Digital channels are becoming crowded, making it harder for brands to capture consumers' attention. This platform saturation has arrived at a difficult time–with brands' wallets thinning, the pressure to produce a significant ROI from marketing efforts weighs heavy.
In this highly competitive market, developing genuine and trusted connections with shoppers becomes invaluable. While cultivating this level of engagement as a brand alone is challenging, leveraging influencer marketing gives you immediate access to rich connections through the pre-forged relationships between influencers and their audiences.
The number of social media users in the UK is estimated to reach 64.3 million by 2029. At this time, the population is set to be 69.4 million. Considering that 3.5 million people are under five years old and barely able to tie their shoelaces–the number is staggering.
It means 92.6% of the British population will use social media, but what do they think about it?
For young people who grew up with social media, influencers are the norm–84% of Gen Z follow influencers, as do 68% of Millennials. These influencers have significant sway on younger populations and even the general public. Now, a quarter of the UK population says that influencers have informed their buying decisions.
The population and interest are there, but unfortunately, so is the competition. The UK spend on influencer advertising, currently at 865 million, is set to grow by 48.5% to reach £1.3 billion in 2029.
As a result, brands wishing to tap into the vast audiences on social media without their message being lost must develop a well-thought-out strategy.
The first step for an effective influencer marketing campaign is to set clear objectives. Knowing what you want to achieve will help you build a strategy that attains those goals.
To define your campaign objectives, you must think deeply about your target audience. Consider the following:
Each of these audience segments requires different strategies and approaches. For example, TikTok is more popular with Gen Z audiences than other platforms. Therefore, influencer marketers hoping to reach younger demographics may choose to launch strategies on TikTok.
Identifying the ideal influencers for your campaign requires a strategic approach that includes but also goes beyond superficial metrics like follower counts.
Here are the three qualities influencers must have to serve your influencer marketing campaign effectively.
Reach includes those obvious and easy-to-track metrics, such as follower count, across different social media platforms.
The number of followers an influencer has defines their category:
While a broad reach can help you access a wider audience, you need to ensure the influencer is creating content that matches your brand ethos, mission, style, audience, and products.
For example, suppose a marketer for a male fashion brand pinpoints an influencer who fits the business ethos and style but whose audience is mostly female. In that case, the collaboration won't be effective.
Partnering with relevant creators will strengthen your branding, giving shoppers a better idea of your brand's values. It will also ensure that the audience you're tapping into is likely to engage with your products.
Brands looking to benefit from social media marketing must find ways to build genuine connections. An authentic and, therefore, trustworthy influencer is significantly more likely to persuade and inspire their followers. Typically, this type of influencer has worked hard to maintain their integrity through honest reviews and relatable content.
For example, a marketer may identify an influencer who creates relevant content and has a substantial reach of 400,000 followers. However, if the creator only receives 15 comments and 300 likes per post, their audience isn't engaged, and they are unlikely to possess sufficient clout to persuade their audience.
Sometimes, this can be due to influencer scams, in which "influencers" buy fake followers to appear popular. While social media platforms are cracking down on fraud influencers, the risk remains, and brands should analyse whether an influencer's follower count will translate into tangible benefits.
To avoid falling into traps or simply wasting time investing in influencers with disengaged audiences, you can use an influencer platform like Kolsquare. Kolsquare's Credibility Score immediately assesses how engaged an influencer's audience is, helping you match with top creators.
Contact us to try a Kolsquare demo.
There are many different ways for marketers to work with influencers. Let's take a look at some of the most common ways:
Brands decide how to work with influencers based on their specific goals, budget, and the nature of the product or service being marketed. A campaign may include a variety of these collaborations.
Once you have identified the best-fit influencers to reach your target audience, you can design a content roadmap.
Here are the best practices you should follow when working with influencers to develop your influencer marketing campaign:
If you've taken the time to select an influencer with an engaged audience, give them at least partial creative freedom. After all, these creators are experts in speaking to their followers, and respecting the creator's knowledge is a vital part of collaboration.
Ensure the messaging matches both your brand voice and the influencer's.
For long-term partnerships, work with influencers to craft a content plan. Decide whether you want to create video, text, or photo posts, and clearly explain the desired results for each piece of content.
Communication is vital to any working relationship. Decide how you'll keep in touch with your influencer, whether it's through email or a relationship management tool.
An influencer platform can help here. Platforms combine your insights and communications into one interface. Platforms also help you manage your customer relationships by collecting your communications in one place and allowing you to direct message digital creators.
Influencers work similarly to freelancers, and there is a significant opportunity for negotiation. If you've completed an in-depth assessment of the influencer, you should have an approximate figure for the profits they can bring you.
Here are strategic approaches to ensure that your negotiations lead to fruitful, long-term collaborations.
Partnering with influencers who are already familiar with and enthusiastic about your brand is a great way to simplify negotiations. These influencers, often genuine product users, may offer more favourable rates due to their connection with your brand.
Their authentic voice and endorsement are also likely to resonate more deeply with their audience, thereby enhancing the campaign's performance.
Implementing affiliate programs or pay-for-performance models aligns the influencer's compensation with the campaign's success. Such arrangements motivate influencers to meet the brand's goals and help keep budgets low. They also provide clear benchmarks for measuring a campaign's success.
Monetary payment isn't the only form of compensation for influencers. Offering non-monetary benefits, such as exclusive experiences, trips, early access to products, or special events, can also be attractive.
These perks enhance the influencer's experience and encourage them to lower their rates in exchange for unique opportunities that enrich their brand and appeal to their followers.
