The Do’s and Don’ts of Influencer Marketing

Marketing is an essential part that decides the success of a business. Any business that has been in the market for a long time or has recently landed in this business vertical would always require making the right choice and choosing the suitable marketing approaches. Without proper marketing, businesses have no value. Therefore, it is crucial for any business to pay attention to creating a great marketing strategy.

No more conventional strategies matter in the world where globalisation is the only name. However, in order to reach the global market, apart from organic marketing, it would also require brands and businesses to choose influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is the latest marketing approach that has been changing the digital landscape. As businesses are constantly searching to improve their customer base, it requires them to make the right choice of marketing that food helps them improve.

In this article, we will pay attention to influencer marketing as this specific marketing approach has excellent reachability. As an influencer has immense capability to trigger sales, using their recommendation can become beneficial for businesses. So, if you have decided to choose an influencer marketing strategy, this Guide can be helpful for you. Here we will talk about the dues and don’ts in influencer marketing so that you find it easy to avoid the common mistakes and perform the right steps.

However, before that, we will take a look into an influencer marketing strategy.

Why do businesses change their influencer marketing strategy? 

As there is a massive change in the digital marketplace, businesses require choosing the right marketing strategy. There was once a time when pop-ups and banners used to have a significant influence, but things have now started changing. 54% of viewers would definitely not like to click on the banner Ad. So, they simply mean that it is a waste of money and effort. Therefore, you must be thinking about what would be the solution.

In today’s world of social media, when people are most active, you need to check on that. Some of the most common places like Twitter, Instagram and blogs have become a dominating aspect of the market. Influencers have become the dominating personality that people mostly have faith in. Influencers are actually the people who are the one to create content and provide their views on certain services or products. It helps to increase customer engagement.

40% of people have to say that they would purchase a product only after they find their influencer, providing a good review on the product. Therefore, influencer marketing can have a significant impact on deciding the business’s success and return on investment. Therefore, if you have decided to start your influencer marketing campaign, make sure that you follow this blog to find out the dues and don’ts in influencer marketing. This will be helpful in every step.

Do’s and Don’ts 

Finding an Influencer for Your Product or Service: 

Do’s: 

• Decide whether you want engagement or reach.

So, when it is about influencer marketing, and you need to choose an influencer, the main thing that you will want is the result. It will certainly want to have more visibility or engagement towards your content as it will make it impactful. But it is not always the case.

Engagement is crucial for businesses. When it comes to creating quality content that will compel your audience to comment or share your message is much required. It is essential to understand that there is a difference between engagement and reach. These are two sides of a similar coin. When you choose celebrity influencers, they have the ability to reach a massive audience but can limit engagement. However, when you choose micro-influencers, they might have a smaller reach but improved engagement.

Therefore, it is important for you to understand your priority and then choose. Therefore, depending on your basic requirement, you need to start picking influencers who can be the best choice for your requirements.

• You have to keep the team updated regarding the choices:

Similar to any digital marketing campaign, it is important for you to understand that communication is essential in every business process. In order to ensure that the influential strategy works, you need to communicate. So, everyone in your team who is working for marketing needs to be informed and updated regarding the choices you are making.

Rather than using a spreadsheet, you will require a proper influencer marketing platform from where you can get complete detail. You will keep an eye on everything, like where you have found the influencer, the social platforms they generally use, the impact they have been making with the campaign, along with the contract you have signed with them.

When you communicate with your team and keep it transparent, it becomes easier for everyone to keep an eye on influencer marketing. This becomes beneficial as he will be able to make changes if required.

Don’ts

• Never pick the wrong influencer:

When you choose an influencer who can give you engagement and reach, it is great. But have you thought about the relevance? It is vital for you to choose the right influencer based on your industry.

You should always keep in mind that paying too much attention to the matrix would not always be the right decision. So when you pick an influencer for marketing, it is important that you check their content and find out what they say. You need to discuss more about your competitors and your brand to create an equal picture. This will ensure that you both are on the same grounds, and the influencer will be able to convey a desired message relevant to your business.

While aligning the brand with other voices, you have to show support. In case they say something really controversial, you will be the one to face the backlash. Therefore, you have to be mindful while choosing an influencer and discuss more about your brand and its purpose.

• Avoid spamming influencers: 

This is again related to the above points. When it is about looking for influencers for your company or brand, you would require contacting them. Therefore, take yourself as an example when you receive an email from any company that requests you to do something. And the next day, you will get another email from a different person but belong to the same place and the same one the other day. If this continues, you will feel confused and annoyed. Eventually, you will leave.

Therefore, it is important for you to keep a constant place for communication for you and your teams with the influencer. You have to make sure that either one person is handling the task or you are using one email for every person when it comes to sending messages to the influencer. Creating a proper flow would be beneficial throughout the process.

