically work through a manager. For brands seeking highimpact campaigns, platforms might limit their options.
No Assurance Of Best Practices
Platforms are not generally able to ensure the submission of highquality content, or adherence to FTC guidelines.
Time Intensive
Influencer marketing requires creative collaboration, ongoing communication, hands-on management, and constant optimization, which can be very challenging for a marketer to handle.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
2) Platforms / Databases
Without dedicated internal resources, the process of selecting from thousands of influencers, then building, executing, and managing several multi-channel campaigns can be overwhelming. After managing hundreds of campaigns, agencies offer proven track records of high performance. While agencies can be more expensive than the alternatives, they are also skilled in selecting the right influencer mix for your audience, target KPIs, and industry, and can often negotiate better rates.
PRO Partnerships
Influencer marketing agencies can connect brands to virtually any influencer in any category. With their intimate knowledge of the social landscape, influencer marketing agencies are adept at identifying and connecting businesses with the right influencer for their brand.
Experience
From influencer selection to campaign creative, to FTC guideline adherence, influencer marketing agencies stake the strength of their reputation on properly executed, impactful campaigns.
Campaign Management
Influencer marketing campaigns require a high level of planning and management. Agencies can help end-to-end with planning, creative strategy, campaign briefs, influencer contracts, campaign optimization, and more.
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PRO TIP
Before you select an influencer, take the time to review this guide to detecting fake followers.
CON Costs
Influencer marketing costs will depend on a variety of factors, including client, influencer(s), production, targeted audience and channels, as well as campaign length and goals. As a fully managed service, agency costs may limit smaller businesses from working with them.
Digital Only
Influencer marketing agencies work on popular social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch. If a business is seeking magazine coverage or television product placement, most influencer marketing agencies won’t be able to execute this.
Harder to Dabble
While it’s easier to test one or two sponsorships through platforms, agencies tend to focus on building rich campaigns designed for impact, rather than one-off posts. If you’re not able to make the investment, agencies might not be the right fit.
Once you have identified a list of possible influencers, spend time looking through their social channels, content, engagement, and comments. What kind of language do they use? What values do they stand for? Are they controversial in any way? Ensure that their image is not only aligned with your aesthetic, but your brand values. Take time to look at their other sponsored content, and note average engagement levels. See if there are successful elements of their other sponsored content you want to carry over to your own campaign. Especially when working with smaller influencers, be sure to look out for fake followers or purchased engagement (see Pro Tip above). This problem can be especially tricky for companies that are new to influencer marketing.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
3) Influencer Marketing Agency
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Reach Out to Influencers
Contact Your Top Influencers And Invite Them To Collaborate With Your Brand. Most popular social media influencers are inundated with requests from brands. Crafting a concise outreach message that cuts through the noise is essential to get their attention. While many influencers publish their contact information directly on their channel, a growing number of influencers have agents or managers. These intermediaries often field brand inquiries and campaign requests. 16
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Here are a few suggestions for influencer outreach: Engage With The Influencer Socially Before reaching out, follow them on their various social media channels, and like and comment on their posts. Show interest in their work. Reach Out To The Influencer Contact the influencer or their manager with specific and concise information about working together (a brief summary of the campaign, the budget, etc.). Ask influencers about their own goals, and what they are looking to achieve in their career. Do they want to partner with another popular influencer? Do they want to travel to Nepal? See if there are ways you can help them achieve their goals through this campaign. Cultivate A Relationship Build rapport with the influencer before the campaign begins. The more the influencer connects with you and your brand, the smoother the creative process will be. This might also pave the way for a long-term partnership.
