Influencer marketing is a one of the recent trends in marketing that helps businesses or brands showcase their product or service in a more organic-seeming, user friendly way. Brands will often pay bloggers and social media gurus who will show how a product works, create a review, or somehow feature it in their content. This allows a brand to get access to that person’s audience, a following that likely already enjoys and trusts their content. It’s like word of mouth recommendation meets digital marketing ad. Social media influencer sponsored content can help a brand grow their awareness and reputation in a market. Here are some of best ways to increase your ROI in influencer marketing.
Make a Good Match
One of the best ways to get ROI in influencer marketing is through understanding the influencer’s audience and message. Does their brand messaging match yours? What are their themes and is it a good fit for your business? It’s important that you match your product with an influencer marketing platform that makes sense for your business.
For instance, if your product is software, Instagram influencers might not make sense for your brand, as that social media platform is primarily for images and short videos. It would make sense on a business blog with space for a longer how-to video review. If you sell healthy snacks or workout equipment, your brand might match well with a fitness blog or popular Instagram yoga account. Make sure that the influencer’s audience has the same demographic and qualities as your target audience so that your content is relevant and your money is well spent.
Set Goals and Measure Wisely
Measuring influencer marketing success is an important part of understanding and growing your influencer ROI. If you’re pouring money into social influencers a) without any kind of goal towards what a successful influencer campaign would look like or b) hoping to see sales skyrocket, you might be setting yourself up for a poor investment.
Influencer marketing should be part of the “brand awareness” part of your marketing budget. If someone shares a post to their followers on Instagram that features your product, ask yourself these questions: Did your brand’s Instagram follower count go up? Did you see a spike in website traffic over the promotion period? What about an increase in search for your brand name or product? These are all key metrics for monitoring awareness and measuring the success of a blogger or social media influencer campaign.
Influencer marketing is all about creating fans for your brand. It might not move the needle on sales right away, especially if you’re a small or niche brand, but it can still be an important part of overall marketing strategy and help to grow your company’s reputation as a product people known and trust. When you feature your product or service being used in the life or work of someone with a built-in audience, influencer marketing can be an affordable way to make your brand more accessible and create more impressions in the market.
