How To Build Amazing Personalized Influencer Marketing Campaign

• Posted by GAFM AFRICA February 9, 2018 - Filed in Business - ##marketing  - 2,205 views

  It’s no secret that marketing means something different nowadays. Commercials have turned into 60-second Instagram spots, direct mail flyers have been replaced with personalized email campaigns, and brands have traded celebrity endorsements for mom sponsored blog posts to rep their products.

  With this surge of consumer-centric marketing efforts, strategists must consider which platform is most effective for driving not only positive trending business results for their brands but personalized experiences for the consumer.

   

  What is Influencer Marketing?

  You’ve probably heard of some or more of these terms: Brand ambassadors, brand advocates, blogger campaigns, sponsored posts, word-of-mouth marketing. While all of these require different marketing tactics, they can essentially be bucketed into the influencer marketing category. All of these tactics drive awareness, action, and acquisition, same as influencer marketing.

  There was a time when our favorite celebrity would endorse a magical, miracle face cream, the shake weight, or even Total Gym and we’d buy it. Why? In the past, consumers connected with celebrities and trusted the brands they endorsed.

  Let’s be honest, if Oprah said swimming with blue whales would make you lose weight, then half the women in the U.S. would be exercising with blue whales in the South Pacific.

  The market has evolved as the world has changed. With the rise of the internet and social media, consumers were given a voice. Consumers search for authentic opinions online from their peers. Before the internet, consumers didn’t have access to ordinary people the way we do today.

  When consumers begin to go through the buying cycle, they start to seek out genuine feedback from other consumers that have similar budgets and lifestyles versus searching for the often unattainable bling-bling that comes with the life of being a celebrity.

  A 2011 survey by BlogHer stated that 20 percent of women active on social media are motivated to consider products promoted by bloggers they know, yet only 13 percent are motivated by celebrity endorsements. In a recent study by Buzzstream, they discovered that celebrity endorsers did not result in actionable purchase intent by the consumer when compared to vloggers.

  Also to show the transition, even more, SheKnows Media estimated that women control 85% of all purchasing decisions in the U.S. Within that report, 86% of the 1,470 women stated they put trust in real peoples’ product and service recommendations. Consumers turn to “everyday experts” as the report calls them because they are seen as having an authentic and honest voice.

  As times are changing, brands are personalizing their approach with one individual versus targeting the market in mass.

   

  Why Influencer Marketing Works for Brands

  While any girl loves shopping for her new make-up buys, there’s just something about stalking, researching, and watching tutorials on other beauties. Seriously, if you’re going to master the #wokeuplikethis face, then you’ve got to choose your products wisely. Beauty bloggers have the market cornered, not only on beautiful skin and all-around gorgeousness but on influencer marketing.

  These “real” influencers act as the model, writer, and promoter of the product.

   

  It Works Because It’s Authentic and Personalized

  In a survey from digital agency Burst Media, Burst Media discovered that influencer campaigns earn “$6.85 in earned media value for every $1.00 of paid media.” Pretty impressive, huh?

  Real people are approachable, authentic, and deliver personalized content. Brands enlisting the help of influencers can see an increase in revenue, consumer loyalty, user-generated content, boost in social media, organic growth, and so much more.

  The personalized content your influencers deliver have the opportunity to change consumer behaviors. That’s insane!

  Personalized content is the new king of content. Brands can leverage personalization and influencer marketing to guide their potential buyers down the funnel from the awareness stage to the purchase decision stage.

   

  Insights Into My Influencer Marketing Strategy

  Real people equal approachable, authentic, and personalized content. Brands enlisting the help of influencers can see an increase in revenue, consumer loyalty, user-generated content, boost in social media, organic growth, and so much more.

  Step One: Define Your Goals

  Before I get into the nitty-gritty details, let’s discuss your goals and expectations of influencer marketing. Do you want people to try a new product? Or, increase sales?

  Here are a few examples:

  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Increase social following
  • Promoting a new product
  • Boosting SEO through earned media

  When writing goals, try to be as specific as possible. For instance, instead of saying “drive traffic to my website,” make a goal of “increase organic traffic by 20% in 3 months.” As a marketer, I use brand influencers to help me achieve my goals. I collaborate with influencers to help win genuine interest for a brand product. They spread the word in an unbiased way while supporting my goals.

  To start, pull data from your other paid marketing channels to determine how you’re performing. You can gain insights by aligning your influencer marketing goals and your other paid campaigns.

  Yep, I said it influencer marketing is a paid marketing channel. And, just like any other paid marketing channel, you need a few months of data before you can perfect the strategy. However, the length of your campaign should be directly tied to your goals. For your first campaign, I recommend gaining data for three to six months to gauge what your influencers want and need from you in this specific channel. From there, you can go with 1,3,6,9, or 12-month influencer programs. Whatever works best for you and your brand.

