If you use influencer marketing correctly, it can both increase your brand awareness, increase your sales and contribute to a longer-term stronger and more credible brand.
To succeed with influencer marketing, there are some starting points that are more important than others to take into account – especially already at the planning stage of your campaign.
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The target audience
The first mistake many companies often make when working with influencer marketing is to choose influencers in the first place, and let the profiles control which one is targeted.
But this approach can result in a wrong outcome for your campaign – because you risk reaching completely the wrong people. Instead of looking at which influencers you think have the right type of followers – start with your own defined audience! Having a clear direction and strategy for the people you want to reach is the key to all successful marketing – and the primary factor when it comes to creating profitable influencer marketing.
“There are built-in tools in several channels where you can read which target group follows a specific influencer.”
In order to reach your target group, it is then necessary to find out which influencers have the right type of followers.
There are built-in tools across multiple channels, such as YouTube Analytics, Instagram stats, and of course Google Analytics, where you can read which target audience follows a specific influencer.
But, note! Just because there is a plethora of influencers with pure cooking accounts (so-called “foodies”) – this does not mean that these profiles are right for neither your target group nor your brand. Nor does a profile that is 30 years old itself be relevant to this target group – for the influencer may rather have followers who are primarily in the age of 17-22, for example.
When it comes to aspects such as age, gender and geography, it is not necessarily necessary that the followers have the same demographics as the profile itself. Just taking this into account when working with influencer marketing can often lead to a mismatch between the influencer and the target audience. Instead, start from things that are characterized primarily by interest and behavior – and don’t forget to look at concrete data!
Work strategically and long term
Thinking long term already at the initial stage is the second, big reason why you should use influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing will be profitable. The two most common goals when choosing to work with influencer marketing are 1) building your brand and engaging with engagement or 2) driving conversion. Depending on what your main purpose of the campaign is, you will also get different types of results in the long run.
“As brand love increases, sales also increase in the long run, simply.”
For example, an effect of increased brand awareness over time can also be increased brand love – that is, how customers view your brand, simply. For brand awareness can occur from multiple perspectives; both positive and neutral or negative.
When an influencer you trust speaks plenty of a brand, your previous opinion will often be gradually erased – and when it’s time for you to sign the next mobile phone subscription.
“We need to be reminded of an unknown brand several times in order to eventually possibly consider buying. ”
Of course, when you work long-term with influencer marketing, you will be able to see increased sales – even if your brand is new, or to be established in a new market. After all, we need to be reminded of an unknown brand several times in order to eventually consider buying.
For low-cost products, such as travel or lawn mowers, for example, continuity is even more important in being able to meet the right people and push their right buttons at the right time.
The primary difference between a long-term profitable result and the effect you can see in the short term is that your brand will not remain long-term with the target group – whether the goal is direct conversion or brand awareness. That new eco-ice cream brand you bought a couple of times in July may not at all remind you of the freezer counter for the children’s party in October, for example.
Collaborate with the right influencers
It can never be said too many times: NEVER choose influencers based solely on how many followers they have – or just based on your gut feeling. It is a common mistake that can have a huge impact on profit and profitability.
Today, profiles can buy followers, comments and likes, which for the untrained eye (with lack of tools) can be difficult to see the difference from real. If you happen to work with an influencer who has a fake follower, it will most clearly show up on the result – you may get a lot of interactions and engagement on the posts – but not a single purchase in your e-commerce, for example.
However, if the campaign aims to be more brand-building, it can be difficult to see whether the followers are real or not. Here it is required instead that you analyze the results of the effect of the selected target group, using direct surveys. To make sure you work with the right profiles, an influencer agency is a very valuable resource.
They have large networks, practical experience of influencer collaborations and, not least, relevant insights about what different types of profiles may be relevant (and profitable!).
To you. In addition to ensuring that the followers actually match your actual target audience, the tonality and focus of the selected influencer is also extremely important in order to create good results for your campaign. There must be a natural match between the influencer, your brand and the product or service that the campaign is about.
The influencer must be able to talk about your brand in a genuine way, something that is closely related to who the person is and what he or she stands for. It is important both for the influencer himself AND for you – so that none of you will break in credibility towards the followers and the target group.
Dare to let go of control
An important aspect that comes into play when it comes to credibility is at the same time to allow the influencer to be completely free to create their own content.
Dare to let go of the control and let it stand for the creative content – it’s a professional you hired! Influencers are talented creators who know their target audience best, have established a relationship with their followers and know exactly what attracts them.
By handing the creation over to the influencer, you will get completely targeted audience content that will generate higher engagement and better results. At the same time, it also becomes cost-effective for you as a marketer, as you or your team do not have to spend time on production.
Basing everything on statistics and history
Recently, the media has raised the problem of fake followers and distorted figures that arise in connection with it. An example is an influencer who has 500,000 followers and only drives a dozen clicks to your website. It is seen as a failed campaign and a wasted investment, because the individual has fake followers.
There are two primary ways to avoid collaborations with such profiles. An alternative is to do a thorough research around the profile, look at their account and compare the number of followers with the engagement. In it also how that development has looked for a longer period.
The other alternative is to look at their follower trend, are there times when you see a sharp increase in followers?
If that is the case then it is a warning bell, many of the purchases when it comes as a result are made in bulk. Hence, the influencer can one day go from 10000 to 15000 followers.
To make sure that you not only choose the right kind of influencers for your campaign, but actually find the very best profiles, the best way is to start from the past history and statistics that characterize previous collaborations.
Based on the influencer’s own data and third-party tools that benchmark and compare the results, it is possible to draw conclusions about how well they have performed in various campaigns. In addition, it is also possible to see more detailed information, for example within which level of a selected segment that the influencer is the strongest.
“When you work with an influencer agency, you get professional help to pinpoint the profiles that are most suitable for carrying your message and your brand.”
By analyzing the historical results of previous campaigns, it is easy to read out a potential outcome of your campaign, and draw conclusions about what is right for you. At the same time, machine learning can identify influencers with similar results that also match your intended campaign, based on their target audience data and history.
