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FINALLY, NO MORE ANNOYING ADS AND POPUPS!
C’mon, admit it. We bet at some point of your internet journey, you had that Adblocker installed or considered, didn’t you? And yes, most definitely, your audience had one too. Did you know that according to Forbes, 47% of users are blocking ads? That would mean almost half of the paid advertising messages will never reach your audiences. But the advertising power is now shifting. INFLUENCERS are now filling up the gap. Social media users are not blocking images or videos from their favourite social media celebrities. According to Business Insider, the influencer marketing industry is expected to hit $15 billion by 2022. Now that you have a better idea of the industry skyrocketing, achieving a high ROI is DEFINITELY possible if your campaigns are done correctly! So, let’s get right into it with Kode Digital’s 4 tips.
1. SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
No other social media platforms are cost-saving while delivering better reach and engagement compared to Instagram. We have YouTube and TikTok, but none of these platforms unseats Instagram. At least 79% of brands have been tapping into Instagram. If you are thinking about YouTube, that is a larger financial investment with benefits. We recently wrote an article on video marketing strategies for starters that you can check out. Be prepared to add more zeros…
If you are thinking about TikTok, here is a comparison of the differences between Instagram and TikTok.
| Platform | TikTok | |
|---|---|---|
| Targeting options | Able to control more specific demographics – age, gender, location, interest, and other call-to-actions like click-through to shopping links. |
Only allows targeting for geographical areas. It is an ideal platform for brand awareness. |
| Target audience | Instagram covers audiences aged 18-35, which is older than TikTok, which is extremely important if you are considering sales conversions. | TikTok has a younger audience aged 18-24 to build a relationship. |
| Content |
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| Result | Has proven its potential for successful influencer campaigns. | A newer platform compared to Instagram in the market with potential that is yet to be fully discovered. |
So, which platform will you be considering?
2. MICRO influencers are no longer underestimated
Brands are now going after micro-influencers, a public figures with 10K to 100K followers with a particular niche to build a strong connection with their audience. If you have a purpose for popularity with a specific niche of the audience, you will find success pairing with micro-influencers that delivers content that is tuned for the persona.
It is still possible for macro-influencers with a figure of 100K or more to align with a niche. With more followers, macro-influencers are great partnerships for expanding your brand awareness as they bring in more impressions.
The charges for macro-influencers are higher due to their added value. However, their engagement is likely lower than micro-influencers due to their broader and mixed audience.
An excellent influencer strategy is to mix both micro and macro influencers; however, lean more towards micro-influencers to gain the best of both worlds. You can compare both metric responses and gradually improve your brand with both micro and macro influencers.
On a side note, today’s brands prioritise longer partnerships with more authentic influencers. So, choose your influencers wisely. Be sure to do your research before reaching out.
3. Types of influencer marketing campaigns
Which campaigns will you be setting up to reach your goals? There are at least more than 10 marketing goals. Here are three main campaign types of influencer campaigns you should explore.
| Brand Awareness | Traffic & Sales | User-Generated Content |
|---|---|---|
| Create visually appealing content and post them consistently. | Create Instagram stories with links. Make use of Blogs and YouTube for SEO, branding, and long-term user-generated content. | Be creative and authentic in your content. Your goal is to create content that naturally looks inexpensive. |
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4. Freedom to express
Give your influencers the freedom to express themselves in the content they share. Audiences today are smart at differentiating real reviews and paid ads. As soon as an ad appears, the audience loses interest quickly and clicks away. Humans like to read or hear real stories from other beings to trust a product.
Therefore, give your influencers the freedom to authenticate your product’s greatness to your audiences. Just be sure to have your influencers mention your brand’s name and a brand hashtag in their caption. Bouncing back to your goal again!
It is time for us to dive deep and implement the tips above into the steps to achieve success in Influencer Marketing. Good things take time. Like any marketing scheme, an influencer marketing program takes deliberate planning. With an organized guideline, your marketing team will bring out the best in your company with the help of influencers.
Step-by-Step Guideline to Achieve Success in Influencer Marketing
1. Understand your brand personality
Before embarking on your journey into Influencer Marketing, it is vital for you and your marketing team to fully understand the brand personality, such as the brand’s identity, core value, voice, products or services, as well as the targeted audiences.
All of these elements will determine how your messages are conveyed to the crowd whilst ensuring your marketing schemes are aligned with the purpose of a particular campaign to create maximum impact, which will give your company a boost in business. They should be implemented across all platforms consistently to ensure your brand is recognizable.
