Is influencer marketing worth it for your business?

If you’re considering influencer marketing for your next marketing campaign, it could be a wise choice. After all, most influencer marketing campaigns work well to get people raving about the product or service.

Collaboration can bring new leads and customers but not all campaigns get similar results. Some aren’t too keen to go down this path. That’s because they have set up the campaign without realizing what goes into getting raving fans. With a bit of focus, you can get influencer marketing to work for you. 

The key here is to gain trust by picking the right influencers and setting KPIs that measure the effectiveness of your message and marketing campaign.

Why do people buy?

Regardless of whether you position your product on quality or price, the one factor that ultimately decides whether someone buys from you is how much they trust you. And if you’re digging into influencer marketing to make it work for you, then know that establishing trust is crucial at every stage of the buying cycle.

It is typically used to build trust among customers in the early stages of the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) cycle. When your customers aren’t aware of your business or need a push to get interested  in knowing you and your product. Because influencers have an existing relationship with their audience, it is natural to build on it and create awareness about your product.

But does it mean any influencer will work for your business? 

Not all influencers can give you the desired results. That’s because tying revenues to specific influencer marketing campaigns at the awareness stage is tricky. It could be a hit or a miss. 

So how do you make influencer marketing work for you?

Influencer marketing ROI 

Approach the right micro-influencers

One way to approach the right influencer for your campaign is to use micro-influencers with very niche audience segments. In this way, you’re not spreading your budget thin by catering to all segments. 

Focus on micro-influencers with limited geographic reach so that growth in revenues from these geographies can be attributed to them. It also narrows your audience pool, making it easy to attract and convert leads.

Micro-influencers are also relatively cheaper than large influencers. So, such campaigns help with test marketing your campaign before you increase spending.

Reach out with unique offer codes

When your focus is on specific geography, engage with the influencers by giving them unique offer codes. It is one of the most popular strategies to offer discounts with specific coupon codes, making it easy to track the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign. 

You also benefit from personalizing them for your audience, giving them a taste of customization that helps in customer acquisition and retention with unique offer codes.

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs)

Establish KPIs before starting a campaign. It could be tracking brand searches or specific product or model searches for the campaign. Also, monitor the reach, the number of mentions, and interaction rate for each campaign, making it easy to understand the campaign outcome – essentially, become extremely data-driven.

Make sure that your contract with the influencer mentions the use of specific CTA so that these can be tied to the KPIs. E.g., An influencer mentioning a website URL in their message or directing people to your social pages.

Opportunity cost to influencer marketing 

Calculate ROI for influencer marketing when picking the right micro-influencers, providing unique offer codes, and establishing KPIs. Then compare it with ROI from other marketing channels. 

E.g., Your marketing team could focus on SEO or native ads along with influencer marketing. Consider the return for each of these and how these fare against influencer marketing. 

Remember to keep your audience at the core while doing so. If it’s millennials, influencer marketing is less intrusive and disruptive than traditional marketing, making it a suitable option.

However, also consider the confidence level of your ROI. For example, SEO or PPC have high confidence levels since each click and revenue is tracked. But brand awareness campaigns have lower confidence levels. 

Hence, narrow down your message and fine-tune it for your audience. By doing so, it’s easy for your audience to relate to your campaign and not see it as an ask or exchange of products. When your marketing success is linked to your audience’s growth, it’s easy to build trust and encourage them to take action on your products or services.

Measure influencer marketing success

• Audience growth

Once you know the ROI of your influencer marketing, note the audience growth by using tracking links. Besides using coupon codes for personalization, check if there’s a surge in the influencer’s followers following your brand. 

It’s a likely sign that your campaign is headed in the right direction. Also, don’t forget to check the influencer’s post to respond to any product or brand queries.

• Message

Tailor your message to your audience and their needs. Move away from simply promoting your brand. Instead, weave it with your audience’s pain points, so they relate to your offerings.

The better aligned your message is to their problems, the higher the chance of getting positive responses.

• Build trust to encourage action

Once your message is aligned with your audience, continue the conversation by engaging with their content. It could be queries, anecdotes, or simply their experience with your brand. 

Share such brand stories with other followers, building credibility. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to encourage users to share their ideas related to your product that spark curiosity. It can be an excellent way to get feedback, iterate your product and get a better ROI for your next campaign.

Conclusion 

As a business owner, you’re wired to try out new marketing strategies benefitting your business. Influencer marketing can be a great tool to get going. However, what can set up your marketing campaign for success is knowing which micro-influencers can benefit your campaign, how you can personalize the experience for their audience, and setting the ROI for it. Also, ensure you check out the opportunity costs for your influencer campaign compared to other marketing campaigns.

Most importantly, tailor your message to align with the pain points that keep your audience up at night and create trust and credibility to create a better feedback loop and ensure higher ROI on your influencer marketing campaigns.