In the digital era, brands need sure-shot techniques for brand visibility. Social media provides a platform for companies to engage with their audience and get the sales going. Endorsement through influencers for brand promotion is the best tactic to expand the reach of your brand. Like any other marketing, influencer marketing also takes an adequate amount of planning and targeting.
One of the benefits of influencer marketing is that any business, big or small, can launch the campaign on any budget. But executing the campaign without a defined goal is like moving forward aimlessly. There are numerous ways to improve the efficiency of your influencer marketing. Here, we pick the five best for you.
1. Hiring Relevant Tiered Influencers
Though it may seem attractive, hiring an influencer for their follower count is not the right strategy. There are many factors to check before hiring influencers.
- Does the influencer follower demographics match with your intended target audience?
- Do they post creative content?
- Is the influencer able to engage with their audiences?
Micro-influencers are the best for brands having budget constraints. Growing and established brands can opt for the top-down strategy. This strategy is hiring two to three layers of influencers that work in collaboration with one another. For example, a macro-influencer may speak about a topic to start a buzz. They ask followers to post with a certain hashtag. The next layer of influencers reinforces what the top influencer has told, and they promote the hashtag. Similarly, the micro-influencers speak to their dedicated followers and create huge traffic for the hashtag, and the trend continues. Collaborating with tiered influencers offers the benefit of increased followers and high engagement.
2. Engaging With Influencers
Influencers create good content to engage and gain followers. They know the type of content their followers prefer. Don’t force your ideas and content on influencers when you collaborate with them. When you offer them creative liberty, they not only come up with good content, but they also try to get maximum user engagement. Your work is to educate the influencers on the brand and your expectations from the endorsement.
Talk to them about the payment terms clearly. There are two ways to engage with influencers.
- Pay per post model
- Performance-based model
In the pay per post model, you pay the influencer for each post regardless of its outcome. In a performance-based model, you both decide and set achievement and payment benchmarks. You pay the influencer depending on their performance. It requires that the influencers strive to achieve better results for them to get good compensation. The performance-based model gives high-quality content and a greater volume of posts. It also has a greater probability of generating high-quality leads.
3. Trying Various Social Media Platforms
When we look at the statistics, Instagram is the preferred destination for influencer marketing campaigns. But brands have to see where their target audience exists. If their niche audience is on TikTok or Twitter, it does not make sense to run influencer ads on Instagram. Moreover, every platform offers unique value for brands to connect with their customers authentically.
For instance, influencer ads on travel vlogs run on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, do not rely on only one channel. Instead, run the influencer ads on at least two channels. Collaborate with influencers to blog for your products on your website. Posting on multiple channels ensures higher engagement levels.
4. Amplifying Influencer Endorsements
Influencer marketing is not the sole responsibility of the influencer. It works best when even the brands take active participation to boost the endorsement in multiple ways on various social media platforms. The influencer endorsement can be promoted through-
- Posting it on the brand’s social media channels
- Paid campaigns on social media platforms
- Allowing the influencer to take over the brand’s social media platform for the campaign duration
Test different permutations of the ads to determine the highest performing ads. For some, it might be a combination of paid campaigns and organic posts. Measuring and analyzing the ad results gives you the best-performing ad set. It can be boosted to get more engagement.
5. Measure the success of your Influencer Marketing Campaigns
An influencer marketing campaign impacts the brand in several ways. The intent of measuring the campaign results is-
- To see the influencer performance
- How much it drives the brand
- How it helps lift the sales.
The influencer performance is measured by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like-
- Impression- Reach of the content
- Engagement- Likes, shares & comments
- Conversions- Clicks on the influencer promoted link
The brand drive cannot be measured directly. But qualitative analysis is conducted to know the amount of brand awareness and purchase intent delivered through influencer marketing. The parameters to check the brand drive are-
- Comments and DMs received on the post
- Shares of the post
- Clicks on the influencer promoted link
- Contest participation for giveaways.
Unlike brand awareness, you can measure the sales lead directly. Brands generate a separate link for the website landing page and give it to influencers. Similarly, you can also generate a discount coupon. Influencers promote this link in their endorsement. The sales lead is measured by checking-
- Increase in the website traffic before and after the campaign
- The number of clicks to the influencer-promoted link
- The number of discount coupons redeems
Don’t do it all yourself- Hire the best influencer marketing platform
Finding relevant influencers and designing and managing campaigns is not everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, many influencer campaigns fail miserably because the companies lack the proficiency and creativity to do it. A good solution is automating tasks to make the job easy and efficient. Hire the services of the best influencer marketing platform to find relevant influencers and create the best possible campaigns.
By collaborating with the best influencer marketing platform, brands can leverage influencer marketing for a better ROI and outcome. These marketplaces have a repository of influencers from various social media platforms. The brands can place their offers on the platform and influencers bid for it. The companies can even take the help of the marketplace to design and run the campaigns besides reporting them.
Summing it up
Do not be worried about how to improve efficiency in your influencer marketing. Follow these five pro tips, and you are sure to get the best ROI for your influencer marketing campaign. What other tips do you suggest?
