Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns For Successful Social Media Partnership & Outreach Content Planning
Contents
Definition of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is an online marketing strategy that involves engaging with influential people on social media in order to promote a brand’s message and reach a wider audience. Influencers can be celebrities, bloggers, athletes, or everyday people with a large following. The goal of any influencer marketing campaign should be to build relationships and trust between the influencer and their followers, in order to increase brand awareness and credibility.
There are several types of influencers marketing examples campaigns.
- Long-term influencer campaigns involve working with the same influencers for an extended period of time.
- Campaign-based which involve creating a new campaign every time the current campaign is finished.
- Product endorsement campaigns involve influencers promoting a specific product or services, often using social media influencer ads or their Influencer marketing programs.
- Celebrity endorsement campaigns involve influencers promoting a brand to their followers.
Influencer marketing is an effective way to reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness. It is important to choose the right influencers for your campaign and develop a strategy that will work best for your brand.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing
There are substantial benefits to using influencer marketing by firstly identifying the right influencer who best suits your brand vision who enables you to create campaigns that can help you extend your reach of potential customers. Thereby increasing your brand awareness and possibly boost conversions.
Influencer marketing also gives you a great opportunity to communicate with customers in an organic way that resonates with them. You can also work with influencers to create content that reflects your company’s mission, values, and products.
59% of marketers believe influencer marketing is an effective strategy for their business according to Oberlo.
With influencer marketing campaigns access to a wider audience is possible whilst establishing long term relationships and partnerships with influencers and their followers.
Influencer marketing campaigns generate an average of $6.50 for every $1.00 spent (Source: Influencer Marketing Hub)
It can help you save time and money while still achieving great results, as it often requires very little effort on your part.
Influencer marketing campaigns have an average return on investment (ROI) of $18 for every $1.00 spent.
Types of Influencers
Influencer marketing is a popular and effective way for brands to reach their target audience with each offering different benefits and price points.
- Nano social media influencers are those with less than 10,000 followers
- Great for targeting specific niches (see the Simple Profits System)
- Generally inexpensive for brands.
- Downside their reach is relatively small but could be targeted
- Micro social media influencers are those with more than 10,000 but less than 100,000 followers.
- More expensive than Nano Influencers
- Do more than the Nano Influencers typically do
- Easily endorse products effectively
- Macro social media influencers are those with followers ranging from 100,000 to 1 million.
- The clout of these blogger type influencers should exceed. your expectations
- Expect high-quality content with tags
- Mega social media influencers have more than 1 million followers.
- Lets be real getting on their radars is going to take some work
- Generally will only endorse big brands
- They have the largest reach of all mentioned
- They come with the highest price tag so your campaigns could be quite expensive
Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Brand ambassador campaign
A brand ambassador campaign involves working with an influencer on a recurring basis so is generally a fan of the product and is passionate about the brand. They resonate with the brand’s mission and will share their positive experiences with their audience in an authentic way as they have a personal connection with them.
Being one of the faces of the brand they will promote the brand’s content using their social media channels. Expect your brand ambassadors to cultivate long-term partnerships that should last several months to a year or longer with the aim to rapidly raise brand awareness.
Product placement (Influencers Unboxing)
A product placement influencer marketing campaign is a type of marketing strategy that involves incorporating a business’s product or logo into an influencer’s social media content. This type of campaign is useful in that it features products or services being used casually and easily, and essentially “normalises” their use.
There are many ways influencers can place sponsored products in their content, such as taking a photo of themselves with the product, or demonstrating how they use it. Product placements can also be seen in YouTube videos as part of a video review or discussing the product in some way.
Products that are placed in videos include clothing items, skincare products, sunglasses, and supplements. Additionally, behind-the-scene content gives audiences a feel for a company’s mission, practices, and environment.
Giveaways
A brand giveaway campaign involves the brand offering a free product or service which the influencers can give away to their followers so the brand isn’t directly involved in the influence marketing campaign and just involved in the background with the influencer to guide them to generate higher ROI by targeting an audience that is similar to and larger than its own.
Brand giveaways encourage more engagement from potential customers since their is an opportunity to win something for free resulting in higher social engagement, likes, shares, and comments including those who didn’t win the contest.
