Why is your influencer not giving you the desired engagement?
The content seen and shared on the web affects 70 per cent of an adult’s purchasing decision, according to a study by The New York Times.
In a span of a few years, influencer marketing has established itself as a distinguished digital marketing channel for brands. It is believed that in 2018, businesses spent over $2 billion on influencer marketing campaigns.
Subtly, influencers and micro influencers are driving app downloads, boosting purchasing decisions, generating conversions, the website traffic and brand exposure. If done right, you can expect to see booming results.
Influencer marketing campaigns have immense potential; however, several campaigns tend to fall flat.
If you find that your influencer marketing campaigns are not giving you the desired engagement, here’s why:
1. You are not choosing an influencer based on your target audience
One of the critical steps for a successful influencer marketing campaign is to know your target audience. Remember, instead of targeting everybody, be more specific. This defined audience will help find the right influencers. Did you know that brands who produce everyday commodities such as toilet paper and bread focus on differentiating their marketing too?
A vital aspect you need to ensure for your campaign to work is that your influencer’s target audience is the same as yours. With the right influencer, your product/brand will be showcased in front of a relevant audience who is interested. If you have a beauty brand, not all beauty bloggers will work for you. Pick and choose.
Consumers look up to influencers for their recommendations. Influencers provide authenticity and trust for consumers to believe in a product. Thus, a successful influencer marketing campaign involves finding the right people who your target audience will look up to. Find out who truly influences your audience. The more you know about your target audience, the easier it is to find the best-matched influencer.
Finding high-quality influencers is a time-consuming task. But, it is worth the exceptional content they produce.
2. Long-term partnership is the way to go vs. one-off engagements
A long-lasting relationship between brands and influencers radiates authenticity.
As influencers devote more Instagram real estate or blog posts to a particular brand, their faith in that brand becomes visible. As a result, their followers will develop a stronger affinity as well. Ongoing support seems more genuine.
An influencer producing many posts can cover many aspects of the brand. This could cover different ways to use a product/service or highlight different elements across various posts. This means he/she can probably reach out to a whole new lot of people whose problems can be solved by the product/service.
Long-term contracts allow both the brand and the influencer to test out what helps them achieve their goals. They can try different formats, approaches, messages and images and figure out what works.
Since it’s guaranteed work, the influencer will work wholeheartedly with the brand to convey their message.
Most of all, with long-term collaboration vs. short-term one-off posts, it is easier to create honest and organic integrations with brands and consumers. It works better as opposed to a single post here and there for random companies.
What is mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more advantages of engaging in a long term relationship with an influencer. You can read all about it here to pique your interest further.
3. Adopt “customer-first” thinking
Take a new approach in your future campaigns. Rather than promoting your products and brands, use influencer marketing to strengthen customer relationships.
As opposed to a person, for a brand, it’s difficult to build personal relationships with people. You can streamline this process with the help of influencers.
Influencers are trusted individuals with no ulterior motive or agenda, whereas brands/companies have a plan to sell.
If a stranger asked you to lend Rs. 1000, you would likely say no. However, the outcome will be different if your friend asked for Rs. 1000. The only difference between the two scenarios is the relationship.
This goes to show the importance of relationships.
Get your influencers to connect with your audience on a personal level. It will ultimately contribute to your goals of driving higher audience engagement.
4. Measure results
Typically, the first step is to determine the goals for the campaign. Ultimately, you need to ascertain how successfully you were able to meet these goals. Was the campaign able to increase your engagement, views, reach, sales, impression, or whatever your target was?
According to a Tomoson study, a brand made $6.50 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing. It’s no small change – especially considering that the 24 % of the brands budget is directed towards marketing.
After all, akin to other marketing activities, resources and money go into executing an influencer campaign. It’s no surprise that you need to closely monitor the performance and ensure that the money spent is worth the effort!
In the end, It’s a strategy, not a once-off campaign
The growth of the internet and social media has transformed the advertising and marketing industry. Today, a strong presence on social media is worth way more than expensive advertising space. In such a scenario, the role of influencers is continually growing. Every influencer is extremely powerful in their niche and commands the attention of their audience and their trust too.
Don’t you feel your brand can benefit from this? It’s time to hop on to the bandwagon and test the waters.
Sources
https://blog.scrunch.com/long-term-partnerships-vs-one-off-engagements