The effect of an Influencer
Influencer marketing has helped many companies expand their customer reach, raise brand awareness and exceed sales. But social media platforms are overly saturated with sponsored posts. Users are looking for genuine reviews on products and are observant of cynical ads by brands and overly promoted products or services that fail to fulfil their promises. But despite that, 17% of internet users report purchasing a product in the past month because of an influencer social media post.
When partnering with an influencer, you must consider a few points to better structure the perfect strategy :
- Influencer: which influencer will best fit with the values of your brand?
- Content: What do you want your audience to know?
- Platform: Where is the best place to find and connect with your audience?
- Objective: What outcomes do you expect to achieve with your strategy
When influencing goes right
A good influencer-based promotional strategy builds trust between the brand and their audience; brands must give users the feeling that just another “normal human” suggests this product, service or brand is good because the influencers trust it themselves. The idea of an influencer promoting a brand suggests that the product or service is worth the price. Many marketers believe that having one influencer across their campaigns is the most effective, 56% of brands use the same influencers across different campaigns. Using this strategy can lead to fatigue from the user and is not financial efficient as not every consumer can relate to that one macro influencer. Your target audience will have similar interests, but in that group of people, there will be subgroups who will be able to identify and relate to another micro-influencer. Contracting one flashy macro influencer can be expensive, especially if you don’t obtain the desired results. By implementing a strategy that focuses on a variety of influencers and who they will attract increases scalability.
To plan the best strategy, brands must first evaluate what they want to achieve with their campaign. We have broken down the objectives that can be met with an influencer marketing strategy.
Awareness
Influencer marketing is a great way to raise brand awareness; the smallest of brands can quickly catch the awareness of their targeted audience via an influencer. Plan the perfect strategy by choosing the best social channels and an influencer whose profile matches your brand and can reinforce your brand’s identity and expose this to your target audience. Ensure that your brand is visible at all times and that the content isn’t just about the influencer but about what your brand can bring to the user.
Product launch
Using an influencer to bring awareness to a new product launch is a great way to drive sales. The content should come across as a review. Users on social platforms are always looking for inspiration. Hence why Pinterest is rapidly becoming a popular app. Not only can you target users who already use a product or service similar to what your brand has to offer, but you can find potential customers who have never heard of your brand.
Engagement
Influencers often have high engagement rates because users see them as normal human scouting for the best products or services that can be trusted. Many influencers, especially in the beauty and fashion industry, began making videos reviewing multiple products and brands and analysing their standards. Users share their own opinions, reviews and suggestions, and engage and consider the influencer’s opinion before their next purchase. Engagement rate is a great metric to evaluate whether or not an influencer campaign is effective. Measuring the impact of your campaign is important to ensure that your actions are driving results. The data can provide insights and learnings about your target audience that will benefit and improve other campaigns.
Finding the right influencer- Micro VS Macro
As previously mentioned, finding the right influencer is imperative to carrying out the best campaign. When deciding which influencer will be the most effective, you must consider:
- Who they are
- How many followers do they have & what platforms do they use
- Where their audience is located
- What content do they post
- If their values synchronise with your brand
Influencers are the most beneficial when they fit coherently with your brand; make sure that the influencer isn’t promoting a product or service that contradicts the interests of their audience or personal brand. Like audience segmentation in paid ads, you wouldn’t promote a product or service to an audience that has no interest in your brand or what you sell. Each influencer has an audience that matches their interests, hobbies or lifestyle. Users are always looking for inspiration, and influencers can play a significant role in providing users with great content which inspire them to buy, try and even make a significant change within their lives. In today’s digital age, you can find an influencer for every industry.
From mental health to hair and beauty to DIY, there is an influencer for most if not every market. Influencers range from mega, macro, micro or nano, depending on their following. Mega and macro-influencers have the highest reach, it was previously reported that Kylie Jenner charges $1 million per sponsored social media post. If your objective is to raise awareness, choosing an influencer with a higher following would best fit. Your brand will have to be equipped enough to handle the mass attention and customer demands by choosing this influencer. Brand reputation plays a crucial role in brand awareness, and not being able to handle the demands or not being ready for the traffic can damage your brand. One of the benefits of working with an influencer with a heavy following is that your brand will be exposed to large audiences, but they are most expensive; therefore, it should only be considered if it is within your budget.
Micro and nano influencers usually produce content for specific or niche markets and communities because they have a smaller audience that engages more with their content. These smaller influencers are deemed more authentic, have more rapport with their followers, and engage regularly. Understanding your target audience will help you decide which type or set of influencers are best for your marketing strategy.
How do we measure the impact of an influencer strategy?
Each metric is measured differently. Sabrina Molina, Influencer marketing Specialist explains, “There are many different metrics to measure the results of a campaign, but they are each calculated differently”. For example, engagement is calculated by interactions (comments + likes on a post), divided by the number of followers, and multiplied by 100 to get the percentage. Providing a specific discount code for each influencer is a great way of increasing sales and measuring the influencer’s impact and content.
Measuring the impact of your campaign is important to ensure that your actions are driving results. The data can provide insights and learnings about your target audience that will benefit and improve other campaigns.
Best practise tips
- Ensure that the content of the influencer matches the tone of your brand.
- Note how the influencer interacts and engages with their audience and what content they suggest raises the engagement rate.
- Choose an influencer who knows your brand and is interested in the products or services that are being promoted, the more they know, the more opinions they have, the more authentic their content will come across to the users.
- Supply a discount code to increase sales and track how beneficial the influencers are to your campaign.
- Test your content and use different influencers to optimise your campaign and drive results!
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