Phạm TúEvery week, we receive around 5-10 inquiries via inbox or calls at IMVN, mostly from clients seeking influencer discovery and pricing. It’s clear that influencer marketing is an incredibly effective strategy, and importantly, VERY EASY TO IMPLEMENT.
With the explosive growth of social media platforms, influencer marketing has naturally become one of the most popular marketing and advertising methods. As target markets become younger and more digitally connected, influencers help brands connect with consumers more effectively “online.”
There’s no need to explain influencer marketing itself anymore. But if you’re considering hiring influencers for your brand, where do you start?
This is what we’ve been pondering when interacting with you over the years on IMVN’s fan page and website:
- Executives at brands: Often lack training in influencer marketing campaign management, knowledge about influencers, and a plan for utilizing them. They inquire about KOL lists and contact 800 other agencies, but completely lack a defined budget, product, goals, strategy, and target audience.
- Executives at agencies: Mostly freshers or juniors new to the agency, checking prices and surveying the market. Those with more experience might send briefs, but they’re often just the general plan brief, not revised into a proper, concise brief.
- Business owners: See influencer marketing merely as finding someone to talk about their product, with no strategy or clear purpose. Sometimes it’s just for their distributors to confirm that the brand is doing good marketing.
With years of experience in the field, we hope this article reaches you with the goal of helping you narrow your search and ensure your influencer marketing strategy is as effective as possible.
Realities of current influencer marketing campaign
Before reading the section below, let’s revisit some realities of current influencer marketing:
- Stop “My collaboration with KOCs didn’t generate orders or results, everyone’s engagement is fake”: Well, then find a better approach; your competitors will gladly do it for you.
- Use your influencer budget wisely, don’t just book and… that’s it: It’s better to pay for expertise from professionals than to save money by checking prices yourself and making haphazard bookings.
- Getting caught up in follower count or engagement will lead you into the illusion of fake followers and engagement, orchestrated by the agency or the KOC themselves.
- Obsessing over content control stifles the KOC/KOL’s creativity.
- Focusing solely on sales or affiliate marketing diminishes brand value. If you prioritize branding, don’t demand immediate orders.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, 90% of marketing strategies allocate budget for influencer marketing, with 62% increasing their influencer marketing budget. Research also shows that most brands that have worked with influencers are satisfied with the collaboration and find it hard to break away.
Influencer Marketing Campaign Checklist
Define Your Goals
Is it brand awareness or conversion increase, or both? Do you want to boost brand visibility or grow engagement? Are you generating new leads, increasing revenue, or aiming to build trust and loyalty with existing customers?
Clearly Identify Your Target Audience
Identifying the right segment and audience increases the effectiveness and success of influencer marketing. Once you’ve defined your marketing goals, it becomes easier to determine which audience will best contribute to those goals.
Determine a Specific Budget That Meets Your Goals
Defining your budget is crucial; it practically determines how you approach influencer marketing services. For example, if you have a limited budget, you can gradually book individual KOCs/KOLs instead of booking through an agency. Choose between booking a few high-segment KOCs/KOLs or many smaller ones in the market. You can even offer cash plus products.
Classify Your Campaign
Guest posts, sponsored posts, retargeting, co-creation, contests, mini-games, mentions in posts, discount codes, and many more influencer marketing formats can be implemented.
Choose the Right Platform
TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or a mix of platforms.
Create Engaging Content for Your Campaign
Even with the most exciting campaign or the most suitable product, consumers won’t care if the message and content created by the influencer fail to capture their attention. Keep the content you want KOCs/KOLs to share simple. Let them create content in their own way, allowing your brand message to resonate with their followers.
Visualize a Specific Influencer Persona
The clearer your vision of the influencer, the better you can reach your potential customers, and vice versa. You can find influential people in your industry using hashtags on social media platforms.
Distribute Content
Now it’s time to post and think about how to increase reach with questions like: Will we use paid ads, and how much? Are there any supporting PR activities?
Monitor and Measure
Real-time tracking and specific measurement: To determine a campaign’s success, continuous monitoring of metrics is crucial. Track impacts beyond KOC/KOL metrics, such as website traffic, engagement on brand posts, conversions, or other key indicators related to the KOC/KOL.
Request daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports from your staff or agency, depending on the campaign’s nature. Some agencies offer real-time data integration for analysis, providing a more intuitive view of the campaign. Gone are the days of receiving lifeless reports only after the campaign ends. Cross-channel verification is crucial for analyzing the success of influencer marketing campaigns and optimizing future ones.
Collaborating with influencers undoubtedly brings many development opportunities for businesses. However, maximizing their potential requires a deep understanding of strategy and execution. Even with the right influencers, a reasonable budget, and a reputable agency partner, marketers still need to grasp key factors to achieve optimal campaign results. We hope the insights in this article provide a helpful perspective.
Thank you for your interest and attention.
