What Influencer Marketing Strategy should I apply?

  on May 18th 2018  

One of the most important parts of a successful influencer marketing campaign is having a good strategy. But how do you know which influencer marketing strategy is best? And what is an influencer strategy anyway? Well, let’s try to straighten things out.

In our opinion, a good influencer marketing strategy relies on three main factors that you have to consider very carefully. The first step in the process is to figure out what your target group looks like, the second step is to find out which social media platform your consumers use, and the third is finding the right combination of influencers.

 

Who Is In Your Target Group?

Any type of marketing strategy relies on the brand knowing what their target group looks like, without that information, you will be targeting people at random which will hurt the conversion rate greatly. In order to figure out who they are you should answer questions like are they male or female? How old are they? Do they live in a specific area of the world? Where do they work? What are their interests? What language do they speak?

It’s important that you paint yourself a clear picture of who it is you want to reach out to before you continue with the rest of the planning. In fact, it would be impossible to create a good influencer marketing strategy without knowing who you’re targeting.

After you’ve collected the needed information, you can continue with the rest of strategy planning.

 

Finding the Platform With the Most Potential

Your next task is to figure out which social media platform your target group is using so that you can try to reach them where they are the most active. The following platforms are the most common and chances are that your consumers are on at least one of them.

  1. Instagram is the most popular platform for social media influencers due to the high engagement and incredible reach that the world’s second-largest social media offers. Users are plentiful in all ages, but especially between the age of 18 and 34. The unique picture format is great for selling beautiful products and lifestyles. Combine that with Instagram Stories, and you have one of the most versatile influencer marketing platforms ever.
  2. Snapchat has a user group that’s younger than most other social media and it’s best used if you want to reach consumers in their teens and early twenties. Short, personal videos are best for product reviews and branding.
  3. Facebook is by far the largest social media ever, but it's not the easiest to use for influencer marketing. The reason for this is that engagement tends to be low, and users do not appreciate ad-looking posts. On the other hand, Facebook provides the possibility to reach billions of users in all stages of life.
  4. YouTube has grown tremendously in the last few years, and it’s now one of the most prominent influencer marketing platforms. Users range from all ages, and the fact that you can post long videos means it’s good for reviews, product explanations, and lifestyle influencers to show how your products and services make their lives easier.
  5. Blogs are a great and sometimes overlooked platform for influencer marketing strategies. Generally speaking, a blog post is best for longer product descriptions and to help boost SEO rankings by implementing backlinks.

What Type of Influencer Should You Use?

A common misconception that a lot of brands have is that the biggest influencers with the most followers are the best. This is not necessarily true, and in most cases, it’s better to try and find a collection of influencers that have a smaller but more specific following.

You see, a huge influencer can reach a lot of people but the problem is that their following is often spread very thin. That means you will reach people in your target group but also a lot of people that have no interest in your products. If you use several smaller influencers that have a following in your target group, you will reach many more potential clients, which is the goal of an influencer marketing strategy.

Another issue with huge influencers is the price tag. An influencer with 1 million followers on Instagram will cost many times more than an influencer that has 50,000 followers. Also, when you use one influencer, your product will only be associated with that one person which can be limiting for several reasons.

 

The Easiest Influencer Marketing Strategy

If you think this sounds like a lot of work and like you have to climb a steep learning curve before mastering the process, you are absolutely right. Finding and implementing the right influencer marketing strategy is not an easy task, especially not if the company you work for launches a lot of products.

Luckily enough, there is an easier solution. By using a tested and trusted influencer marketing network like Beatly, you can avoid having to do all the tedious tasks on your own.

When you run your influencer marketing campaigns through Beatly, you will be in contact with a highly professional team that has comprehensive experience from the business. They will help you develop the best strategy for your brand, research what your target group looks like, find the most suitable influencer with proven track records, and activate the campaign for you.

It’s the easiest influencer marketing strategy there is because it takes a lot of the work away from you so that you can focus on other tasks and at the same time results are usually better thanks to the Beatly team’s experience running campaigns for brands in every industry.

Bonus Tip

Whether you decide to do all the work on your own or have Beatly help you along the way is up to you, but we do have one bonus tip that will help take your influencer marketing strategy to the next level.

Don’t forget that the influencers are professionals at what they do and that you’re hiring them for their skill and ability to reach out to your target group. This means that you shouldn’t be too involved in how and what type of content is created. In most cases, it’s enough to provide guidelines and ideas but to then let the influencer do the work.

This might sound strange at first, but a big part of a successful influencer marketing strategy is the ability to take a step back and have faith in your influencers.

Conclusion

It’s crucial to have a well thought out and effective strategy when running your influencer marketing campaigns. However, finding and developing the right strategy is a time-consuming job that feels daunting to many. Between researching the market, evaluating the target group, finding and activating the right influencer, and collecting the results, there are many steps that can go wrong.

Because of this, it has become increasingly popular to use influencer marketing networks to get help with the best influencer marketing strategies for each campaign. As mentioned, Beatly offers a trusted and highly effective service that makes influencer marketing easier than ever before.