How to develop a strategy in influencer marketing?
Uncertain times, all the strictures related to the containment of SARS-CoV-2 are undoubtedly affecting the commercial industry. The observed increase in sales in electronic channels is a savior for many entrepreneurs. In such intense competition on the e-commerce market you have to reach for new methods of promotion. With help comes influencer marketing.
Online life = virtual word of mouth
Activities based on collaborations with popular people from the social media world are nothing more than digitized panto mail. The question that immediately arises is which influencer to choose? Focus on micro personalities? Or macro? How much does it cost? Can we afford it? There is no single answer to these questions, but there are undoubtedly a few basic ones to ask yourself when developing an influencer marketing plan.
Influence = influence, but on whom?
The first question that should be asked is undoubtedly who we want to reach. The answers will be useful in further stages of communication strategy development.
It is necessary to examine what group of consumers you want to reach, and what medium your target customer uses. For example, if we plan to reach younger customers, we will choose TikTok as a communication channel, because research shows that this is the space chosen by the youngest. Next, we need to determine what content we want to convey to the audience. The next step is to identify the stage of development of your business. You should think about whether you are just starting your business and have not previously established partnerships with well-known personalities or whether you are already active in the industry. Despite appearances, COVID-19 pandemic for some industries a golden period of development. Return on investment rates are high, so you can then lean on benchmarking, or comparative analysis. Sometimes companies that have a high position in the market have a lot of capital. This is the perfect time to focus on diversity, expanding into other products or services.
The next stage is to analyze the influencers with whom you have already started cooperation. At this stage, we focus on the quantitative analysis. Data correlations such as the number of collaborations undertaken, returns on investment will allow you to determine whether a given collaboration has been successful or whether you should perhaps reduce or increase the amount of contact with people in the social media world. At the third stage, you should consider the impact of the collaboration with the influencer on your business. Watching statistics on social media channels will help you determine whether it is better to invest in influencers operating on a micro or macro scale. Of course it depends on the resources, and they are directly proportional to our position on the market. The next step is to identify key performance indicators. Without clearly defined goals, it is difficult to have a good strategic plan. Ask yourself what reach the influencer you want to cooperate with has – the number of followers as well as their age and gender. The most important issue is conversion, or how much an influencer’s engagement affects product sales. Additionally, you should check what is the engagement of observers on the profile (engagement rate), i.e. the correlation of likes, reactions to the shared content.
When developing a strategy, you can also analyze your past marketing efforts. Leaning into your audience will further help your promotional processes. From the point of view of the pandemic of everyday life, it seems reasonable to take such paths to promote your products and services due to the numerous activities in the online sphere, which has now become virtually a single space of social life for everyone.