Among the top marketing trends for 2024 is influencer marketing. For quick reference, influencer marketing became a thing in 2009 and by 2019, started to take off as brands began using this tactic to get in front of potential customers.
Fast forward to today and brands in the B2C space as well as B2B, are integrating this into customer acquisition strategies. According to HubSpot, “a focus on relationships and community within social media, social e-commerce, social search replacing search engines, micro-influencers, and funny yet relatable content are among the top 11 social marketing trends for 2024.”
Ad Age recently reported that creators, as influencers are also known, are shaping product development, the 2024 election and healthcare marketing. In the case of healthcare campaigns specifically, Ad Age noted that influencers for pharmaceutical and related campaigns “present an exciting new marketing avenue because they’ve proven to be extremely successful at relaying personal stories, getting specific messages across and sparking action.”
With the explosion of micro-influencers across all sorts of niche markets, this got us thinking. Is influencer marketing only for the big brands? The answer is no. In fact, in the last 4 years, we have utilized influencer marketing as part of non-profit, entertainment, and apparel brand strategies, just to name a few, to increase awareness across different kinds of audiences.
If you are thinking about incorporating Influencer marketing into your strategy, read our blog post on how to get started. Influencers can be extremely powerful as part of your marketing plan. They have their audience’s trust, their finger on the pulse of what’s relevant and they can instantly bring awareness to your brand. Once you have added it to your strategy for 2024, follow these tips below for a campaign designed to meet your goals, drive brand awareness and increase sales or signups.
- Do your homework. Use your business social accounts to follow several influencers and Comment, Like, and generally interact with them. You’ll start to be known in their mind and it will give you a better bargaining position. You might learn something about the influencer you can use to create the perfect collaboration opportunity. Check how engaged their audience is and if they’ve done other collaborations in the past. Can you see the results? Did anyone mention the brand in the comments?
- Set a budget. When you pay for an Instagram or blog post, you are essentially paying for their time and creative skills (photography, styling, video editing, writing, etc.) as well as placement in front of their highly engaged audience. There is no set price for any type of collaboration with an influencer. You have to do your research and get an idea of what influencers in your industry charge. Base your offer not just on the size of their audience, but their niche, how engaged their audience is, their photography/video style, writing style, location, etc.
- Personalize a pitch. When you reach out to influencers, you’ll get the best results by personalizing your emails. Tell them why you are reaching out and why you think your product or service would resonate with their audience. Make sure you are clear about your objectives and strategy. Maybe it’s a paid post? Or, maybe it’s a trade – products in exchange for a potential Instagram feature, blog post or video mention? If you’re sending a product, always send it in the same packaging you would sell to a customer. Influencers like to share “unboxing” videos with their followers and show beautiful images of the product.
- Set expectations. Be clear about how you want your item(s) promoted from the start. Make sure the influencer knows what points you’d like them to get across and know how to use the products correctly. They should know which URL to include for the call to action, or which discount code to note. Agree on a due date for any sponsored posts ahead of time so everyone knows the expected timeline.
- Interact and engage with the campaign. When your campaign goes live, be on hand to answer any questions the influencer’s fans might have. Stick around in the Comment sections and be useful, offer links, sizing advice, product specifications, and more. Pro tip: don’t respond to negative comments. Keep it positive!
- Track campaign results. Be sure to measure the results by seeing how many of your site visitors utilize a particular discount code. Set up a unique code for each influencer you work with so you can track the success of each campaign. You’ll be able to see who just gets likes, and who gets results.
For more tips on HOW to work with influencers so it’s a win-win for everybody, check out our Scale with Strategy episode for all the details.
