Let’s face it.
While it’s essential to have paid media, and email marketing campaigns, these rarely bring that it factor. It’s not earned social media from shares of your content or even the followers you’re buying.
It’s the travel vlogger with 10k followers who just posted she loves your t-shirts made of organic cotton. It’s the gym owner who posts the joggers you sell with his abs every day, to his 15k fan-base.
It’s the local celebrity who shows up to all the football games; a nano-influencer (an Instagram user who has between 1k to 10k followers) who is “obsessed” with this new skincare line.
These are the people you want to hone in on because they’ll be doing a lot of the targeting for you. If an influencer just posted your product on their social channels, you can be rest assured your name just appeared in a good portion of their audiences’ feeds, especially if that influencer has a good engagement rate.
And the more they post, the more your name is remembered. Recognized even.
Best part? The audience trusts this person and chooses to follow their content— it’s not a fifteen-second ad on Youtube everyone wishes they could skip.
Forbes explains it perfectly: “younger audiences, in particular, are skeptical of traditional, one-way communication strategies, but the reason influencers are so important right now is not only due to a growing lack of trust in advertising; consumers are hungry for authenticity.”
Check out our article on Gen Z influencers themselves if you’re curious to hear more.
If you’ve read this far, it likely means you are interested in working with or considering working with influencers and there is no question of their value in the right setting. So, now that you got the gist, let’s dig into the process you’ll want to follow to ensure measurable influencer campaign success.
Setting Goals Aligned to Business Objectives
Forbes said it best.
“Influencer content can go sour quickly and pick up unwanted attention if the influencer is promoting a product that feels foreign to their feed,” the article heeds, quoting Dixie Roberts, DKC/HangarFour. “Ensure you do careful research of their past content to not only identify high engagement rates but also brand alignment so your product will feel like a natural fit.”
When starting an influencer campaign, it’s of utmost importance to pick goals and business objectives that will are aligned with the channel throughout the campaign. In other words, brands should first define goals, not in terms of vanity metrics like post views but how they support business growth.
The best way to do this is to treat every campaign as a project. Build a timeline and schedule, provide everyone involved with specific roles within that timeline, and indicate how the results of the influencer campaign should complement your business.
This campaign does not need to be the center but should be one of the actions set as a way to enact the objectives you value as a brand. Clearly define what you want to achieve — is it more engagement on social media, higher click-through rates, greater traffic to your website? Perhaps all of the above?
Outline the key objectives you want to take towards your goals, create a realistic timeline, and assign actions to those roles and who will be in charge of those actions.
“The great thing about setting better objectives is that when you do act, you should be taking actions that are in alignment with where you want to see your organization moving,” Project Manager advises.
So, get moving!
Ensure Measurement and Tracking is in Place
To ensure any campaign is performing as expected, it’s important to invest in the platforms and programs that allow for proper measurement of influencer activity as well as communication and task management tools for assigning responsibilities.
Important features to look for in task management and communication tools are being able to assign specific roles, user tagging, task deadlines, and an easy feedback system so that whatever project your brand puts forward, everyone is aware of how they contribute. From the influencer side, tools that help you centralize communication, keep track of published content, and view post analytics are essential. Platforms such as Dovetale, Trend and Activate merge influencer communication and measurement into a singular interface.
Once your team does begin the influencer recruitment, it’s essential for those doing the outreach to understand any criteria around influencers who should be involved as well as what role they have in measuring the influencer’s performance. Most importantly, determine what elements of the influencer campaign are to be measured in alignment with business objectives
Which brings us to the next step.
Developing the Campaign Brief and Contract
Before you solidify a relationship with the influencer you would like to work with, ensure you develop the campaign brief and contract. The campaign brief servers as a guide for influencers that you recruit to your campaign as to what content should be created and what should not, how the brand should be referenced, any key performance indicators, and even some legal disclaimers.
The contract and brief should be as clear as possible and discussed with your company’s financial team (and legal counsel if you have one). What is your budget for the year, for the month? What products generate the most attention on your site and are they the ones you want the influencer to promote?
When developed, this contract should include disclosure agreements, legal disclaimers, social media policy, guidelines that incorporate exclusivity rules, and that the influencer will “represent and warrant that they will comply with all applicable laws.”
For more on how to develop the contract and brief, check out Learning Hub’s step-by-step process or Jotform’s cohesive templates.
Once the campaign brief and contract are ready, your outreach manager can begin contacting those on your target list. Depending on the influencer, this can be via an outreach email, direct message, or other forms of communication while following them on their channels and engaging with their content.
But before commencing outreach, be sure you’ve identified the correct influencers for your campaign goals.
How to Identify the Correct Influencers
Someone who could speak to this is an influencer herself, so we reached out to Mindy Shiben, one of the women who appeared on Married at First Sight, Season 10.
“I didn’t really know what an ‘influencer’ really was until I accidentally became one!” Shiben said, exclaiming. “After participating in a reality show, I gained a large IG following overnight, and brand deals starting coming in. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to collaborate with some of my favorite brands. You don’t have to be a perfect-looking actor or model and follow a set script anymore. Brands are looking for real people with real engagement.”
