To mark the launch of our Influencer Marketing Academy we’ve created an interactive tool to help marketing & PR professionals to create their influencer strategy in just 5 minutes. We’d love for you to try it out, so read on to find out why it will be worth your while.
Just by documenting your plan, you’re more likely to follow through
Influencer marketing is growing as a discipline, with marketers increasingly spending time & budget on leveraging this channel to grow awareness of their brand & drive new leads, as Shane Barker shows at length in this article. But with the emergence of influencer marketing, we’ve seen the rise of a parallel phenomenon – organisations rushing to join the party without knowing what they’re trying to achieve. By documenting a plan, complete with specific objectives and metrics for gauging success, you’ll avoid falling into this trap. With a solid plan, you can start to figure out what resources you need, and focusing on the actions that will make it happen. That’s why we created the Strategy Builder.
What ingredients do I need to build my strategy?
To complete your influencer strategy, you’ll only need a few key bits of information. We’ve made sure to streamline the process so you need as few inputs as possible!
1. Outlining your Objectives – what is it you want to achieve?
First, you’ll need to think about the core objective you want influencers to help you drive. The sorts of campaigns you should look to run might differ depending on whether you’re focused on demand generation or trying to change your brand’s perception around a specific topic or issue. When you come to measure results and gauge the success of your program, this will serve as a guiding principle to help you understand what has worked, and what needs improving.
2. Defining your KPIs – how will you measure success?
Next, you’ll want to choose a specific KPI to focus on. Of course you’re likely to have more than one KPI, but it important to define the one KPI that you’re going to report on in the boardroom; the one KPI that senior management will care about. For example, if changing the online perception of your brand is an important goal, then looking at the number of influencer posts that reference your brand in the context of relevant key terms, and how much this has improved since starting the program, would be a great KPI to settle on.
3. Defining your target audience – who is it you’re trying to target?
With your goals in place, you can start to map out what your target audience looks like – this will help you identify the right influencers in order to reach them. To figure this out, all you’ll need to answer is 4 simple questions about your target audience:
- What topics are they interested in?
- What job titles might they typically have?
- Where are they based?
- Which social media channels do they use?
4. Outlining how you’ll collaborate with influencers – what is possible with your existing resources and marketing calendar?
Finally, you can decide on the activities you want to collaborate with influencers on. For example, you might have a strategy that focuses heavily on events, so inviting an influencer to speak on a panel would be a good way of giving your audience access to the insights they can bring to bear, as well as amplifying the event through their social channels. Equally, you might be focusing on content to drive sign ups to your email marketing database – for this, giving an influencer early access to new research from your organisation & asking them to write an introduction to the published content might be a good way to leverage their expertise.
I’ve got my strategy – what now?
Once you’ve gone through the strategy builder, you’ll probably be wondering how you can make it happen. Head over to the Academy to find out about all the skills you’ll need to execute your strategy – from winning buy-in from your senior management team, through to building an influencer engagement plan, all the way to measuring results and scaling your program. Our courses will take you from beginner to expert, helping you reach new audiences and drive campaign performance by leveraging the power of influencers.