How to Run Your First Influential Marketing Campaign – Part 2

How to vet Influencers

Once you have shortlisted a number of influencers who match your influencer persona and audience requirements, it’s time to ‘vet’ them. Many influencer platforms enable you to do this on their website but you may prefer to contact them directly if you have their details.

When you contact the influencer you will want to see a copy of their media pack which contains information such as location, age, lifestyle, educational level, awards, guest blog posts, the composition of their audience and much more.

Once you have reviewed this information, it’s time to take a look at their social media channels. It is a good idea to do this to see what the quality of the influencers posts are like, if their audience engages, and if they are influencing for any other brands.

Now to get your Influencer choice on board

After you have reviewed your shortlist you may find you are still left with several relevant influencers. This is a good thing, because now you are going to have to try and encourage the influencers to come on board with your campaign which can be difficult.

If you have selected high quality influencers, they are going to be very busy people so you may find you get a few no’s from your shortlist. You are going to need to sell your campaign idea and brand to each influencer until you get that magical yes.

How to run your Influencer campaign

Now you have an influencer who is matches your influencer persona, audience requirements, high quality and available – it’s time to start planning your campaign. Here are 5 tips to keep you on track.

Set acceptance deadlines

When you ask influencers to respond, ensure you set deadlines. Make them something that is realistic but not so long your campaign will already be over. 48 hours is a comfortable response time to set for influencers.

If you contact an influencer who you would really like to work with but they don’t respond, send one last message. If they still don’t respond, walk away. They are unfortunately either too busy or not interested in your campaign.

Be willing to negotiate

Sometimes you may find an influencer turns down your campaign offer because your proposed rate is too low. This is when you need to become a negotiator. Consider covering the influencer’s expenses, or ask what their minimum rate is and raise your offer. You could offer compensation options such as free products (if your influencer fits your persona then they should snap this offer up).

Editing influencer content

Influential marketing works because it uses social proof in the form of authentic content. If you heavily edit the influencer’s content, you will soon find it loses its authenticity and believability.

Instead of editing the content, try providing some guidelines for the influencer to follow. Include things such as product information and how you want the audience to feel about the product.

Once the content has been written, request a draft copy and carefully review the influencer’s content, but try to avoid tampering. It is better to just drop content you aren’t happy with than to heavily edit it.

Ask for outlines of a vlog content before production

Hopefully you have selected an influencer who has a good YouTube following. Why? Well online video is big right now in marketing and advertising. For example, studies have revealed that Facebook posts using video achieve 135% greater organic reach than photo posts.

When your influencer makes a vlog, ask for an outline of the content before production. This way you can get an overview of what it will contain and if you are happy with this. Similar to the rest of the content, you don’t want to heavily edit it, but you do want to drop anything you aren’t with. You might also like to suggest some things that may be missing from the vlog content such as a unique product specification. Remember the key is to keep the content authentic.

Request proof of content distribution

Ensure you instruction your influencer to email you links to their published blog posts and social posts so you can verify that the content has been posted. It will also help you to monitor the campaign once it’s underway. If you measure the success of the campaign you will be able to see if influential marketing works for your brand, or different ways you can improve for your next influential marketing campaign.

How much does it cost to run an influencer marketing campaign?

It all depends, depends on the what you want to get from it? You probably want a number or a range of numbers.

Here are some important factors that go into pricing an influencer campaign.

• What size are the influencers you’ll need for your campaign?
• Which platforms will your campaign run on? A campaign that includes YouTube will probably require a much larger investment than an IG campaign that loops in Pinterest/bloggers
• Which media formats will influencers need to create?
• How long will your campaign run? It is seasonal?
• Holiday season?
• Budgeting, agency fees and leaving wiggle room for changes and additions to your campaign

What are the benefits of influencer marketing?

There are loads of benefits of influencer marketing, it can boost sales and can transform the perception of a brand, enrich its offering and cultivate invaluable partnerships.

Improve brand Awareness and trust

When influencers share your content with their following the awareness this brings goes beyond most other marketing channels.

Removes the obstacle of ad blockers

One of the biggest obstacles digital marketers face is ad blockers content filtering extensions which can be added to web browsers that prevent ads from being displayed.

Boost organic search performance

One of the indirect benefits of influencer marketing is the effect it can have on organic search performance.

Generates relevant leads

The majority of influencers have a dedicated following who subscribe and buy in to the preferences and recommendations that they endorse.

Its affordable and scalable

Influencer marketing is an affordable and accessible channel for business of any size and because of that so many influencers out there are price points to suit most marketing budgets.

Bolsters your content and social marketing strategy

Creating and managing a content marketing and social outreach strategy can be challenging. Influencer marketing step by step guide and understanding your target audience, It is also important to set a budget and have defining goals and metrics.

Some of the steps to remember

How to run your first campaign