However, you should remain respectful towards influencers and offer them payment if the collaboration benefits your brand.
Effective negotiations are grounded in data. Information is invaluable for negotiating fair rates because it lets you clearly explain the benefits you hope to achieve. This approach ensures that investment in influencer partnerships is justified by measurable outcomes, maximising the ROI.
Using influencer marketing platforms gives you detailed insights into an influencer's performance metrics, such as audience size, engagement rate, and overall reach.
At the end of the day, marketers and influencers are people, so contracts are needed to protect both parties. Clear, detailed agreements with influencers ensure that all parties have aligned expectations. These contracts should outline roles, deliverables, compensation, payment structure, and other terms of the partnership to avoid potential conflicts and misunderstandings.
Ongoing tracking of a campaign allows you to modify and improve your strategy to acquire better results. It also helps you understand whether the influencer is helping you achieve your goals.
Measuring the ROI of influencer marketing campaigns hinges on several KPIs. These include:
For practical implementation, brands can track these metrics using specific tools and techniques such as:
Developing long-term relationships with the right influencers can significantly enhance the effectiveness and depth of your marketing campaigns. When brands invest in sustained partnerships rather than one-off projects, they cultivate a sense of loyalty and alignment with their influencers, leading to more authentic engagement with their target audience.
Here are key strategies for building and maintaining these valuable long-term connections:
Clear, consistent, and transparent communication forms the backbone of any successful long-term relationship. Regular check-ins and updates, not just about current campaigns but also about the influencer's overall experience and feedback, foster a collaborative atmosphere. This ongoing dialogue ensures that both parties feel heard and valued, which is crucial for nurturing a strong partnership.
Supporting your influencers goes beyond financial compensation. Provide them with resources such as access to exclusive information, products, or events that can help them create more engaging and relevant content.
For long-term relationships to thrive, it is essential that both you and the influencer share mutual goals. Work together to set objectives that advance both your influencer marketing strategies and the influencer's objectives.
This alignment improves campaign outcomes and ensures that both parties are equally invested in the success of their collaborations.
Recognising and rewarding the right influencers for their loyalty and contributions can significantly enhance relationships.
Consider implementing incentive programs that reward successful long-term collaborations, whether through bonuses, public recognition, or additional perks. These gestures show appreciation and can motivate influencers to continue prioritising your brand.
The digital marketing landscape is continually evolving, and so are influencers' roles within it. Being open to adapting the terms of collaborations as influencers' platforms and audiences grow shows that you respect their development and are committed to evolving alongside them. This flexibility can make influencers feel more comfortable and engaged in a long-term partnership.
Regular evaluations of the partnership's effectiveness ensure that both parties meet their agreed-upon goals. These evaluations can lead to mutual benefits and better campaigns, deepening the relationship through shared successes and continuous growth.
Influencer marketing functions differently in B2B versus B2C contexts.
B2B influencer marketing prioritises professional trust and industry expertise, focusing on long-term relationships with thought leaders who provide valuable insights through in-depth content. B2B influencers are typically industry professionals or academics whose authority is rooted in their deep understanding of business challenges.
As a result, B2B brands tend to prioritise the relevance and trustworthiness of influencers. However, B2B influencer marketing strategies are still not widely adopted, with studies showing that half of B2B marketers do not use influencer marketing.
In contrast, a B2C influencer marketing campaign should leverage products' emotional and lifestyle elements. Influencers in the B2C space engage their followers with quick, visually appealing content that often leads to immediate consumer actions, such as purchases or social media interactions. Unlike the B2B approach, which is systematic and grounded in rational appeal, B2C influencer marketing thrives on quick, emotional engagement and the influencer's ability to influence consumer habits on a more impulsive level.
Goals and challenges: Ooh & Aah Cookies aimed to amplify their brand presence and boost direct-to-consumer sales across the UK and Ireland. Their primary goal was to leverage TikTok to enhance brand awareness and drive sales, building on their reputation for delivering delicious treats right to customers' doors.
Plans: The Ooh & Aah team adopted a multifaceted advertising strategy on TikTok, mixing organic content with creator collaborations and targeted advertising tools. Initiating their campaign in September 2023, they launched a Creator Competition to discover fresh talent for content creation. They used the winning entries in their ad campaigns and boosted them with Spark Ads to direct traffic to their TikTok Shop.
Results: The campaign, which ran until January 2024, yielded exceptional results: a return on advertising spend of 8.81, far surpassing their target of 3, and impressive engagement with 2.9 million views and a conversion rate of 6%. The campaign's success led to a 57% increase in overall sales and necessitated a team expansion to manage increased demand.
One of the easiest ways to ensure you create the most effective influencer marketing strategy is to work with a strategist. An agency or specialist can help you build a killer campaign.
However, these are costly options.
Another way to improve your tactics is to become an influencer marketing strategist yourself.
How?
Platforms help you find the right influencers quickly with AI-driven search results. These platforms provide more flexibility than agencies, allowing you to run effective campaigns independently from a single dashboard.
Contact Kolsquare to start improving your influencer marketing campaign today.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare has built the largest community of influencer marketing experts in the world, and offers hundreds of customers (Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, El Corte Inglés, Lacoste, …) the latest Big Data, AI and Machine Learning technologies to drive inspiring partnerships, tapping into an exhaustive network covering 100% of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers in 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As a Benefit Company, Kolsquare has been pioneering Responsible Influence by championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations to inspire change.
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