Want to develop an effective influencer marketing strategy?
We want you to tell the truth. Influencer marketing is not sending a gift to an influencer in exchange for a post featuring your product. Or at least, that’s not enough.
If you want to position your business better in digital media, you’ll need to develop an effective influencer marketing strategy. Let’s dive in.
What Is Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing, also known as working with creators, is a marketing strategy which consists of identifying opinion leaders who can help a brand or business to connect with its target audience, and promote their brand.
Influencer marketing is not a relatively new concept. It’s been around for a long time – haven’t your favorite singers been hired to promote a brand?
Now, it has been democratized, and anyone with influence over a group of followers can be an influencer.
Benefits Of Working With Influencers That You Didn’t Know
According to Statista, in 2022, the market was valued at a record 16.4 billion U.S. dollars.
Which means that brands believe in the effectiveness of influencer marketing, and that’s why we’ve seen a booming content creation.
What are the benefits of running influencer marketing campaigns?
Influencer marketing can:
- Help you reach niche audiences
- Give you access to creator licensing
- Boost your SEO rankings
- Aid your content strategy
- Generate sales
Brands And Businesses That Work With Influencers
Usually, big brands constantly work with celebrities to promote their products. You have seen the last campaign of Shakira for Burberry’s, right?
Small businesses work with nano influencers or micro influencers. And also ecommerce stores. They can work with these content creators in order to promote their online store, offer a promotion, share user-generated-content (UGC), and even use them as testimonials.
What’s An Influencer Vs. What’s Not
What’s an influencer
- A person with a high engagement, regardless of the number of followers.
- A person who promotes your brand or your product.
- A person who works with a strategic plan.
What’s not an influencer
- A person with a large audience in a social media platform.
- A person who sells your product.
- A person who has published many posts.
Types Of Influencers
There are many types of influencers, yet we can break them down into five categories:
- Nano influencers. From 1,000 to 5,000 followers
- Micro influencers. From 5,000 to 20,000 followers
- Power influencers. From 20,000 to 100,000 followers
- Mega influencers. From 100,000 to 1 million followers
- Celebrities. More than 1 million followers
Now, before hiring an influencer, you have to take into consideration the engagement rate.
Engagement rate of the influencer is key. The higher the engagement, they are more likely to influence their audience to buy.
That’s why, brands are more interested in working with micro influencers than celebrities. They have a higher engagement rate.
When To Use An Influencer Marketing Campaign
Even though, you can use influencers as you wish, there are times that can be really helpful for your company’s purpose.
1. To promote a brand, product or service
2. To launch a brand, product or service
3. To promote events
Partnerships Between Brands And Influencers
There are three typical partnerships between brands and influencers:
- A brand gives a gift to the influencer, while the influencer publishes a post promoting the product (gift).
- An influencer sends a brand message (i.e. new brand store), and get paid by the brand.
- A brand uses the celebrity’s image for its campaign in exchange for a sum of money.
How To Develop An Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy
Here’s the four steps that will help you develop an effective influencer marketing strategy.
1. Define your influencer marketing goals and budget
Perhaps one of the most common goals is to reach new target customers. But it’s not the only one.
Consider the following goals:
- Brand awareness
- Increase sales
- Get leads by offering a lead magnet
- Earn shares, comments and likes of your content
Research tells us that 19% of businesses spend between $1,000-$10,000 a year, and 18% spend between $100,000-$500,000 a year.
To get you an idea, Matt Crump share with Later, his fee guide and rates per post.
| Followers count | Price range for posts |
| 5 – 10k | $100 – $500 |
| 10 – 25k | $500 – $800 |
| 25 – 50k | $800 – $1500 |
| 50 – 100k | $1500 – $2000 |
| 100k – 250k | $2000 – $6000 |
| 250k – 1 million | $6000 – $10000 |
| 1+ million | $10000 |
2. Choose the type of campaign and message
Keep in mind that influencers are creators. Which means they are experts in their field. Your job will be to deliver some guidelines. However, don’t expect to be bossy.
Determine the type of campaigns you want to run: guest posting, contests or giveaways, discount codes, mentions, sponsored content, etc.
Related content: How To Create And Promote Social Media Content
3. Compile a list of qualified influencers and connect with them
As we’ve talked before, it’s important that you choose your influencers well. Don’t be enlightened by the number of followers. That’s not the most important metric at all.
Check out:
- The influencer’s niche
- The influencer’s values, and the message it conveys to its audience
- Their engagement rate
You can also use influencer marketing platforms such as:
4. Measure your results and refine your strategy
When we talk about measuring results, we have to keep in mind that we are not talking only about numbers.
There are qualitative and quantitative KPI’s.
Qualitative metrics: Number of posts, Engagement rate, Number of clicks, and conversion rate.
Quantitative metrics: Shown interest, connection between brand and the audience, and feedback from the audience.
Once you’ve collected the data, analyze it, and refine it, if necessary.
Conclusion
With your influencer marketing strategy, you are set to start your campaigns.
As we’ve always told you, a strategic plan will help you to achieve your marketing goals. Brands and businesses are spending more and more on influencer marketing campaigns, so it’s here to stay.
The best way is that you try it, if you haven’t yet. Test, test, and test. And keep doing what works for your business.