2. Set a campaign objective and core message
The intentions, goals and objectives for launching an influencer marketing campaign may differ from brand to brand. Before you determine the types of influencers to support your brand, set a S.M.A.R.T. objective or goal for your upcoming campaign:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
By utilizing the S.M.A.R.T. method, you can seamlessly plan out the favourable yet achievable outcomes that you wish to accomplish with the help of influencers, namely:
- A boost in brand awareness
- Promote new products or services
- Educate audiences about specific products or services
- Increase leads and sales
3. Determine the types of influencers
Partnering with the right influencer will lead to a successful campaign for your brand. With a smart goal in mind, identify your market niche so that you and your marketing team can search for relevant influencers within that niche itself. Your company should seek and look for influencers who are active on social media platforms and possess an authentic voice.
Your influencers should be able to reach specific crowds and audiences you want to explore. Besides finding someone relevant to your brand or connecting with potential influencers, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Which demographic is most likely interested or you wished to connect to?
- What are the preferences of your audiences and followers?
- How to showcase your product or service that will align with the preferences of your audiences and followers?
4. Establish partnerships with influencers
Look for ways to connect with influencers you wish to work with via email addresses on their social media platforms or websites. If the email address is nowhere to be found, you can try to use the brand’s official social media account and message directly to the influencers.
If you have received their replies about partnering with you, you and your marketing team can begin to discuss the details of the partnership deal. Feel free to negotiate with them to create a win-win situation. Moreover, it is important to know that some influencers tend to know more about brand promotions better than your marketing team or any professional agency. Be open to their opinions and plan without derailing from your purpose of the influencer marketing campaign.
5. Optimizing influencers’ content
The message and content from influencers are just as important as your campaign goal. While you don’t want to stifle influencers’ creativity, determine your content structure so they can stick to it later on and take their own spin to make it eye-catching. Your company needs to keep a close eye on the goals you set for them whilst communicating regularly with the influencers, helping them with their questions about your brand.
Make certain your influencers are posting content that is aligned with the marketing values to help you in reaching some KPIs such as new audience reach and engagement.
6. Reward the influencers
According to a Crowdtap survey, 68% of influencers said they would work with a brand more than once if the brand they worked with provided them with fair compensation. So, do not expect influencers to work with you in the future just because you sent over some free samples to them.
You can try to give them reasonable rewards and compensation based on their performance. This can help them gain momentum in giving their best while promoting your products or services to their followers.
7. Evaluate and review the campaign results
Trace and track the campaign’s success to review whether the results align with the goals that you and your marketing team set during the planning phase. Even if the particular influencer marketing campaign is still ongoing, you should measure its progress and find out what unforeseen problems should be improved.
From the result, you can evaluate which content performs either best or worst by looking at the engagement rate. Review the influencers’ content by providing constructive insights on ways to execute, thus bringing improvements in content making and expanding your audiences simultaneously.
8. Promote the influencer’s content
Get maximum engagement among your targeted audiences by promoting the influencers’ creative content through the brand’s official social media platforms, the weekly or monthly newsletter, and the official website.
If the influencers end up getting more engagements, reaches and view than usual with the help of your efforts in promoting the collaboration, they will be more likely to partner with your brand again in the nearest future. Moreover, your brand may even get a better deal on the following partnership agreement as it benefits both parties. Besides, other interested influencers may reach out to your brand for job opportunities after they notice the promotion of your brand’s influencers.
To summarize, Influencer Marketing
It is never too early to discuss your influencer marketing campaigns in 2021.
Planning, strategizing, enticing your influencers and monitoring your campaigns. Yes… a whole lot of work.
Refer to the above best practices and incorporate them into the steps that will help your brand develop a successful influencer marketing campaign. Ensure a win-win situation between your brand and the influencers you wish to partner with. Content and engagement work together as one. Thus, the content provided by influencers has to align with the core values of your brand.
Authentic | Viral | Impactful | Captivating & ROI-driven
It’s how Kode Digital taps brands into the industry’s future.
The world and economy are evolving, so we have to be adapting every day. Are you interested in trying this new form of marketing, or is this too much trouble for you to work on your own? Get in touch with us, and we’ll do all the hard work for you. Our services cater to multivariate industries, from Property Developers, NDIS Providers & Insurance Agencies, to Higher Educational Institutions. Consultation is free. 😉
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