Does Your Brand Need an Influencer Strategist?

One in four brands uses influencer marketing and those that do say it provides one of the highest ROIs of all marketing efforts, according to a Hubspot Trends Report. Marketers aren’t just dabbling in this space anymore; they see the value of a continued influencer marketing strategy.

Influencer marketing takes time, and tapping your social media manager or junior marketing exec with the task might not yield the results you want. Enter the influencer strategist.

What is an influencer marketing strategist?

An influencer strategist is in charge of a company’s influencer marketing strategy. This person coordinates each aspect of the campaign, from concept to completion. Aside from campaign logistics, an influencer strategist nurtures relationships to ensure continued success.

More specifically, an influencer marketing strategist will:

Understand the brand and its audience

Before reaching out to any influencer, the strategist should have strong knowledge of your company, its products, and its target audience. Ideally, a strategist works with customer personas to create campaigns that cater to each audience segment.

Find influencers

An influencer marketing strategist finds influencers that align with your brand and its audience. A strategist can search for influencers by reviewing your most loyal customers on social, searching social profiles, or via an influencer marketing platform.

Coordinate campaign specifics

A strategist will create the campaign’s concept and collaborate with an influencer on the deliverables, approval process, and due dates. These aspects are spelled out in an influencer contract, but the trickiest piece is providing campaign inspiration to an influencer.

To help, savvy strategists use influencer marketing platforms to generate inspirational concepts via AI storyboards.

Monitor campaigns

As with any marketing effort, to get the most out of it, you have to watch your metrics and make adjustments to future campaigns. Rather than bouncing between multiple platforms like Google Analytics and your chosen social platform like Instagram, strategists usually lean towards a more efficient tracking system found within influencer marketing platforms.

Most want a platform that provides ROI for each influencer. In other words, they don’t want to “sort-of” calculate ROI from a hodgepodge of stats; they want to see it listed as clearly as impressions and clicks.

Nurture the relationship

Influencer marketing works best when it’s treated as a long-term investment. Ideally, a brand identifies a handful of influencers to work with and continues to work with them for years.

You want influencers to become the face of the brand and a trusted source for customers to rely on. That kind of relationship takes time to build.

It’s not enough to reach out during a campaign. Influencers should feel like part of the team, which means providing company updates or asking them for feedback on other marketing efforts. Small gestures of kindness like free swag or a virtual happy hour build goodwill too.

Is an influencer strategist right for your company?

An influencer strategist can ease the workload for your marketing team. Rather than adding influencer marketing to their existing tasks, it could be beneficial to bring on a new employee with influencer marketing experience. How do you know if it’s time to make this hire?

If your team …

Isn’t sure how to find influencers or launch a campaign
Doesn’t have time to plan and execute campaigns
Lacks influencer marketing knowledge
Has executed successful campaigns in the past but can’t keep up with them
Isn’t sure how to track influencer ROI
Doesn’t have the bandwidth to nurture relationships

… an influencer marketing strategist could be a good addition to your team.

Before you post an ad for an influencer strategist to join your team, you have options. IZEA offers a series of influencer marketing solutions to help your team plan campaigns and manage relationships.

With IZEA Managed Services, all your campaign details are handled for you. The IZEA team will craft strategies, identify influencers, and execute campaigns engaging your target audiences.

When it comes to planning, creating, and executing influencer marketing campaigns, you have choices. Whether you want to hire an influencer strategist, ease your workload with an influencer marketing platform, or ask IZEA to become an extension of your brand, your company can pick a solution that’s the right fit.