If you are struggling to break through using cold outreach, a reputable influencer marketing agency can facilitate these connections for you by leveraging established relationships with top influencers.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Create a Campaign Brief to Communicate Brand Goals Outline All Of Your Campaign Expectations And Goals In A Campaign Brief. Once you’ve heard back from an influencer, you should provide a detailed campaign brief that outlines your campaign expectations, requirements, and goals.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Here are six essential elements of a successful campaign brief:
1) Which Social Media Account(s) The Influencer Will Publish On Solely stating the social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, etc.) the influencer should post on leaves room for ambiguity. Many influencers hold more than one account or channel on a single social media platform, so it’s important to specify the exact handles you want them to post the sponsored content from. 2) Clear Campaign Goals And CTA Whether you’re looking to raise brand awareness, sell a product, or increase app downloads, the influencer should be crystal clear on the primary goals of the campaign, and the exact call-to-action they are expected to use. 3) Description Of Content & Corresponding Dates For instance, for an Instagram-exclusive campaign, a brief should include the number of Instagram posts and Stories the influencer has agreed to create, as well as the date and time each piece of content must be published. Any other actions, like tagging the brand’s official Instagram account or using a specific branded hashtag, should also be included.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
4) Messaging Points To Include While it is never recommended to script an influencer’s message, it’s important to provide specific talking points. Keep the list concise and focused on helping the influencer be informative—not salesy. Too many message points can result in a scattered or heavy-handed call-toaction. For Instagram, stick to one or two messaging points at most. For YouTube, limit yourself to three or four. 5) Messaging Points To Avoid In an influencer brief, marketers should provide specific messaging that an influencer must not state verbally or in written form. This could include a specific product the brand doesn’t wish to advertise in the present campaign, or any reference to competitors. 6) Tracking Links Or Custom Codes
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Almost all direct-response influencer campaigns include tracking links to measure audience actions such as product purchases, downloads, or sign-ups (see more in Chapter 9). To ensure that an influencer includes the correct tracking link or custom discount code within sponsored content, any necessary links or codes should be provided in the brief.
PRO TIP
Collaboration is key to successful influencer marketing. Allow influencers to have creative freedom and take the lead deciding what works best with their audience.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Craft a Rock-Solid Influencer Agreement Develop An Influencer Contract To Clarify The Details Of Ownership, Deadlines, Deliverables, And More. An influencer agreement should clearly define the terms and conditions of an influencer partnership. The more detailed the agreement, the lower your chance of FTC violations, lawsuits, and influencer controversy.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Here are the essential clauses every influencer contract should include: Clear Deadlines Include the duration of the campaign, the deadlines for the influencer to submit content for review, and the dates and times the influencer must share sponsored content. Ownership Clause Document whether the influencer or the brand owns sponsored content after a campaign goes live, and who has usage rights. Specific Campaign Deliverables Spell out the specific talking points the influencer must meet, and the format of those talking points (verbally in a YouTube video, written in an Instagram post caption, etc.). Exclusivity Clause Outline a time period for exclusivity and clearly list competitors the influencer is barred from working with in that time frame. Your sponsored post won’t have the same impact if the influencer partners with your direct competitor the week before your campaign. FTC Disclosure Guidelines Clearly outline the disclosure expectations in order to meet FTC guidelines. Include exact verbiage an influencer must include, such as “sponsored by” or “paid partnership with.” The following page will outline basic FTC requirements by channel — but to see our full list of FTC Disclosure Guidelines click here.
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When to Disclose • • •
When receiving financial compensation and/or free product When there is a family relationship and/or non-financial compensation (e.g. gifts) Disclose material connections every time when including previously sponsored products/service in successive posts
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Disclosure must be verbal, can include written.
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Use words or phrases that are clear and unambiguous, such as “Sponsored by…”, “Paid Advertisement,” or “Sponsored Advertising Content.”
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Include sponsorship information above the “show more” button in the description box.
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For both verbal and written disclosures, disclosure should be close to the beginning video.
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For written disclosures, must remain on screen long enough to be read and understood.
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Use ambiguous phrases like “Thanks to…” Disclosure should be clear and straightforward.
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Attempt to hide written disclosure at the bottom of the video description.
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Make written disclosures too brief to be read or make them the same color as the background.
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Fail to include written and/or verbal disclosure within the video itself.
Include #ad or #paid at the beginning of a sponsored tweet.
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Tag the sponsoring brand when applicable.
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Use ambiguous or unclear hashtags like #spon, #sp, or #collaboration. Place the disclosure at the end of the sponsored tweet.
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Disclose sponsorship at the beginning of the post’s description.
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If using hashtags, use #sponsored, #ad, or #paid.
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If sponsored Facebook content is a video, disclose sponsorship either verbally or in writing.
