By Saskia Rahim
From celebrity brand deals to seeing #Ad all over your Instagram feed, having a public figure endorse your brand is nothing new. But over the last few years, it’s evolved to grow alongside the increasing presence of niche groups. Now, it’s no longer enough to simply slap a familiar face on your product and call it a day. Brands need to have a solid understanding of their audiences and goals to maximize the benefits of influencers. Below are some tips to set your brand up for success.
- Why influencers?
Influencers build brand authenticity by using a trusted figure to endorse your brand. If done correctly, influencer content provides real-life use cases of your product, service or brand, as well as a credible review or endorsement. Additionally, influencer marketing can speak directly to your target audience and reach previously untapped networks.
- Know your audience
Understanding your target audience is essential when exploring influencer marketing. Demographics such as age, location, interests, gender and more, are integral to any campaign. It’s also necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the influencer’s audience. For example, if you want to reach Canadians, it’s not always as simple as partnering with an influencer located in Canada, as many have large U.S.-based audiences. Verifying the influencer as well as their audience demographics is important to ensure a successful campaign, so that when you ultimately engage an influencer, you’re partnering with someone who is authentic and relatable to your target audience.
- Set your goals
Broadly speaking, there are three main campaign goals to consider:
Awareness – You want to reach new audiences or make existing audiences aware of your brand. They may be previously unaware of your brand or just unfamiliar with your product or service offerings. This is usually measured through impressions, reach, and engagements.
Consideration– After an audience is aware of your brand, you want to begin tactics that have audiences consider switching to/adopting your brand. This can be measured through engagements, clicks, impressions and reach.
Conversion – This is the final (and most expensive) goal. It is the process of converting new audiences into customers. It can be measured through sign-ups, link clicks, and click through rates.
With each of the above goals, it’s important to understand which KPIs you should measure to determine success. For example, impressions are a good metric for awareness-based campaigns because they indicate the number of people that have viewed your content, thus increasing awareness, Sign-ups are a great metric for conversion campaign as this correlates to new customers.
- Types of influencers
Not all influencers are created equal, and having a mega influencer like a Kardashian promoting your brand will not yield the same results as engaging a local micro–influencer. That’s not to say that one is better than the other – but each tier has unique benefits and outcomes.
Though definitions can vary, we’ve broken down the most common types of influencers:
- Mega: Over 1M followers, such as celebrities, professional athletes or public figures, most expensive
- Macro: 100,000 to 1M followers – Well-known, established figures with good reach, typically expensive
- Mid-tier: 10,000 to 100,000 followers – Known as leaders/experts in their niche, can be somewhat expensive
- Micro: 1,000 to 10,000 followers – Audience is niche and engaged with slightly more reach than Nano influencers, more cost-effective
- Nano: 1,000 followers – Audience is niche and highly engaged, most cost-effective
Understanding your overall campaign goals is essential before selecting your influencer. For campaigns focused on driving meaningful engagements, it makes sense to work with a micro influencer. If the goal is to build brand awareness and increase reach, a mega influencer is the way to go. Below are some other key factors to consider before selecting your influencers:
- Campaign budget
- Follower demographics (do they align with your audience?)
- Engagement rate and number of followers
- Content style (does it align with brand voice and values?)
- Past brand partnerships
- Engaging with influencers
Working with influencers can be a lengthy process – and it’s important to demonstrate how a brand partnership is beneficial to the influencer, while ensuring content is compliant and adheres to brand guidelines. When reaching out to influencers, do your research and clearly demonstrate how and why this brand/product/service is a fit for them. Some influencers will share their rates upfronts, but often it’s a negotiation to ensure a fair price for both the influencer and the brand. Once the influencer is engaged, it’s imperative to set out the rules of engagement and terms within a formal contract. This will ensure both the influencer and the brand are protected and that all parties understand the terms of the partnership.
Next, the fun part – working with the influencer on content creation. Provide key messages and CTAs but allow the influencer freedom to put their own creative spin on the content. This is the true value the influencer brings and ensures content is authentic and delivered in their own voice, while still communicating core brand messages.
- Measuring success
There are lots of ways to gauge success with influencers, and measuring KPIs can determine the ROI of partnerships and demonstrate how influencer marketing can meet business objectives. Depending on your campaign goal (awareness, engagement, conversion), the KPIs you use to measure success will differ.
Some of the most common KPIs are:
- Link clicks/click-through rate
- Followers gained
- Impressions/reach
- Likes/comments/shares/saves
- Engagements/engagement rate
- Conversions/sales (tracked using UTM codes)
Nailing influencer marketing takes practice and includes lots of learnings along the way. It requires the ability to pivot quickly and think outside of the box, but a successful campaign can bring great ROI to brands. From building authenticity and awareness, to driving new sales, the opportunities in influencer marketing are limitless.