Developing an Influencer Marketing Strategy
Companies that want to invest in influencer marketing campaigns to reach their target audiences first need to create their influencer marketing strategy. With the help of a strategy, companies can have a much easier time reaching their goals and connecting with their target audiences.
Goals
The first step in any sort of promotional effort that a company wants to invest in is defining the overall goals that the company wants to achieve through those promotional efforts. That’s why it’s important to start any sort of influencer marketing strategy by defining the company’s goals. That means outlining what the company wants to achieve with its influencer marketing campaign. It can be anything from generating more sales, increasing brand awareness with the audience, or developing more authority and credibility in the target market. When a company outlines its goals, it can better understand them, and figure out the best ways to target its promotional efforts in a way that contributes toward achieving those goals.
Location
The next step in developing an influencer marketing campaign is for the company to research its target audience and figure out who it wants to target with its influencer marketing campaign. That means figuring out the interests, values, beliefs, and the pain points of the target audience. However, companies also need to figure out which social media platforms the target audience uses most, as well as the types of content they prefer to consume. By having all of these pieces of information at hand for the target audience, companies will have an easier time figuring out where they need to execute their influencer marketing campaign, and what types of content they need to present to that audience to attract it.
Influencers
Once a company has defined its goal, platform, and content, it’s time to figure out which influencers a company should be working with for its influencer marketing campaign. There are a few different types of social media influencers, including mega, macro, micro, and nano influencers. Companies need to know what type of influencer they need to work with to reach the target audience and influence their purchasing decision, which is information that the company should already have from researching its target audience during the previous steps. It’s important to see the influencers as a tool in the influencer marketing campaign toolbox, and not the main element of it. This way, companies will be able to develop content that can potentially go viral with their target audiences, instead of simply focusing on creating sponsored posts in collaboration with the influencers for that campaign.
Measuring performance
Finally, after companies know what they want to do, and how they will be doing that in terms of their influencer marketing campaign, it’s time to execute the campaign and keep track of the different metrics that will show the performance of the campaign itself. That means investing in a content management system to make sure that interesting and fresh content will be provided to the audience on a regular schedule, keeping track of the response from the audience to that content, and adjusting to those responses as necessary.
