How To Really Succeed With Influencer Marketing

The sun is slowly setting on the traditional ways of marketing, as users increasingly need validation from a crop of homegrown influencers over big-ticket celebrity endorsements. While it is easy to get misled with the scripted lines that usually accompany a celebrity campaign, influencers usually owe a sense of responsibility to their hard-earned fanbase to provide an honest lowdown of the product along with its pros and cons. Here are a couple of points to help you ace the influencer marketing game by getting the voices of these local evangelists on your side:

HOW TO CHOOSE AN INFLUENCER:

Many people tend to equate an influencer’s follower count as a measure of the success, however, you are going to want to dig deeper to get real returns on your investment. A recent study has revealed that 92% of consumers rely on word-of-mouth recommendations above any other form of advertising. It is of utmost importance to select an influencer whose credibility is high amongst his followers. Keeping in mind your niche, spend a little time to research and track down someone who has worked on building a relationship of mutual trust and understanding with their followers. Also, make sure to check the quality of the daily content, you wouldn’t want to be associated with someone who posts shabbily executed content, no matter how big the fan following is.

SELECTING A GOAL FOR INFLUENCER MARKETING:

The main goal of influencer marketing should be advocacy. Having them just sing the praises of your product isn’t going to come across any differently than the traditional advertising. Even though there would be a monetary transaction or free products exchanged between you and the influencer, don’t let that come in between a genuine review. Encourage them to test the products before giving an honest and transparent assessment, stating openly what their personal experience was with the product. This kind of credibility is what will seal the deal with your potential consumers before they hit the ‘add to cart’ button.

HOW TO STEER CLEAR OF FAKE FOLLOWERS:

Over the past year, almost $1 billion was spent on Instagram influencer marketing, which makes every Tom, Dick and Harry want to quit their job and earn quick bucks via the ‘gram. Buying followers and faking engagements is also a common practice to attract brands to shell out hefty endorsement fees. The most clear-cut sign to gauge the authenticity of a handle is to check the lifespan of the account; while there are exceptions of viral cases, most influencers have put in a lot of effort and time to build the large community of followers that stand by them. Now for the engagement check: look for the ratio of followers against the likes per post. On an average, an active engagement rate of 2–3% of the total follower count is expected. Additionally, check that the engagement rate is stable across the page, and not just a few boosted posts. Lastly, check the authenticity of the comments; emoji-laden and monosyllable comments are a litmus test for fake engagement. Legitimate conversations between the influencers and their followers is what you should look for.

TYPES OF INFLUENCERS:

There’s no denying the hold that celebrities have on the masses, especially on social media where their personal lives are laid out for fans to lap up. Having a Kardashian or a Jenner give a shout-out to your product is sure to send the sales rocketing, provided you have that kind of a budget for a celebrity sponsorship. The other kind are the macro-influencers who have a following of over a million. Collaborating with these guys could help you reach out to a wide audience, but the downside is having to go via PR agencies and your product being one amongst the many that they are already dealing with. Lastly, you can also consider micro influencers with followers above 5,000, which isn’t anything to scoff at either. These influencers often tend to have higher return on investment as they have a more personal relationship with their community, and your product can ride along on the good karma they have generated.

DECODE THE ANALYTICS:

Post an influencer marketing campaign, it is of utmost importance to go through the results and analyse the effectiveness of the campaign. Following are a couple of key factors to look for:

• AUDIENCE REACH: Reach indicates the number of people who have seen the influencer’s content. Reach is one of the most important factors to measure the success of a campaign.
• ENGAGEMENT: The engagement of a campaign can be measured by keeping tabs on metrics like views, likes, shares, comments and brand mentions.
• CLICKS: Clicks basically measure the interest of your audience to actually take action; for a campaign to be tagged as a success, you need a healthy balance between clicks, likes and shares.
• IMPRESSIONS: Impressions show the number of times your content was displayed, including repeat viewers. This number is generally higher than the reach as certain active users consume the same piece of content multiple times.
• SHARES: Shares are a litmus test for quality. If a person is sharing your content, chances are high that they will recommend your products and services as well.
• LEADS & SALES CONVERSIONS: Use Google Analytics to track the source of your website traffic, including organic search, social, direct, referral, email and paid search. This makes it easier to estimate which source is garnering most traffic for you to invest more in that field.

CASE STUDIES:

ASOS, global beauty and fashion store, wrote home a success story with an initiative called ‘ASOS Insiders’. They targeted 20-something fashion & lifestyle influencers with a robust social media presence. These insiders posted photos of themselves in ASOS clothing, with a Buy The Look link, that saw a huge turnout, as the audience flocked to buy the look of their favourite instagrammers. With handle names such as ‘@asos_lesley’, the brand garnered maximum eyeballs by cementing their branding as the first thing that any user will find after landing on the page.

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Nike, a leading manufacturer and supplier of athletic wear and sports equipment, is amongst the top users of influencer marketing. They often work with a host of celebrities as well as social media influencers to promote their products in several campaigns. A recent collaboration had them teaming up with ‘What’s Inside?’, a popular YouTube channel that is known for cutting up stuff to showcase what’s inside. By specifically tapping into the content acumen of this channel for their Air Vapormax shoes, the brand churned up nearly 5 million views.

Pedigree, on the other hand, has started a ‘Buy a Bag, Give a Bowl’ campaign that promises to give a bowl of food to stray dogs in return of every bag purchased. This campaign gained high momentum when influencers started promoting it via Instagram, blogs and video content. The overwhelming results included over 43 million impressions, 62,000 content views and 9,300 blog page engagements.

INFLUENCER PLATFORMS:

Being a relatively new marketing technique, brands understandably have qualms about how to do it right. Coming to the rescue are several influencer platforms that have cropped up to help you through the entire task. Acing the game is San Francisco-based Revfluence that is changing the way brands look at the influencer marketplace. With big names like Calvin Klein and Scentbird in its kitty, it relies on its state-of-the-art software to rummage through Instagram, YouTube and blogs to track down the best influencers. Upfluence, Tribe, Circle and Hypr are similar platforms that can help you out with influencer discovery and campaign management.

Get In Touch:

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