Influencer Marketing Initiatives
Influencers offer a great opportunity to leverage their credibility and equity for your company or brand.
A quick search on Google and there are plenty of examples from organisations who have got it wrong... which is another blog post in itself.
Instead, I thought we would take a look at the steps to creating and deploying an influencer marketing strategy:
1. Define your audience & set your objectives - nothing new there but this time you need to be crystal clear about who you are targeting, otherwise it will cost you further down the line. Think carefully about who your 'traditional' audience is and if they change when you are looking to reach them via digital channels.
2. Find influencers that your audience follow, read or engage with. There are plenty of tools out there to help you with this (Klout.com often regarded as industry standard or use the individual social platforms). When using these tools, look and think about how the criteria matches the objectives of your campaign such as: reach, relevance and resonance.
3. Follow and monitor your influencers is the all too often missing step. Sign up to their newsletters, follow their updates and watch what kind of content they post and how they engage with their users. This gives the reassurance that no platform or data will ever be able to provide; ensuring you feel comfortable parting with your marketing budget.
4. Build and launch the campaign - think carefully about what you are going to give that influencer... What do you want them to think, feel and do with it? Is it a piece of content like a video? Is it a product? Do you want them to create a piece of content themselves? Often you can open the brief up to the influencer and ask them to help develop and build something together.
5. Measurement
'Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can't measure something, you can't understand it. If you can't understand it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't improve it.' ? H. James Harrington
Move away from the launch-and-leave mentality and measure the activity based on the original objectives you set at the start. Measure the activity continuously and refine the plan accordingly. Hold back some budget for unplanned events. Ensure the budget is in place and react to the unexpected.
