Streamlining Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Management Process

For a business and brand to grow, it needs to create traction in the market. To do that, someone has to start talking about your business. Relying solely on print ads, traditional advertising and marketing, public relations, and word-of-mouth is not going to get you very far these days. Instead, rely on different media platforms, including social media, and make sure your Influencer Marketing campaign management process is streamlined.

The digital era has shifted the focus of business in terms of marketing strategy. For example, brands are starting to see that their audience is human after all. Namely, they crave relationships and communication, especially as consumers. What they see on paper or hear on the radio might not be quite enough to push them from being mere audience members to buyers. With this in mind, businesses need to adapt and evolve when promoting their products and services.

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Why Is It Imporant to Streamline Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Management Process?

Nowadays, people are on the lookout for information as evidenced by the rise of social media users in the last decade. For example, reports show that 4.66 billion people globally are internet users. This is a staggering number that businesses are attempting to capitalize on and drive sales. The power of social media today has enabled brands to scale their products and services to a much larger and diverse audience. Thankfully, several platforms and channels are readily available for brands to launch their online presence.

In a generation that is tech-savvy, being viral online does not automatically define the success of your brand. For example, a single click may skyrocket stardom or hit you rock bottom from the get-go.

Given the risks involved, why do businesses opt to construct their marketing strategies mainly online, specifically via Influencer Marketing campaigns? Here are some benefits of going the influencer route:

1. You can devise a specific plan based on your budget.

Any business would choose to promote its products and services in a cost-effective yet impactful way. Influencer Marketing places businesses, especially competitors, in the same arena. So, this puts pressure on brands to knock campaigns out of the park. Social media influencers are people who guide the thoughts and feelings of their followers on a media platform. There really is no answer to how many followers you must have in order to be an influencer. In fact, everyone on social media has the power to influence their followers in one way or another. However, when it comes to sponsoring someone to advocate for your brand, considering the influencer tier should be an important step in your strategy.

Your budget will obviously be a large factor in determining which tier of influencers you sponsor. However, your objectives should still be considered. If your goal is awareness, but you can only afford nano influencers, your budget may be better spent somewhere else. The same goes if you are hoping to work with a celebrity to get widespread reach but don’t have the budget. Instead, consider working with a macro influencer who is still seen as a professional and has a large, broad audience to reach your objectives. However, if you want a celebrity endorsement and all you can afford are lower-tiered influencers, you may want to reconsider your campaign objectives or determine a different marketing strategy that will better reach your goals.

2. You can track your performance.

What makes Influencer Marketing sustainable and efficient is its monitoring capability. For example, you can test tactics, watch the results, and tweak actions based on metrics. This saves you time, maximizes your budget, and helps you learn what resonates with your target market. However, measuring a campaign’s success can be complex. Therefore, how do you determine whether or not a campaign was successful?

Follow the helpful tips found in these posts about stats tracking and reporting:

Ever-changing APIs, metrics tools, and social media algorithms keep us on our toes. However, it is more important than ever to get your stats in order to set campaign goals and prove ROI.

3. You can target your niche.

Influencer Marketing allows you to find creators whose audience matches your buyers’ persona. Specifically, those followers with the age, gender, marital and parenting status, etc. of your ideal consumers. In this way, you reach people who are more likely to engage with you.

Learn 7 Tips to Finding the Right Influencers for Your Brand.

4. You can build effective customer relationships.

Likely, your business’ ideal goal is sales or other conversion-related calls to action. Therefore, it’s key to focus on the customer journey in your Influencer Marketing efforts. But, this doesn’t just mean opening up your brand to a wider audience through creator partnerships. Additionally, it isn’t limited only to top-of-funnel results. Rather, it means driving your target market further and further through the marketing funnel with influencers’ help.

For example, a poll by Tomoson rated Influencer Marketing as the fastest-growing online channel for consumer acquisition. As it continues to grow, revenue metrics will be essential for marketing budgets. By treating Influencer Marketing as a revenue center instead of a cost center, you can increase budget allotment and ultimately benefit the bottom line of your brand and company.

Find out how to use Influencer Marketing and the marketing funnel to most effectively and quickly move consumers along in the customer journey.

5. You can be everywhere.

Business promotion no longer relies on traditional advertising like billboards and flyers. Instead, driving awareness is almost limitless due to social media’s wide array of formats, platforms, users, and audiences. So, get creative. Dive into your brand’s data to see who your target audience is. Next, figure out where they are (which blog and social media platforms and traditional outlets they frequent). Then, find out which types of content they prefer (audio, written, video). Finally, roll out tactics that resonate with them. The sky’s the limit in today’s digital age!

Key Steps in Streamlining Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Management Process

Influencer Marketing Hub says that a majority of brands use Influencer Marketing concepts across different campaigns with 67 percent receiving a high return on investment (ROI) and 90 percent believing this is an effective marketing form. Joining the bandwagon means going through the following to ensure you are in the right direction when strategizing, launching, and managing your Influencer Marketing campaign.