Brand partnerships
Brand partnerships are more popular with brands and are more like to use to promote their products or services. Brand partnerships can be very effective in raising awareness for a brand and driving sales however careful selection essential (Think Adidas vs West).
Influencer content
Influencer content refers to the content that influencers create to promote a product or service for a brand in their marketing campaigns to expand their reach a brand’s target audience. Influencers will create content on multiple platforms that they have influence on including social media, blogs, video sites, and podcasts.
This content is usually integrated with the brand’s message and is seen as genuine. This is because the primary focus of the content is usually not on the product or service, but rather on engaging the audience by weaving the product or service into the influencer’s story. For example, an influencer may create videos using the products around their house without making it seem as though the content is solely there to promote the product.
Shoutouts
A shoutout involves an influencer mentioning a brand or product in their social media message via post or video. Often this type of campaign is used by smaller brands as they don’t have the budget to pay for dedicated content pieces. The shoutout content is incredibly effective when created by an influencer who has actually used the product.
Influencer Unboxing’s
The Influencer unboxes and reviews a product showing potential customers what to expect from the experience of purchasing and using the product. Unboxing influencer videos are not just about selling the product, but the overall experience of receiving and using it and sharing the experience that could be expected by the potential customer.
Best Practices for Working with Influencers
- Before you begin working with influencers, take the time to understand the influencer landscape and the different types of influencers (micro-influencers, macro-influencers, celebrities). You can do this by observing how they promote brands and taking note of their followers and engagement rate.
- Once you’ve identified an influencer that you think is a good fit for your brand, your next step is to personally contact them. The best way to do this is by email, sending a message that introduces your brand and talks about how a collaboration might look. You can use the template provided in the reference information as a guideline.
- When you reach out to the influencer, make sure to provide them with all the resources they need in order to produce the best image that combines their profile with your brand. If appropriate, you can also offer to gift complimentary products or experiences in exchange for the mention.
- Before proceeding with the collaboration, make sure that the influencer declares when work is #gifted #paid #spon (Sponsored), as this is now required by the ASA due to new rules concerning influencer marketing.
- Once the influencer has agreed to the collaboration, be sure to give them enough time to create content and keep the relationship going. A single social media mention is not likely to remain effective for very long, so consider engaging in a multi-platform campaign or a long-term relationship with the influencer.
- Consider inviting the influencer to events in order to build a stronger relationship with them and give them the opportunity to share the event on their social channels.
- Finally, take the time to evaluate the results of the collaboration and the effectiveness of Influencer’s content. This will help you to determine whether or not the collaboration was worthwhile and guide you in future collaborations.
Measuring the Success of Campaigns
Measuring the success of your influencer campaigns is an important part of understanding the impact of your marketing efforts so these steps could help you ensure that your campaign is a success.
- Take a hands-off approach to the campaign and trust in the creativity of your influencers allowing them to develop a unique and authentic campaign with genuine content to ensure that their followers engage with the new sponsored content.
- Help engage with the influencer’s followers if thats the agreed partnership.
- Once the campaign is complete, it’s time to measure its success.
- Use tools like Google Analytics to check metrics such as unique hashtags and UTMs to get a better understanding of the success of the campaign.
- Use your conversion tracking software to track visitor numbers, engagement and overall ROI.
- Use dedicated surveys to accurately determine metrics such as how customers heard about your brand and demographics.
By following these steps, you can measure the success of your influencer campaigns, and improve your overall digital marketing strategy.
Challenges of Influencer Marketing
What are the challenges of influencer marketing?
- Accurate reporting to measure the return on investment (ROI) of the campaigns is sometimes difficult
- Identifying the right influencers that will a good fit for your brand and who can effectively communicate your brand message.
- Creating an effective Influencer marketing strategy requires thorough content creation planning
- Finding Influencers that will quickly adapt and leverage social media changes in order to remain successful.
- Building long term relationships with both influencers and potential customers is a long game so requires patience.
Frequently Asked Questions About Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
What are the different types of influencer marketing campaigns?
- Sponsored posts are when an influencer promotes a product or service, often in exchange for payment.
