Influencer marketing is gaining in popularity. In fact, it’s ranked as one of U.S. marketers’ most effective investments in the 2017 State Of The Creator Economy Report (2017 SOCE). If you’re just starting off with Influencer Marketing and putting together your first influencer campaign, you don’t have to go it alone. You also don’t need a massive budget to have a successful campaign. We’ve put together these steps to help you setup your first influencer marketing campaign in just a few minutes.
Set Your Budget
First things first: You need to know how much you can spend on content and influencer marketing campaigns. Your budget will cover everything including research, hiring influencers, creating content, promoted posts and measuring analytics.
About a third of marketers with dedicated budgets for influencer marketing spend more than $500,000, according to the 2017 SOCE. But your budget can range anywhere from tens of dollars for a single article promotion to tens of thousands for fully managed influencer marketing service.
Pick a number that works with your brand’s overall budget and put your campaign together with that number in mind.
Set Goals for the Influencer Marketing Campaign
Once you have a budget, you need to decide what you want the influencer marketing campaign to accomplish. For example, your goal might be to promote a new product your company is offering. Or you might want to get people interested in an older product that might have fallen off of their radars.
Another goal might be to boost traffic to your company’s blog or promote an event your company is hosting. In other cases, brands use influencer marketing to improve its online reputation. Whatever your goal, keep it front and center as you plan campaigns and work with influencers.
Create Buyer Personas
You have goals and a budget—now you need to figure out who you are targeting with the campaign. Creating buyer personas gives you a clear picture of who your target customer is, what he or she likes, and what motivates him or her to buy.
According to Forbes, having a buyer persona in place allows you to shape your message and direct it specifically at your ideal customers. Remember, the message that appeals to 30-something moms won’t necessarily reach teenage boys. And messages for 20-somethings usually won’t appeal to the over-40 set.
You want to provide your customers a solution that is just for them. Knowing your customers allows you to do that. Include the typical buyer’s age, what he or she does for a living, what his or her interests are, and what he or she wants.
Find Relevant Influencers
What’s an influencer marketing campaign without influencers? You can do the hard work yourself by scouring social media in search of people to offer social sponsorship. But an easier option is to work with an influencer marketplace.
Compared to influencer marketing agencies, which tend to work with the biggest and most expensive influencers, influencer marketing platforms are open a broad selection of creators of all shapes and sizes. Marketplaces are able to connect brands with a greater variety of relevant influencers than agencies. You can find everyone from the much sought-after micro-influencers to big name celebrities on marketplace platforms.
When choosing a relevant influencer, don’t get sidetracked by follower counts. Instead, pay attention to an influencer’s niche and engagement rate. If you’re promoting a product that’s perfect for moms, a mid-tier mommy blogger or Insta-mom with a few thousand actively engaged followers is probably a good fit. And you’ll probably waste your time, energy, and money by opting for an Instagram model with a following in the millions but only a few likes or comments.
Launch Your Campaign
A quick turnaround option for marketers with smaller budgets interested in trying out Influencer Marketing for the first time is ContentAmp. The self-service influencer marketing platform allows you to distribute your individual blog posts, website pages or even entire RSS feeds to a network of top social media influencers who promote your content to their audiences.
These influencers share the articles natively with their audiences, instantly increasing traffic and engagement. The entire process is pay-per-click, meaning you only pay for the traffic that is being driven to your content. The best part is that campaigns can be setup in 2 minutes or less by following 4 simple steps:
- Set Budget
- Add Content
- Set Distribution Channels
- Measure Impact
Measure Your Success
Once you put your influencer marketing campaign together and send it out into the world, you want to measure how it’s doing. One of the benefits of using an influencer marketing platform is it has built-in tools for measuring a campaign’s success. Analytics shows you where the content’s shared, who’s sharing it, and what other interactions happen with it.
Having clear goals, an understanding of who your audience is, and access to plenty of influencers can help you put together a pitch-perfect influencer marketing campaign. Once you’ve got the formula down, you can rinse and repeat for subsequent campaigns.