  In the past, the longer I’ve had my influencer campaigns running, the more trust I was able to gain for my brand. Meaning, it wasn’t a “one and done” blog post or social promotion with a blogger. The blogger became part of our brand culture, became part of the team, and they had time to truly embrace all the awesomeness our brand has to offer.

   

  Step Two: Determine the Budget

  “Wait, what?! You mean people want me to PAY them to write about my product?” said every client I’ve ever worked with on influencer marketing. I recently worked with a client that wanted to target the top of the top influencers.

  There are ways to collaborate with influencers are a small budget. You don’t need to pay $4,000 for 50 photos. But, you do need to have a budget.

  Here’s an example of my budget for working with influencers:

   

  This is how I break down my budget:

  • Graphics and content: This is the man hours that go into creating these myself.
  • Project management: The time you spend emailing, calling, and managing the influencers.
  • Products (and shipping): Depending on your product, set a budget for the influencer to have products.
  • For Influencers: This is what you pay the influencers. You can split this budget up however you like.

  This is a budget for targeting influencers with a smaller reach.

   

  Step Three: Develop a List of Relevant Influencers Within Your Niche

  When searching for influencers, don’t be blinded by the social following.

  Sites like Fiverr give bloggers and social media maven wannabes engagement metrics only big brands like McDonalds can dream of. This causes marketers to make bad decisions when choosing influencers to collaborate with.

  To find the right influencers, first, target influencers that align with your brand image and values. When I stumble across a blogger that may be a good fit for me, I do a site search (site:[www.websitename].com “competitor name”) to see if they are mentioning any of my competitors. If they are talking about your competitors or have similar interests, they will most likely be a good match for your brand.

  Here are the questions I ask myself when vetting influencers:

  1. Where are they located? Do they speak a specific language?
  2. Are there keywords within the post?
  3. Do they have any brand affinity?
  4.  Do they mention any products?
  5. Is there a price range for the products they are mentioning?
  6. How many shares are their posts getting that would be similar to mine?
  7. What type of social following do they have?
  8. What level of social engagement do they receive on their posts?
  9. How many comments do they average per post?
  10. What types of hashtags or mentions do they use in social posts?
  11. Does the influencer have repeat business from other brands?

  The last question tells a lot about how well brands work with an influencer. For example, Studio DIY did a workshop with SkinnyGirl cocktails in August and another workshop in October.  This tells me that Studio DIY and SkinnyGirl cocktails were a good match for both the brand and influencer.

  Think about the lifestyle of your audience and your influencer. Can you imagine your brand naturally fitting? Get creative.

   

  Step Four: Send Outreach Emails

  If you’re a fan of copy and paste, then this will be your least favorite step. Personalization is key. You need to craft personalized emails to each and every influencer you want to collaborate with. This step is extremely time-consuming, but it might be the most important. Why? It’s your first impression.

  This starts with the subject line. Grab their attention by making a connection to another touchpoint and calling attention to something they can personally connect with.

   

  Step Five: Get Your Logistics Together

  Whoo hoo! You received a “yes” to your email pitch. Now what? Time to craft your follow-up email response to give the influencer as much information as possible.

  Below is what I include in the follow-up email:

  • 1099
  • Influencer agreement
  • Timeline      

     

     

    Step Six: Optimize and Analyze

    With the end on the horizon, there’s one thing I always think about: How is my influencer campaign performing? Thinking back to all of my influencer marketing campaigns from the past, I remembered there is no guarantee it will perform. Influencer marketing isn’t a Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. It’s natural, all-around exciting, and trusted by many. This is what makes it work. By creating custom UTM codes, tracking blog comments, and social mentions, you can analyze what’s working and how to spend your marketing budget in the future.

    Plus, you’ve made a new best friend in your influencer. Try creating a private Facebook Group for your influencers to share feedback. This Facebook Group gives the influencers a creative space for open communication with their peers and you.

     

     

    Wrapping Up

    Brands tend to meet the influencer marketing world with a “meh.” But, it offers so much more to the brand than one would think. As I mentioned above, influencer marketing is so much more than…influencing.

    Influencer marketing is nothing new. Influencer marketing that performs best is all about personalizing your email outreach for the influencer, then personalizing the content for the influencer’s audience. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what your market landscape looks like. Whether you’re a food brand talking to a style guru like Emily Henderson or dog lovers looking to giveaway goodies to a fitness fanatic, there are opportunities for your brand to build personalized influencer campaigns.

  Author:Anna Crowe

   

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