4 dos and don’ts for successful influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has been gaining a lot of traction in recent months and with good reason – it can have a very positive impact on sales. While nothing new – brands have been using celebrity endorsements for years – its face is changing, with businesses using bloggers and those with large social media followings to promote their products.

If you’re looking to engage in influencer marketing, here are some tips you’ll need to be aware of.

1. Do your homework

Influencers have, of course, realised that they’re being leveraged for brand promotion, and are thus charging higher fees than ever for their services. It’s really important, however, to research your influencers before you enter into any sort of agreement. Some influencers have a significant number of fake followers, which means your product is being promoted to bots. The issue is widespread, so research beforehand and regular due diligence thereafter is really important.

1. Don’t expect overnight success

So often, providers of marketing and SEO services are expected to produce results within a week or a month. With SEO in particular, this simply isn’t possible – it takes several months for the campaigns to show results. It’s a similar situation with influencer marketing. A shout out from an influencer isn’t going to double your sales within a week. It takes time for consumers to go from awareness to purchase, so think your strategy through carefully and budget accordingly.

1. Don’t try to micromanage

You are, understandably, proud of your brand and your products. But marketing via influencers means you have to relinquish some of the control that you would normally enjoy through other marketing efforts. It’s fine to provide brand guidelines and applicable regulations, but handing the reins to the influencer is important if they’re going to make the product resonate with their audience. It may be that you’ll need to give ground on creative or tone of voice, and you certainly shouldn’t try to micromanage their efforts.

1. Do develop a proper strategy

Many brands rely on sponsored posts from their influencers, without thinking through the whole strategy. Like other marketing efforts such as website SEO and display advertising, you’ll need a strategy in place. This might start with brand awareness and sponsored posts as you build trust with your influencer, but it will need to move on from there if your aim is to convert to sales.

Once you’ve established your goals, you could request key products to be highlighted at key times, or time sensitive discounts to be promoted. You might even start to work more closely with the influencer, getting them involved in a project to increase their personal investment in it. You’ll also need to ensure you have an attribution model in place to see how many sales have come through from these efforts.

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