How can brands identify suitable influencers for maximum ROI?
In today’s hyper-competitive business market, brands need to go the extra mile to cut through the clutter and gain an edge over other players. Against this backdrop, engaging and relevant content created by influencers has taken center stage within brand marketing strategies.
However, as the influencer community continues to grow at a fast pace, it becomes important for brands to identify those influencers who will resonate best with their target audience and create maximum impact.
While there are multiple factors to consider, they can be broadly classified within 2 buckets – data analytics or insights into the influencer’s performance and execution or their commercials and campaign results. Here’s a deeper look into the important factors:
Data Analytics – Demographics, engagement, content quality, and more
Engagement rate: The first thing to track would be the number of likes, comments, and shares an influencer receives on each post. This, combined with the frequency of posting will be a good way to gauge how active they are and the response your campaign can receive.
Demographics: Understand the influencers’ audience base, focusing on the male/female split and age group. This will ensure that the influencer is the exact match with your target group and ultimately lead to a better connection with your potential audience base.
For instance, if a brand deals in high-end home appliances, an influencer to mainly resonates with college-goers would not be the right match.
Real followers: Paid fake followers are rampant on social media platforms today. It is, therefore, important to understand how many genuine followers an influencer has. If the follower list is filled with bots, the influencer will add nothing to your campaign results.
Past activity: Make sure that the influencer has not been promoting products or services similar to yours since this can dilute the advocacy that you are looking to build. The audience may not trust the influencer if they speak about multiple products from the same category.
Location: Identify the different locations where the influencer’s audience is based. This will help you target your campaign specifically to the geographies where your brand operates or is planning to operate. In case the influencer’s audience is based in a geography that is not a part of your marketing plan, the campaign will not reach the right eyeballs.
Campaign Execution – Measuring results and creating a future roadmap
Commercials: Look for influencers who offer transparency in terms of commercials. As influencer marketing grows, agencies tend to mark up the const of influencers to expand their commissions. However, this means that brands end up paying agency fees along with the influencer’s cost. It is, thus, a good idea to engage only with those influencers who give you clear visibility in this case.
Post-campaign measurement: To accurately measure how your influencer campaign has performed, it is important to utilize a tech-led real-time reporting dashboard. Such platforms can give you crucial insights and help you make informed decisions about the future of your campaign and partnership with the influencer. This is especially important and highly convenient if you are working with multiple influencers.
About the author:
Sagar Pushp, Co-founder and CEO, ClanConnect