- Content collaborations involve influencers partnering with a brand to create content together.
- Themed campaigns are when a brand hires an influencer to create content about a specific topic.
- Shoutout content is when an influencer mentions a brand or product in their posts.
- Brand ambassadors are influencers that promote the brand for a period of time.
- Reviews are posts about a product or service that include the influencer’s opinion.
- Pre-release campaigns involve influencers promoting a product before it is released.
- Giveaways involve influencers offering their followers a chance to win a prize offered by the brand
- Event activations is when an influencer attends an event related to a brand in order to promote it.
- Host brand experience events are when an influencer hosts an event related to a brand.
- Takeovers are when an influencer takes over a brand’s social media account for a set period of time.
- Discount codes are when an influencer offers their followers a coupon or code for a discount on a product or service.
- Affiliate campaigns involve influencers promoting a product or service in exchange for a commission.
- Integrated content is when an influencer and a brand work together to create content that features both the brand and the influencer.
- Branded hashtags involve influencers creating content with a brand’s hashtag.
What are the benefits of influencer marketing campaigns?
There are many benefits of influencer marketing campaigns and here are some of them listed below:
- Brands can reach a wider audience
- Increase brand awareness and credibility.
- Create user-generated content that brands can reuse
- Allow brands to navigate the customer journey
- Promote the brand in an organic and cost-effective manner
- Develop long-term trusted partnerships with both influencers and audiences
What are the key components of an influencer marketing campaign?
- Set goals and identify the ideal audience
- Determine the goals the brand hopes to achieve
- Identify the ideal audience they want to target.
- Develop a strategy and choose the right platforms
- Craft a strategy and decide which social platforms to use.
- Find relevant, effective personalities to work with
- Use closely aligned influencers to collaborate with based on the above points
- Dedicate support and insight
- Provide fast dedicated support and insight into the influencer marketing strategies and tactics.
- Agree upon compensation
- Clearly define and agree upon the compensation for influencers to avoid any campaign disruptions
- Avoid micromanaging
- Allow them to exercise their creativity.
- Engage with followers
- Engaging with their followers by quickly responding to comments, liking posts, and joining conversations all of which will help make the campaign successful.
- Measure the results
- When the campaign is over, measure the results and adjust your approach for next time.
Who are the key players involved in influencer marketing campaigns?
- The Brands:
- Brands are the companies that are looking to promote their products and services in order to increase its brand awareness, credibility, and ultimately drive sales by getting more new customers.
- The Influencers
- Influencers are the social media personalities with a high level of popularity, charisma and charm that can help to increase the brand’s reach and engagement.
- The audience:
- The Audience are the followers of the influencers that are interested in a particular subject or niche or just fans of the influencer.
What are the different stages of an influencer marketing campaign?
The four main stages to an influencer marketing campaign are:
- Research involves finding influencers who have the ability to reach your targeted audience
- Outreach involves contacting these influencers and asking them to participate in your campaign
- Activation involves working with the influencers to promote your brand or product.
- Measurement involves tracking the results of your campaign to see if it was successful.
What are the challenges associated with influencer marketing campaigns?
- Finding the right influencer
- Content creation is authentic
- Campaign performance and tracking
- Generating accurate campaign ROI reporting
What are the best practices for influencer marketing campaigns?
- Define Your Goals \& Target Audience :
- Find the Right Influencers
- Set Clear Guidelines
- Monitor Progress
- Measure Results (Data Analysis)
What data analysis measurement and evaluation criteria is used for influencer marketing campaigns?
- Measure clients engagement levels using metrics such as likes, comments, shares etc.
- Measure client reach by determining the number of unique people that viewed the content.
- Measure the amount of traffic generated by who visited the content or website using the links used
- Establish number of sales generated through the marketing campaign.
- Establish the amount of new leads generated through out the campaign.
- Review metrics such as brand mentions, search volume, and online conversations in social media shares
- Determine how much each acquired lead or customer costed (Cost Per Acquisition)
- Determine customer satisfaction by evaluating customer feedback, surveys responses
- Review client questions, solutions and reviews to get an overall sense of the campaign engagement
- Based on the cost versus the revenue generated was a return on investment generated