Influencer marketing is when a brand reaches out to an influencer who has some kind of a follower base to promote their products and services. There are influencers for several platforms and they promote brands using different mediums e.g. posts, stories, reels, blogs, podcasts, etc.
A person who can persuade you to purchase something is an influencer. Influencer marketing now remains one of the most popular forms of marketing. Influencers have made it a full-time career because of how well it pays. And brands are happy to pay because they get to reach a large and relevant audience at once and influencers also have a better engagement rate. An influencer gives credibility to a brand that is looking to attract new customers.
Steps to plan Influencer Marketing:
Step 1 – Define your Goals
The first step would be to define your goals. This helps you understand the purpose of your campaign and how you will measure its success. Influencer Marketing is not just to generate sales. There are several other goals that can be achieved like:
1) Create Content: You can use influencers to create amazing content. Influencers can create content that is suitable for their followers which can result in having a good engagement rate.
2) Brand Awareness: Influencers have followers because they focus on a particular niche. Reaching out to the right influencers can help you in creating brand awareness with the right audience.
3) Generate Leads: Influencer Marketing can also be excellent for lead generation. The followers trust the influencers; this lends credibility to brands to be able to sell their products/ Services.
4) Mutual friends between brand and Customers: Influencers act as mutual friends between brands and customers. This helps brands in promoting their messages with ease.
Step 2 – Find the right Influencer
The next step after setting your goals is to find the right influencers. Influencers are either Micro or Macro. Micro-influencers are influencers with less than 75 thousand followers. Macro Influencers are influencers with more than 100 thousand followers. Influencers are further divided into six categories:
- ‣ Food: For restaurants to promote on platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, etc.
- ‣ Travel: To promote hotels, travel hotspots, etc.
- ‣ Lifestyle: does everything but has a niche.
- ‣ Fashion: Promotes fashion products, trends, fashion advice.
- ‣ Technology: Gadgets and Gadget accessories
- ‣ MOM: Baby products
- ‣ Education: Educational products and services
- ‣ Fitness: Promotes fitness products
There are many tools you can use to find influencers some of the tools are:
- • Hype Auditor
- • Indi Blogger
- • Get evangalized
- • Influencer.in
- • Elve Media
Step 3 – Set a Budget
An influencer will charge according to the followers that they have. Higher the followers higher the rates per post. You can find influencers for any budget no matter how small or large your budget is. There are several other ways you can structure deals with an influencer like a barter, barter and paid, Give away, and Commission.
Step 4 – Set the message
After identifying the influencer and setting a budget the next step is to set the message you want the influencers to promote. The message should be able to amplify your overall campaign goals.
Step 5 – Contact influencers
Before you contact influencers, do the research on their engagement rate, similar brands they have worked with, their reputation, and will they be the right fit for your brand. Contact the influencers by sending a message or Email. Your message should contain the following:
- • Your Name
- • Company Name
- • Campaign Name
- • Campaign Details
- • Why are we selecting you for this campaign?
- • Deliverables expected
- • Deal structure
Step 6 – Review your strategy
The last step is to review your strategy. Influencer Marketing is a continuous and ongoing process. It’s important to review your strategy from time to time to make sure that your goals are being achieved and to make reports of what has or hasn’t worked well in your campaign. This will give you insights into your next campaign.