And that’s exactly it.
The right influencers aren’t the ones who need a script or the actors you hire to say the things you want them to say — the right influencers love your brand already or embody the values of your brand and can easily disc when talking about the products you provide for them to use.
And finding the influencers that share your brand’s values, location, mission or target audience is not that difficult. The most common methods are to search through hashtags, search through your existing audience, using Google Alerts (or similar tools like A News Tip), or using influencer discovery platforms.
Hashtags are an easy way to discover different accounts that promote the same interests or values as your brand. “Instagram algorithms divide content that’s meant for a specific target audience” using those key terms, according to Affluent.
“If you’re looking for an influencer account from Chicago, then definitely look into the #Chicago hashtag or #Chicagoinfluencer.
Immediately, you’ll be taken to accounts that you know are providing content from an area they are passionate about — leading to the “real people, real engagement” Shiben outlined earlier.
Pro tip: Location-based tags can be just as valuable as hashtags for discovery. Look at popular non-tourist locations in a specific city or region, like a popular park, trendy wine bar, or local landmark. Chances are creators gravitate to those hotspots to develop authentic local content.
Looking through your existing audience is a lot like reviewing hashtags, although this process is expedited through the use of tools like PeopleMap or Followerwonk. The goal is to identify creators that exemplify your brand’s values, consistently engage with your brand’s content, and can speak to or engages with similar audiences. Focusing on the accounts that are previous customers with authentic engagement will drive the best results.
The same goes for Google alerts — setting up certain terms can drop daily media hits to your inbox. Scroll through to see which blogs, channels, and outlets are posting about the trends your brand cares about. You might stumble across a local influencer in there somewhere — one who can promote your products just as well.
If you don’t have resources to filter creatives one by one, consider using programs like Grin, Shopping Links, or TRIBE. These influencer marketing platforms can take your keywords, audience demographics, and brand goals and align them with their database of influencers with no added fuss.
Negotiating With Influencers
When it comes to negotiating with influencers, ensuring everything is clearly outlined and documented as well as mutually understood is a key to success. In general, the following tips should help with most standard influencer negotiations:
- First, agree on the key deliverables for the campaign or collaboration. Determine what content creators are responsible for providing, on which platforms, at what times, and with what frequency. Also, clearly outline what can and cannot be said, competitors of the brand, and any exclusivity requirements for the campaign.
- Next, determine the timeframe of the engagement. Creators will want to understand if this is a one-off campaign or a longer-term partnership. Both have their unique advantages and drawbacks.
- Third, discuss and document any considerations for exiting the partnership or agreement. Will creators need to provide a two-week notice or does twenty-four hours suffice? What serves as grounds for immediate termination of the agreement?
- Following this determine compensation agreements and timeframes. Knowing what payment the influencer is due upfront or what type of action, threshold, or trigger will merit additional payment is essential for continued negotiation.
Taken in order, clearly delineating all of the terms of the agreement will help influencers in providing a holistic rate that considers all campaign factors. Remember, everything that is negotiated should be in writing, preferably within the influencer contract.
Napoleon Cat provides a good reference point for influencer negotiations, which can be found here.
Measuring Campaign Performance
“When you establish and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) for your marketing campaigns, you can clearly see what works and what doesn’t,” Intechnic reports. “You can then direct your marketing dollars toward the most effective campaigns to achieve marketing success.”
To ensure campaign performance, your company should be sure to track at least the following when hiring your influencer:
- Return on Investment
- Total Sales
- Bounce Rates
- Click-Thru Rates
- Average User Time On-Site
- Average Sale Amount Per Customer
- Cost Per Click
- Cost Per Lead
- Source of Customer Acquisition
Look to see how the influencers posting the products on their page affects these metrics. Are any engagement targets being met from influencer content? Are customers staying longer on your page or have sales increased for the specific products they are posting? Where are customers clicking the links from?
Campaigns can further be divided into the top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel metrics to better analyze each influencer’s overall performance impact. For example, examining the average cost per click could help to determine which influencers drive the most clicks at the lowest relative cost. However, an influencer may have a higher cost per click, but a higher number of overall sales conversions, changing how this influencer would be compared to others.
Without question, this type of analysis requires greater insight into the behavior of your website visitors, so utilize tools like Google Analytics or Oribi to get a better sense of performance.
Scaling with the Right Influencers
If the metrics are showing you the numbers your brand desires, it’s important to maintain the relationship — especially as the influencer continues to grow.
Be sure to maintain constant communication by offering new products, or finding ways to engage top-performing influencers with event opportunities and other perks. Whether it be gift cards, donating to charities of their choice, featuring them on your blog, or providing great discounts to your products; the key is to consistently identify ways to maintain a dialogue.
Once the line is open and ideas are more free-flowing, look for ways to structure a more long-term agreement with a combination of direct and intangible benefits in exchange for continued content production. This agreement would just be an extension of your existing contract.
If the right influencer is in your view, don’t let them getaway!
