We live in an internet-driven society where a digitally-savvy generation is now constantly connected, reviewing purchases, comparing brands and prices, making and sharing comments within their social networks. It’s up to brands to develop innovative strategies such as influencer marketing to spread their messages across all digital platforms.

Influencers rely on their credibility and expertise to influence buyer behavior. With a well-defined marketing goal, the right influencers, and leveraging optimized digital strategies, you can see benefits such as boosted brand recognition and online presence; improved conversions on website visits, purchases, newsletter sign-ups, free trials, etc.; and gaining valuable customer insight and data that gives you access to feedback on user preferences that you can then use to create effective marketing campaigns in the future.

 

To hire the perfect influencer for your marketing campaign, we use this quick-and-easy checklist:

1. Define Your Influencer Marketing Campaign Goals 

The first step in hiring for your influencer marketing campaign is nailing down your goals. Your ultimate goal is to of course grow your business’s popularity and profits with clearly measurable actions. The part of that growth based on enacting influencer marketing campaigns should—to use a traditional mnemonic—use SMARTER goals (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound, Exciting, Recorded). Some Specific goals for influencer marketing campaigns could be:

• increasing user engagement and brand awareness
• promoting your products or services
• spreading the word about an event your brand is involved with
• testing audience and conversion activities on your digital assets

Once you’ve done this, the actions to success for achieving your goal via influencer marketing are:

1. Outlining the traits of your target audience,
2. Defining the message that your brand wishes to convey,
3. Choosing an influencer or celebrity to pass on the message to your audience.

2. Find Potential Influencers Suited For Your Campaign

Achieving better conversions with influencer marketing requires finding influencers who will be an excellent fit for your brand and campaign goals. There is no shortage of influencers in this digital age, but you need first to ask yourself if you can afford to hire and work with:

• Famous actors, musicians, or athletes (mega-influencers)
• Industry thought-leaders or experts from your niche (macro-influencers)
• Bloggers, vloggers, or online media personalities (micro-influencers)
• “Regular” individuals who have gained online influence organically on social media apps or sites such as YouTube, TikTok, or Tumblr (nano-influencers)

If you have an active social media presence, chances are you already know some potential influencers in your industry. But how do you know which are the best to collaborate with? Look at important information like:

• The influencer’s type of content, location, and niche
• The number of followers they have and their follower demographics
• Their online engagement rates
• The types of sponsorships and brand deals they’ve done in the past

You can even leverage monitoring and social listening tools to see the topics influencers write or talk about, including their followers with their content, top shares, and relevant “buzz words” being used around your brand niche. The optimal influencer for your marketing campaign will have similarly aligned audience demographics (or demographics you want to break into), high engagement, and either work directly in your niche or have proved successful with brands related to your industry before.

3. Invite Your Top Picks To Be Part Of Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

When you’re ready to hire the prospective influencers you want to partner with, it’s time to reach out to them! One avenue you can take is using Influencer Outreach Tools that allow you to reach out to potential influencers directly. You could also post your vision of the campaign in marketplaces like YouTube BrandConnect that influencers join to find work opportunities. Alternatively, send your pitch via an influencer’s preferred email or social media channel to let them know you are interested in working together and why collaborating with you could benefit them.

Pro Tip: It’s imperative to establish a solid connection before pitching your campaign by following them on social media, engaging them, leaving leading comments on their blog, etc. Finally, put more effort into your email marketing strategy so that you can invite them into your brand and the type of content you put out regularly. Keep your message and subject line professional content, and personalize your email, so it’s not flagged as suspicious.

Do you want to start influencer marketing campaigns for your business, but need extended support or a dedicated team to run them? Contact us today!