If you are looking to increase your marketing efforts on social media, you should consider investing in influencer marketing. Launching an influencer marketing campaign can be a great way to improve brand awareness and reach your target audience.
The marketing landscape is constantly changing and influencer marketing has been on the rise for years. In fact, 65% of influencer marketing budgets increased in 2020.
Companies are increasing their influencer marketing budgets because it is a really effective way to advertise your products.
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What is Influencer Marketing?
Before you start investing in an influencer marketing campaign, it is important to know what exactly influencer marketing is. Influencer marketing is when influencers are paid by a brand to promote their products. This can be done through several different mediums and on different social media websites. The influencers can create content for your brand or do an ad read.
What kind of content will vary based on the influencer and what they normally create. Regardless of how the influencer promotes your brand, influencer marketing can be very effective. Many influencers have a strong relationship with their followers. Their followers value and trust their favorite influencers’ opinions. So when a follower sees one of their favorite influencers promoting a product, they are likely to trust their opinions.
Another advantage to influencer marketing is that some consumers will just view it as more content from their favorite influencers. A lot of people today are turned off by normal advertisements. However, they will be much more likely to interact with something their favorite influencer puts out. This is why influencer marketing typically results in higher click-through rates than online advertisements.
Steps to Launching an Influencer Marketing Campaign
Simply follow these four steps and you’ll be on your way to launching a successful influencer marketing campaign.
1 – Establish Goals
Before you launch the influencer campaign, you should always determine what your goals for the campaign will be. Setting goals is essential because it will guide every step that you take moving forward. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Maybe you want to increase engagement or to improve sales.
If you are simply looking to increase brand awareness then your best plan might be to send influencers your products. Or maybe you want to financially incentivize them to post selfies with your products. If you want to increase engagement, then having an influencer on your social media page can go far.
Oftentimes, when companies are trying to increase sales through an influencer campaign they will pay an influencer to do an ad read. The ad read often includes a special coupon code that the influencer’s followers can use when they purchase a product from your website.
2 – Find Influencers That Have Followers in Your Target Demographic
This may seem obvious but is important that you look into an influencer’s target demographic before you decide if you want to launch a campaign with them. Luckily, you do not have to guess what an influencer’s demographic is. Regardless of the social media platform, the influencer is popular on, they will analytics about their follower demographic.
When discussing a sponsorship with the influencer, you can ask them what their main demographic is. Sometimes, you might be able to tell what the influencer’s target demographic is based on the platform. Different social media platforms attract different audiences. For example, if you want to reach consumers who are in the age range of 25-30 years old, you might want to consider having a social media marketing campaign with a Facebook influencer. This is because 84% of 25-30-year-olds have a Facebook account.
3 – Always Be Authentic
When launching a social media influencer campaign, it is crucial that your brand is as authentic as possible. This might seem like common sense, but there can be serious consequences for brands that are seen as inauthentic.
First, make sure you disclose that you are paying the influencer to promote your product. Consumers will feel like they are being lied to both by the brand and the influencer if it is not disclosed. Not only will this lead to consumers disliking your brand, but you can actually get into legal trouble if it is not disclosed. The last thing you want when launching a social media influencer campaign is to have to worry about your brand getting into legal trouble. In addition to disclosing that the influencer was paid for the post, you should make sure that the post matches your brand values. You do not want an influencer to advertise right next to a post that goes against your brand values. Many consumers will hold your brand accountable for sponsoring an influencer that created a post that upset them in some way.
4 – Create Quality Sponsored Content
One option to consider when launching a social media influencer campaign is to pay influencers to make sponsored content for your brand. You might be wondering how sponsored content is different from a sponsored post. Simply, sponsored content is a lot more involved.
For example, if you were to simply sponsor an influencer’s video, they would probably read an advertisement for your brand somewhere in your video. Sponsored content is different because the whole point of the content revolves around your brand. Many clothing companies have influencers create videos where throughout the entire video they are trying on clothing from the brand. The main downside to this is that it is more expensive to pay an influencer to make sponsored content. This makes sense because it provides more exposure for your brand since the entire piece of content revolves around your brand. Additionally, it requires more work from an influencer to make a sponsored content. However, if you have the money in your marketing budget, you should consider hiring an influencer to make sponsored content for you.
How Much Should You Pay Influencers?
Knowing how much you should pay influencers is an important part of planning your influencer marketing campaign. Since influencer marketing is a relatively new industry, there are no set standards for how much you should pay an influencer. Different influencers have different size followings and therefore expect different amounts of compensation.
An influencer could also charge more or less based on who their main demographic is. If they have a demographic that many brands want to reach they could charge more. Additionally, the platform the influencer posts on can affect the price. For a sponsored blog post 96% of influencers charge $1000 dollars or less and 87% charge $500 dollars or less. Blog posts are some of the more expensive types of content an influencer will make for you since they take more time and effort.
Influencers will typically charge less for Facebook posts, with 96% of influencers charging $500 dollars or less and 90% of influencers charging $250 dollars or less. Influencers also typically charge less for branded tweets. 96% of influencers charge $200 dollars or less for a sponsored tweet and 90% of influencers charge $150 dollars or less. Each influencer will have their own rate they expect to be paid but keeping these numbers in mind can help you set a provisional budget for your influencer marketing campaign.
Make Sure You Measure Your Results
After you have run an influencer campaign, one of the most important things you can do is measure your results. Look back at the goals you made at the beginning of the campaign. Analyze how many of them you were actually able to reach.
If you had multiple influencers make promotional posts for your brand, you might want to analyze which campaign had the most engagement. If one of the influencers you sponsored did better, you may want to consider working with them in the future.
Of course, if a post did not meet your goals it might not be the influencers fault. Changing small things about an influencer’s post can drastically change its success. Maybe it was the wording of the caption that caused fewer users to interact with the post. If you had a discount code that went along with the post, maybe the deal was not enticing enough to their followers. Maybe if it had been 20% off instead of 10% off, more users would have made a purchase. Since there are a lot of factors that can affect your results, it is important to analyze these as part of the big picture.
FAQs about How to Launch an Influencer Marketing Campaign:
- How do I start an influencer marketing campaign?
- What does influencer marketing mean?
- How do you plan an influencer campaign?
- How much should I charge an influencer?
- How do you measure influencer marketing?
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