Influencer marketing has gone from a buzzword to an indispensable part of modern digital marketing strategies. Over 90% of marketers now leverage influencer campaigns, and the industry is projected to be worth over $16 billion in 2023.
With so many brands jumping into influencer marketing, competition for attention is becoming fierce. Simply putting a budget behind influencer posts is no longer enough. To maximize the ROI of your influencer dollars, you need a cohesive, data-driven influencer strategy.
In this blog post, we’ll walk through a step-by-step framework for developing an influencer marketing plan proven to deliver results in 2023 and beyond.
The 7 Key Steps to Build a Successful Influencer Strategy
Here are some of the best practices that will help you cut through the noise and run high-impact influencer campaigns.
1. Set Clear Goals and KPIs
The first step is defining your core influencer marketing objectives. What are you trying to achieve – drive brand awareness, boost engagement, acquire new customers? Get specific and set measurable KPIs like:
• Reach and impressions
• Video views and engagement rates
• Site traffic, leads, and sales
• Audience sentiment
Track data on your current metrics to establish benchmarks. Then determine the target numbers you aim to hit with influencer campaigns. Having clear, quantifiable goals prevents aimless spending on personal brands.
2. Research Your Ideal Audience
Who are your core customers? What are their key demographics, interests, buying behaviors, and content preferences? Build detailed personas of your target audience to inform your strategy.
Dive deep into data on your current customer profiles, website analytics, social media insights, and market research. The more you understand your customer base, the better you can select relevant influencers to reach them. This is an easy way for Instagram influencers to create Instagram posts and Instagram stories which will reach a large audience.
3. Define Your Brand Voice and Values
What makes your brand unique? What are your brand personality and key value propositions that set you apart? Define this clearly to guide your influencer partnerships.
You want to align with content creators who authentically fit your brand identity. Content marketing is the best fit to cater to all social networks. Make sure their style, content themes, and values resonate with your positioning. This “brand fit” is crucial for an influencer’s promotions to feel genuine to their potential customers.
4. Build an Influencer Identification Process
Locating the perfect influencers for your niche requires a systematic approach. Start by researching relevant keywords, interests, hashtags, and accounts to uncover your most relevant creators.
As you begin outreach, implement a scoring system to quantify each potential partner’s fit. Factor in metrics like:
• Follower count and high engagement levels
• Content quality, themes and frequency
• Brand compatibility
• Audience demographics
• Influencer personality
Tools like HypeAuditor can help aggregate data and assess influencer quality. Build a shortlist of your highest-potential influencers to test with initial influencer marketing campaigns.
5. Develop Content and Usage Rights Guidelines
Set clear guidelines on the content formats and usage rights you require from influencers. Do you want static posts, video reels, or stories? Provide succinct briefs covering:
• Content parameters and any mandatory info/links
• Required delivery assets: images, videos, captions
• Campaign start and end dates
• Usage rights to repurpose influencer content
• Tracking UTM parameters or promo codes
Specificity here leads to better content you can amplify across your channels. Test different formats and revise guidelines that deliver the best performance.
6. Optimise Influencer Selection and Pricing
As you gain data from initial campaigns, optimize your influencer evaluation process. Use metrics like content engagement rates, sentiment analysis, and conversions to validate your top-performing creators.
Develop pricing bands and a rate structure to standardize influencer costs across follower tiers. This allows you to assess influencer ROI and make data-driven decisions rather than ad-hoc deals.
Continue testing new creators to identify untapped talent. Build strong, proven partnerships with your best influencers driving real results.
7. Measure ROI and Refine Your Strategy
Attribution is crucial to prove your influencer marketing ROI. Implement UTM tagging, promo codes, and other tracking to tie influencer posts to site visitors, leads, and revenue.
Dedicate time upfront to ensure your analytics are configured to map customer acquisition sources properly. Then analyze performance by campaign, influencer, content type, and more.
Optimise your spending toward the top influencers delivering measurable business impact. Feed these insights into your strategy regularly, fine-tuning your approach to generate exponential returns as your influencer program matures.
The Importance of a Cohesive Influencer Marketing Strategy
Why go through the effort of developing a thorough and effective influencer marketing strategy? With influencer marketing becoming so popular, it’s tempting to just start spending a budget and experimenting.
However, taking a haphazard approach will likely lead to poor results, wasted investment, and an inability to scale and improve over time. Having a cohesive, data-driven strategy in place is critical for several reasons:
- A clear strategy focused on measurable goals, the right influencers, and optimized content will help you get the most bang for your influencer marketing bucks.
- Defining your brand voice upfront helps you identify influencers who are a natural fit.
- Detailed campaign guidelines and usage rights lead to more on-brand, high-quality content. Instead of scattered one-off posts, you’ll get a cohesive set of assets to amplify across your social media platforms.
- Taking a data-driven approach to identifying top-performers allows you to concentrate on your most impactful influencers. You can nurture these partnerships into long-term relationships driving exponential results.
- Analyzing campaign metrics and extracted learnings creates a virtuous cycle. Insights shape your strategy to iterate on what’s working, phase out what’s not, and optimize performance over time.
With influencer marketing amplifying in popularity, the competition for audience attention and creator partnerships will only increase. An intentional strategy centered around data and insights is crucial for brands to rise above the noise and maximize their influencer ROI.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing’s potential remains largely untapped. Brands embracing the above data-driven framework for developing and optimizing an influencer strategy will be well-positioned for success.
By focusing on real audience insights, measurable goals, and proven partnerships over time, you can build an influencer marketing hub to drive exponential results for your business in 2023 and the years ahead. This is a great way and a social proof that the influencer marketing industry has been booming and will continue to grow.