Influencer Management:

Do’s 

• Make sure to properly approach them: 

After doing a lot of research work, when you have found a desirable influencer and your thinking is to approach them, you need to be very sure about choosing the right approach. As you’re about to start and create a new relationship, you need to be mindful of your first step. So, the very first important thing that you need to be sure about is how they would prefer to be contacted.

Make sure that you properly check out the profiles and buyers in order to get their contact numbers or sources. Most people would prefer tweets or emails rather than calling. On today’s date, you will not be able to get any additional contact points. Since you have randomly got a potential influencer, they would certainly not appreciate a random call from a business. So, it is important that you choose the proper approach and then contact them.

• Set a transparent relationship: 

From the very first time when you start a conversation, you need to keep this in mind. You have to have a clear agenda in your mind; what are your objectives behind a relationship? What are you looking for to get in return from the influencer? It is a give-and-take policy. Therefore, you need to have a clear and transparent relationship.

You will find it easy to go on when you are transparent and vocal from the very start. This will also help you to get rid of any kind of issues in the future. When it comes to making your content and getting discovered by people, it might cost you a higher budget as it requires the influencers to create a proper strategy that would work.

Don’ts: 

• Never underestimate professionalism:

While coming in contact with the influencers, it is better if you keep it professional. People live in a misconception that influences are amateur, and they would prefer a personal relationship. Just because they are running their business from the comfort of their home does not necessarily mean that they are immature. There are many independent entrepreneurs who are managing a brand or a business from their homes.

So, you should be mindful while contacting. Make sure to keep your professionalism in mind, and then you choose. Maintaining your business in mind and talking to the influencer accordingly would be beneficial. As a brand that wants to approach and improve its professional reach, the influencers would always appreciate creating a professional relationship.

• Keep a low expectation for freebies: 

It is true that whether you are a brand or an ordinary person, we all like freebies. Free mentions can be a great choice, but it is better that you don’t expect certain things every time. Therefore, you have to keep your budget said while starting the campaign and would spend it accordingly. There are many people for whom social channels are their only career earning. They are constantly working to get a proper paycheque by converting their workload. Just by giving staff, you’re not going to get the best food on your table.

Therefore, if you want to get something good from them, you have to offer them something valuable. Providing a free product would be appreciated by most influencers as it would help them to understand your product and describe it properly today people while there are influencers who would ask for a paycheque. Therefore, it needs you to have clear communication before you start working with the influencer.

Influencer monitoring: 

Do’s 

• Set an attainable goal: 

It is always important to set a proper goal before you start working. When you have decided to work through an influencer campaign, you need to have a set ambition in your mind. So, try to understand your expectation from the campaign. Before working with the influencers, it is vital that you understand what you exactly expect from them.

So, create tangible targets that can be attainable. Make sure to set targets according to the months. They have been working for you. Creating smart goals would be effective for influencers to work accordingly and will also improve your marketing strategy. Creating smaller goals is always better for companies.

• Monitor the results: 

When you’re working on something and you have set goals, you need to measure them properly. Monitoring results can be difficult. 53% of marketers have to say that they struggle to monitor the performance of influencer campaigns. However, using the right influencer marketing platform can make it simple. Placing real values on every engagement and mention you receive will help you to convert the campaign into a tangible ROI.

It is true that initially, it might become a little bit challenging, but when you start working, you will get accustomed to it. Monitoring result in real-time is extremely important as it will help you to understand the engagement or estimated ROI. You will get against the investment you are making. This will make it better for you to fathom whether influencer strategy is working for your brand or not.

Don’ts:

• Create vanity: 

When it is about setting goals, it is important to understand that they need to be impactful. This means the goals need to be related directly to your business goals. Hence, it would help you to make more money. Choosing vanity metrics would not help.

It is definitely great to improve your Facebook audience or get a huge reach on your blog post, but it does not matter when it comes to increasing your business. ROI. It is not time to just build brand awareness but create attainable goals and target the campaigns accordingly.

• Tie back the goals: 

However, you have to make sure that you must not try the results with the campaign goals that you have set. If the prime reason for the influencer marketing strategy is increasing sales of the software by a certain percentage and you are improving sales of another product, it’s great, but this is not something that you wanted.

Therefore, when you link back to the goals, you will not always find proper alignment with your campaign. This can be due to the wrong influencer, CTA, or the target audience is not right according to your brand or business. Therefore, you need to have clear measurements and goals to optimise the campaign results. 

Conclusion: 

So, when it is about influencer marketing, and you are looking for a proper influencer marketing strategy, it is important for you to understand the major dues and don’ts. Choosing the right influencer marketing platform would be beneficial if you want to improve the strategy and result. As many influencers are available in the market, it is up to you to have the right approach to choose and align yourself accordingly.

Having the proper influencer marketing strategy set in advance would be beneficial for any business. However, you need to be flexible enough to make sure that you can change the strategy. According to the results you are getting.

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