1. Map your messaging and create your campaign calendar.

Will your goals be better achieved during a particular season, month, or celebration? Launching your campaign in a specific timeline using relevant hashtags will help you gain engagements and views.

Visualize the cycle of your campaign by creating your calendar ahead of time. The calendar should reflect the target dates, the media channels you will use, the requirements for your campaign and influencers, and the expected result(s). In doing so, you can track and assess if you are achieving (and exceeding) the results you want. Prepare your calendar a month or two ahead so you can forecast any possible challenges and modify strategies as needed.

2. Do your research and optimize your campaign.

Now that you have a clear picture of how and what you want from your campaign, start your research. Research typically includes looking into current marketing trends, other brand’s campaigns, determining your niche, understanding which platform is fit for you, and—most importantly—knowing how much it will cost for the campaign that you intend to run.

What type of campaign do you want to run? Do you want the messages to be spread through reels, videos, family-related content, or honest reviews? Importantly, make sure to also create specific keywords that will optimize your site. All of these considerations are the basic foundation as to whether or not you are steering your campaign in the right direction.

With social media taking up a huge chunk of an average person’s daily routine, it is a no-brainer that almost 74 percent of consumers trust what they see online when making a purchase. The marketing trend for the past five years aims to build strong market relationships to increase brand awareness and loyalty, which can be greatly achieved with the help of Influencer Marketing. Most brands, big or small, steer their campaigns to social media right away believing that it will give them the instant ROI they wish to achieve.

If you are a brand owner and are seriously considering going the Influencer Marketing route, then here is a guide you need to reference to make sure your brand is Influencer Marketing-ready.

3. Vet your influencers and improve collaboration.

Always bear in mind that not all influencers are meant to partner with your brand. Choose those who will add value and whose niche matches your brand. Influencers are capable of influencing (see what I did there?) their audience (which is full of loyal followers). Moreover, you have to decide whether to focus on the number or the quality of content and engagement your future campaign will make with your chosen influencer.

It’s important to keep in mind that influencers are creative people who can develop a positive, trustworthy image of your brand. With hundreds of thousands of influencers ready and willing to partner with you, it’s extremely important to find the right influencers for your brand. The right influencers:

Drive high ROI on your Influencer Marketing campaigns.
Help you avoid frustration.
Create a genuine connection with you.
Build long-term relationships.
Increase customers.

To find the right influencers for your brand, you’ll want to do the following:

List the campaign objectives.
Write down the influencer criteria.
Determine the brand’s vibe.
Figure out what technique you will use to find influencers.
Search for influencers that meet your criteria.
Vet the list of influencer options against the campaign criteria.
Question influencers on their past involvement with the brand and similar brands.
Do your research to avoid those with fake followers or who otherwise don’t meet your criteria to ensure the influencers are a great fit.

By performing these actions, you’ll narrow down the list of options and land on the right influencers for your brand.

4. Be innovative on social media.

With algorithms constantly changing and new social media platforms continuing to enter the scene, dynamic posts and video content are in high demand by brands. Why? They are some of the best ways of getting noticed (and potentially going viral). Plus, the short- and long-term benefits outweigh their static post counterparts.

Dynamic video content is a valuable addition to your social media and influencer strategies. It first and foremost captures the attention of your audience and increases their engagement on your post. Other benefits of using dynamic video content include the ability to send a strong message, build credibility, and establish long-term commitment. Try full videos, time-lapses, animated shorts, and creative overlays to take advantage of the power of dynamic video content. Also, consider adding different platforms to the mix.

Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and set your campaign apart from the other noise on social media. Think of new ways to drive engagement via social media should be part of your Influencer Marketing campaign management process.

5. Execute, analyze, and track metrics as part of your Influencer Marketing campaign management process.

Engagement is a good indicator of how consumers feel about the brand. As part of your Influencer Marketing campaign management process, you will have the influencers posting to their blogs and social media accounts. You should start to see mentions and engagement increase across the board. With all of these fun activities happening all at once, do you know which metrics should be tracked on each platform? With influencers posting to blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter (to name some of the heavy hitters), there are a lot (and I mean a ton) of moving parts and pieces that need to be recorded and tracked. Engagement is a valuable metric that brands can use to measure long-term return on investment.

Wrapping It All Up

Skipping right over the planning phase and brainstorming your next sure-to-go-viral campaign is always tempting. Talking tactics is a much sexier albeit distracting first step than, say, waiting around to come to a consensus on goals and budget. These steps will help you streamline your Influencer Marketing campaign management process that will drive real results:

Map Your Messaging and Create Your Campaign Calendar.
Do Your Research and SEO-ized Your Campaign.
Vet Your Influencers and Improve Collaboration.
Be Innovative On Social Media.
Execute, Analyze and Track Metrics.

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