Planning for an Influencer Marketing Campaign in 2021:
A Quick and Simple Guide
As consumers' tastes and preferences change and alternative solutions become more readily available, it becomes important to find new ways to reach your customers and market your goods and services to them.
If you are wondering how to get started on your influencer marketing campaign, this quick guide below will definitely help!
But first, let's look at some questions you need to answer before you start your Influencer Marketing Campaign.
1) What are your goals for the campaign?
Be clear on the results you are hoping to achieve from the campaign. Your influencer(s) will need to understand what your goals are in order to help you get those results. Your goal could be as simple as “Increase sales by 50% over the next quarter” or as complex as “Build a top of funnel traffic source that you can later retarget through traditional marketing.” Either way, defined goals will help with your targeting as different sizes of influencers serve different purposes.
2) What is the best channel to reach my audience?
Many factors determine channel choice but two stand out the most - your industry and your target market definition. Who is your ideal customer? Think about variables such as age, gender, income, location, and lifestyle.
3) What is the best-suited influencer for your audience?
Analyze your brand values and customer base and choose someone who aligns with both. You want someone who your audience looks up to and who represents what your brand stands for.
4) What is your brief?
This is essentially the details of your campaign; key information that you will need to share with your influencer(s) before your campaign begins. Your brief will introduce your brand, elaborate on the purpose of your campaign and explain your target audience for your campaign. It will also specify the content format, campaign hashtags and any essential do's and don’ts relevant to the campaign.
5) What is your compensation package?
You can choose to pay your influencer actual cash or you can pay for their services through product sampling or you can arrange a percentage share of sale payment. Choose the option that works best for you and your goals.
Here’s a tip; celebrity influencers cost more than micro or nano-influencers, but you can get similar (if not better) results by hiring multiple micro or nano-influencers. These micro influencers tend to be better for sales, while mega and celebrity influencers tend to be better for awareness.
Now that we have gone through the important questions you need to answer, let’s get into the steps of launching your campaign.
A. Influencer identification
The first step is choosing which influencers you want to work with. You want to research influencers who align with your brand.
B. Outreach and Campaign Brief
Once you have selected your potential influencers, start contacting them as soon as possible. During the interaction, introduce your brand and share why you want to work with them and highlight how the collaboration will benefit them.
C. Negotiate the contract
You want to cement the specifics of the agreement before you start thinking about the creative aspect of the campaign. Ensure both parties are clear on expectations, compensation, and the timeline for the campaign.
D. Content creation and validation
Next comes the fun part! Ensure your influencers have all the information and free products they need to get started with generating their content. You will want to review a few options they put forward before signing off on the content their audience will see. Depending on the size of influencer, you’ll have varying degrees of input. For example, with meme pages it’s likely that you’ll have to provide all the content up front, but with personal influencers, there might be a couple iterations back and forth before a post gets made.
E. Campaign in progress
Allow the influencers to do their thing! Try not to micromanage. Think about how you can also amplify influencer content by reposting it to your brand’s social media accounts and integrate it into your website. We recommend putting a budget behind influencer content if it looks like it’s performing well, using Facebook and Instagram ads to amplify their reach.
F. Track results and performance
Ensure you collect all influencer content and measure the engagements and conversions on their content. Your KPI’s should be defined around your goals, whether it’s incremental sales or followers – you’ll want to track the lift on either side once your campaign is done. Unique links for each influencer are the best way to keep track – ideally, you’ll have UTM’s for each one too.
G. Influencer payment
Reward your influencers for their hard work and share feedback! Consider which partnerships you’d like to nurture for long-term collaborations.
Start planning for your influencer campaign as early as possible. Early planning will minimize hiccups and ensure a more smoothly run campaign.
