How to measure if your influencer marketing strategy is effective?

by Gerardo Sánchez

To know if Influencer Marketing is effective, let's remember why it was created and if the brand really needs it. Later, there will be important factors that must be known to measure the performance of the strategy and thus obtain profits and good results.

How did influencer marketing start?

Nowadays, marketing has used different resources to promote and encourage services or products with the aim of getting them to the end consumer.

However, some tactics have reached the intrusion of user privacy causing advertising to be invasive and intrusive, looking for a more subtle and natural way to sell them , this is when Influencer Marketing seems like a solution.

But what or who are influencers?

 As the phrase expresses, it is one or more people who influence others in ideas, opinions and actions, standing out as opinion leaders , athletes, artists, etc., in a specific topic or segment through social networks .

They use digital media to be a reference for a large number of users, turning them into their loyal followers , interacting from time to time. In this way, influencers are relevant in indicating, recommending and requesting actions from their fans.

This action causes marketing to see influencers as a great opportunity to promote and even make immediate or direct sales of their products or services. Therefore, these influencers have great power of attraction and persuasion on these social platforms.

Benefits of hiring influencers

1. Accessibility: There will always be an influencer that fits your brand's objectives, whether it is for a specific niche or for a mass audience.

2. Guaranteed conversion: Influencers already have a captive audience where they recommend products or services with which they identify or associate themselves. Therefore, brands hire these characters who they consider to meet the ideals and values ​​of the brand's identity, promoting a precise investment with a return seeking a successful return on investment.

3. Brand Awareness: The main function of an influencer is to promote the brand they are affiliated with.

    Brand awareness is essential in this process, which is why we find a wide variety of digital products such as product recommendations. For example: Unboxing videos, which are a trend on YouTube and Instagram that consists of people or micro influencers recording themselves opening a package they have just received and showing its contents in a video.

    Example: The Luna mattresses unboxing video.

    4. Integrity: To buy products that an influencer recommends to their audience, it is important to have credibility and trust in them. Customers seek to have a solid, long-term relationship with the brand by establishing consumer habits based on experiences .

    How do I know if I need an influencer marketing strategy?

    Before acquiring a strategy that contains influencers you need to:

    1. An approximate budget for the marketing campaign will help you choose an influencer based on the brand's capabilities.

    2. Defined market niche . Having a target audience that the influencer refers to will help obtain better results in sales conversions.

    Some market niches:

    *Sports

    *Fashion and beauty

    *Technology

    *Nutrition

    *Policy

    *Health

    *Etc.

    3. Social network you want to impact and have visibility on. Knowing what type of social network you want to reach and defining the target audience will improve the performance of the campaign, avoiding excessive costs and sending the right type of message through the right medium.

    These three aspects will help you choose the ideal candidate or influencer. On the other hand, there are other factors that you should take into account when choosing the influencer, these are:

    4. Constant and current generation of content .

    Some types of content they develop are:

    *Publications or posts

    *Stories

    *Blogs

    *Podcast

    5. Large number of followers (depending on the market niche).

    6. Type of influencer (micro influencer, influencer or brand ambassador).

    7. Engagement rate (there is no standard for this metric, but by comparing various influencers of interest you will be able to take into account who has the best response with their followers)

    Influencer negotiation methods

    Some influencers ask for the following in exchange as a form of negotiation:

    1. Exchange: free products and services.

    Example: Setareh Khatibi who promotes SEYTU brand makeup products.

    Signing a contract with brands within a set period, becoming faithful representatives of the brand.

    Example: Guillermo Ochoa being a notable representative, considered an ambassador of the Kavak brand in Mexico.

    influencer example

    Activations through posts, reels or stories in exchange for financial compensation.

    How to start an influencer marketing strategy?

    After knowing the information provided above, the first step to develop an influencer marketing strategy is:

    1. Choose an influencer who connects with your target audience

      The buyer persona is important to define our influencer; knowing their common preferences, tastes and interests provokes great interaction and charisma among followers, who feel identified and idealized with them.

      2. Marketing campaign .

      This is concentrated in two modalities.

      • Continuous work: That is, always talk about the brand as an ambassador, reinforcing its presence and identity with followers.
      • Introduction of new products to the market with the aim of attracting new customers.

        Both modalities must take into account the scope of the campaign, the influence and the objective they want to achieve in order to take full advantage of the strategy established at the beginning.

        3. Generate Positive Reviews

        Taking care of the product or service from the influencer's perspective is not an easy task, so controlling the actions and taking care of the tone of communication will be essential to persuade the potential client in a favorable way by encouraging benefits, advantages and even promotions.

        4. Measure the results:

          Knowing the history of data and measuring the results is essential for any marketing strategy, so we recommend checking how much they have generated for your company through the planned actions.

          How to measure the strategy to know if it is effective?

          As a summary to start, we recommend following these steps:

          1. Determine the objective: select the appropriate profiles for the campaign or product and determine the objective to be met, this can be:

          1. Total number of sales generated

          2. Increased traffic to the website

          3. Mentions on social networks

          4. Engagement rate/share per post

          5. Increase in follower base on brand platforms.

          Some KPIs to take into account are:

          1. Engagement rate: Generally speaking, having a community of 1 million followers and only interacting with 10 is not profitable for an influencer marketing strategy. Therefore, we must pay full attention to the number of times that followers comment, click 'like', share or save a post . Having a real, authentic and interesting link based on the content generated by the influencer is essential.

          2. Performance Indicators: Conversion rates generated by increased subscriptions, sales through a link, app downloads or product discount codes generated in a post or any other type of publication can be tracked by:

          1. UTM tags : These are specific extensions that are added to URLs and vary depending on the origin of the click, offering information on how the user reached the website. For this point, we recommend the Google Campaign URL Builder tool to generate friendly tracking.

          2. Landing page associated with the campaign .

          3. Discount codes: They are used as an incentive, offering unique and exclusive benefits from brands related to your interests.

          1. ROI: Measures the relationship between money earned and money invested in a specific action. This metric stands for "Return on Investment" and is a performance calculation used to validate investments made.

           How to find influencers on social media?

          Some tools that can help you find the perfect Influencer are:

          1. Heepsy : Find over 1 million Instagram and YouTube influencers with over 5,000 followers. The basic version of this tool is free and allows you to perform simple keyword searches.

          2. Influencity : Influencity is a software that searches in just a few minutes among +55 million influencers, updated in real time and distributed globally on the main social networks. Its features include customized workflows, cost predictions, detection of fake influencers, engagement analysis and creation of real-time performance reports.

          3. Socialpubli : Unlike other platforms, it is a database where even you can train as an influencer. It is an online platform that connects brands with normal people, that is, without them being under the scrutiny of any media outlet.

           

          In conclusion

          Influencers have taken over the internet, causing a drastic revolution in traditional marketing strategies.

          To ensure that a product or service is sold, the best option is to persuade the customer through the public opinion of a figure with idealized tastes and interests. The best way to measure this strategy is with performance metrics in the interaction and return on investment.

           

          Possible related articles:

          1. Buyer Persona: The key to the success of your digital strategy

          2. Essential Metrics in Google Analytics

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