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Tag the sponsoring brand.
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Use phrases or hashtags that are unclear or ambiguous, such as #sp, #spon, #collaboration, “Thanks to…” or “Video made possible by…”
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If sponsored content is a video, fail to include sponsorship within the video itself.
Place disclosure at the beginning of the description and before the “more” button.
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Place disclosure at the beginning of the description and before the “more” button.
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Use the hashtag #sponsored, #ad, or #paid to disclose partnership.
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Use the hashtag #sponsored, #ad, or #paid to disclose partnership.
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Use the phrase “Sponsored by…” and tag the sponsoring brand in the post description.
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Use the phrase “Sponsored by…” and tag the sponsoring brand in the post description.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Dos and Don’ts of FTC Endorsement
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
9 Set Up Conversion Tracking for Your Influencer Campaign Set Up Your Tracking Methods Before Your Influencer Campaign Goes Live. Before your campaign launches, determine how you will track KPIs (such as traffic, downloads, signups, mentions, or transactions) that you assigned to your campaign. 24
Google Analytics This analytics platform enables you to record traffic sources and custom UTM codes that measure specific conversions. Discount Or Redemption Promo Codes Creating unique promo codes for every influencer you partner with enables your brand to track how many conversions each influencer is responsible for. Dedicated Landing Pages Building separate landing pages for each influencer allows you to tailor messaging to their audience, and offers insights into who visited, who converted, and which influencers drive the highest ROI. Trackable Links Shortened links, like bit.ly links, are brief and clean links that can be strategically placed in sponsored content to track click-through rates (CTR). Hashtags Assigning unique hashtags for your campaign will allow you to directly track the impact your brand has across social media.
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PRO TIP
Make sure you specify your brand’s social media handle (e.g. @mediakix for Instagram) or any hashtags you’d like the influencer to include within the campaign.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Some methods for tracking include:
10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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Measure and Optimize Campaign Performance
Use Analytics To Assess Your Campaign And Optimize Future Ones. Once your influencer marketing campaign has launched, begin measuring the target metrics you previously outlined. There are various methods for tracking performance, including: On-Site Traffic Review Google Analytics to measure traffic, behavior, and conversion metrics. Important KPIs may include: • • • • • • • •
Site visits Referral traffic Pageviews New users Time spent on-site Goal completions Conversion rate User demographics
Social Media Metrics For each social media platform that your influencers used to promote sponsored content, you should track engagement numbers including: • • • • • • •
Likes Comments Shares Engagement rate @mentions Hashtag usage Social sentiment
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
Press Coverage And Off-Site Mentions Scrape the corners of the internet to find mentions of your brand in relation to the campaign. By searching Google, you can locate related brand mentions on different sites, press outlets, or publications. Public relations and earned media software, such as Cision and Trendkite, can track press coverage of your campaign. There are also several free tools that will flag mentions for you, such as Buzzsumo, Google Alerts, and Talkwalker Alerts. ROI For a direct response campaign, the most basic way to calculate the ROI would be to divide the total cost of an influencer sponsorship by the revenue generated by the influencer. For branding KPIs, however, ROI may be calculated based on a variety of engagement metrics depending on your initial goals. Another way to measure the impact of your campaign is to analyze brand sentiment in comments, brand mentions, and hashtags. Influencer Marketing ROI Formula
Profit (Return) Total Amount Spent (Investment)
X 100
The data you gather will help decide which influencer channels, platforms, and content formats generated optimal results, ultimately allowing you to optimize your influencer marketing strategy for your next campaign.
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PRO TIP
Free tools like socialmention enable you to sort the number of positive, neutral, and negative mentions of your brand by date. 27
Established in 2011, Mediakix is a leading influencer marketing agency. We create, execute, and manage highimpact sponsorships for brands with social media influencers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, bloggers, Twitch streamers, Facebook creators, and infuencers on other social channels. With a network of thousands of social influencers and a reach of millions, our campaigns have been among the highest-performing marketing channels for clients. To see how our influencer marketing campaigns can drive ROI for your brand, contact us today for a free evaluation with an experienced influencer marketing specialist.
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10 Step Guide to Influencer Marketing Strategy
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