The New Frontier Of Advertising
For many brand marketers, influencer marketing is still unexplored terrain full of opportunities! On the other hand, some brand marketers have already explored the influencer space and are now looking for ways to make their influencer efforts even more successful. We can’t blame any of these folks -- with an influencer space that’s basically owned by the next generation of purchasers, ignoring influencer marketing would be simply a waste.
However, as a brand marketer, it’s important that you take into account some key considerations before launching a campaign. As a lot can be done incorrectly. In this blog, Hollywood Branded explores 4 things every brand marketer should consider before launching an influencer campaign.
#1 Ask Yourself Why
Why do you want to work with influencers? All brands can benefit from influencer marketing, but how will your brand benefit from influencers. By asking yourself why, you’ll be able to better build a campaign that accomplishes your goal(s).
Three the questions to ask oneself are:
- What does a successful influencer campaign look like for your brand?
- Who does your brand want to reach via influencers?
- What is your brand's social identity prior to launching an influencer campaign and how can you integrate that identity into your influencer efforts?
By having strong answers to these questions, including other related questions, your brand will have a better chance for influencer success.
#2 Who Are Your Influencers
This is arguably the most important factor to consider when putting together an influencer campaign -- who are your influencers and how do you plan on finding them? As a brand marketer, it is imperative that you figure out what type of influencers will best serve your campaign goals. Too often, brands think that a certain influencer will automatically work for their campaign but then end up seeing poor campaign results because the influencer didn’t turn out to be the right influencer for the job at hand.
For example, a bikini company that’s looking to run an influencer campaign may think that working with an Instagram model is their best bet but in reality, after doing some research, a brand marketer may find that the majority of her follower base is male. Considering males probably won’t be the ones purchasing the bikinis, working with this influencer wouldn’t make sense for the campaign.
When selecting your influencers, be patient and diligent in your research. Try to place yourself in the shoes of your target consumer to figure out which influencer will serve your needs best.
#3 How Are You Unique
Let’s be honest, social media is flooded with influencer marketing these days. Thousands of brands have hopped on the influencer train hoping to reap all of the benefits that is has to offer. Unfortunately, this has made the influencer space quite saturated. So, as a brand marketer, you must ask yourself “how are we unique?”.
Consumers are tired of seeing the basic “post a photo with my product” campaigns. Try to figure out a way to creatively integrate your product, message or service into an influencer’s content to avoid falling victim to all of the boring influencer campaigns that we see day in and day out. The more you’re able to stand out, the more likely your brand will experience great success with an influencer campaign.
Fun tip: instead of developing the creative strategy in house, work directly with the influencer to come up with a creative strategy that he or she thinks will work best for their audience. At the end of the day, they know their follower base better than any of us brand marketers ever could.
#4 Repurposing Content
Assuming the influencer(s) does what he or she is supposed to do, your brand will have some great content to takeaway. This content can be extremely valuable for any future promotional efforts that your brand may have. With that said, every brand marketer should be thinking about how that content can be repurposed following the campaign before they even decide to launch the campaign.
By having a firm understanding of what they want to do with the content before the campaign even ends, a brand marketer will be able to quickly piggyback off of the momentum of the campaign to boost even more positive results for the brand. Three different ways that a brand could repurpose influencer content are:
- Posting the content onto proprietary social channels
- Posting influencer responses as testimonials on the company website
- Or, if there’s some more budget available, putting some dollars behind the influencer content and promoting it as sponsored posts can be very successful for a brand.
Wrapping It Up
Since its beginnings, influencer marketing has come a long way. When it first started, a brand could simply provide an influencer with a product and receive promotion in return, sometimes even for free. Nowadays, consumers have become a bit more privy to influencer related promotions. Therefore, it’s important that a brand marketer carefully considers each and every step involved in launching a successful campaign.
And check out these blogs on influencer marketing that our team wrote to help get you on the right path!
- 7 Secret Social Acronyms Brands Need To Know For Influencer Marketing Posts
- How Much Money Should A Brand Spend On Influencer Marketing
- 3 Brands Show How To Market Mobile Apps Using Influencers
- 3 Examples of Influencer Marketing Gone Wrong
- 4 Reasons To Choose An Influencer Agency Versus Influencer Platform
For some brand marketers, answering through the questions can be easily done in-house. For others, working with an agency that has expertise in the influencer space will prove to be more successful in the long run. That’s where we come in. Here at Hollywood Branded, launching successful influencer campaigns is our bread and butter. We are more than happy to work with you and your team to come up with an influencer campaign that effectively help you reach your brand goal(s). Make sure you check out our Social Influencer's Guide which provides you with the background of everything you need to know for social influencer marketing!
