It's no secret that Millennials have been driving brands to make nontraditional marketing decisions for the past couple of years. Of the tactics, none has been more embraced than influencer marketing. It's not surprising. Nearly three-quarters of Millennials are more likely to make a purchase if it's been recommended by others on social media. Though it's been in the marketing catalogue for a few years now, there are still some questions that marketers have when it comes to influencer marketing.
Luckily, OpenSponsorship CEO and founder Ishveen Anand has a few tips up her sleeve to guide you through successfully using influencers to meet your marketing goals. See her tips below:
Determine what kind of influencer marketing is right for your brand
Are you looking to put all of your budget towards one, show-stopping influencer? Or are you looking to spread your message across a network of many, smaller influencers? What are your measures of success? What are the ultimate goals of this campaign?
These are a few good questions to begin narrowing down the type of marketing campaign you'll want to run. For example, if you're simply looking to increase brand awareness, a longer campaign with one well-known influencer is a great place to start. While if you're looking to drive sales, you should think about testing with many influencers, measuring results, and making a decision from there.
At OpenSponsorship, we offer a lot of flexibility for our brands. With events, social posts, equity deals, commercial shoots, and tons more options, there's a way for every brand to partner with professional athletes.
Think about how you want your brand to be presented online
Even though influencer marketing seems more casual than other, more rigid forms of marketing, it's still a business transaction. As such, you should still be as thorough in developing a proposal as you'd be in any other business setting. When you develop the idea for your campaign, be as specific as possible in describing what you want it to look like. Leave no room for interpretation!
OpenSponsorship addresses this by funneling your exact campaign details into the contract as a deal is made. This way, you have complete control in the way your campaign is carried out and it's all on paper. This is best for both parties, as instructions are clearly laid out and there can (hopefully) be no confusion!
Stay on top of your results and don't be afraid to rewire things mid-campaign
It can be easy to "set and forget" campaigns - which you may like to do once you have proven results with a certain influencer. But when you're working with an influencer for the first time, you need to watch your analytics to determine if you're meeting the predetermined campaign goals. If you catch things early, you can even try to change them by working with your influencer. Remember, they want you to achieve your goals to increase their likelihood of getting booked again. You're a team! We make this super easy by providing in-depth social media tracking as well as offering a Google Analytics integration so you can measure everything from one report.
If the campaign was successful, give yourself a pat on the back! If not...
Ask yourself what you can do better... Then do it
Even the best of us get it wrong sometimes. When you're trying something new, it's even more likely that you're going to need a couple tries before getting it perfect. Treat a "failed" campaign as a way to ask yourself what you could've done better. Could you have gotten more specific in the details? Should you have used an influencer in a different field? Does your product or service need more detail to be understood? Once you've determined where you can improve, give it another go.
