Influencer Marketing Strategy That Actually Works: A Guide

There are over 200 million influencers in the world – and here, we are talking only about those monetizing their content. There are even more others – those who haven’t received money for their efforts just yet.

But they are clearly on their way: the influencer marketing industry is growing year by year; the statistics speak for themselves:

And so what? For brands, this means influencer marketing is the channel they can’t ignore. Actually, it is the channel to attract the most interested, engaged, ready-to-pay audiences right now. The further we go, the more brands understand it and allocate their budgets for influencer marketing:

So, influencer marketing, once a field dominated by celebrities (remember Britney Spears, Beyoncé, and Pink drinking Pepsi? Yeah, we do: 20 years ago, such commercials were the ancestors of modern influencer endorsements), has transformed over the years.

Now, anyone with a substantial online following can be an influencer, creating more opportunities for brands to connect with diverse audiences. This strategy has become crucial in digital marketing due to its effectiveness in reaching and engaging target consumers through social media.

Here’s one more fact that makes it even more important: 4.95 billion people on Earth are already using social media platforms – it’s 61% of the planet’s population, and the number is growing. An average consumer uses 7 social media platforms a month.

What do you do considering all this? The answer is simple: leverage the power of influencer marketing, of course. But how?

How to build an influencer marketing strategy that actually works and brings maximum profit? Here, the answer will be longer and more complex – read further to learn!

In this article, the experts from Famesters influencer marketing agency offer a clear and straightforward guide on developing a successful influencer marketing strategy.

Get practical advice and insights, understand influencer marketing better, and start using it wisely.

Building a Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy and Creating a Plan

Creating an effective influencer marketing plan involves a series of strategic steps, each critical to the campaign's success.

Remember that all of the plans for your marketing, including this one, have to align with the overall brand’s strategy and objectives, otherwise, neither the plan, nor the influencer marketing strategy will actually work or even make sense.

In other words, check the reality, and tie your goals and plans to it. In the end, it's crucial that your influencer marketing efforts are not in isolation, but are a cohesive part of your overall brand strategy. Here's why alignment matters:

• Consistency in Messaging: Ensures that the influencer's content resonates with your brand's voice and overall marketing messages.

• Target Audience Alignment: Guarantees that the influencers' followers match your target customer profile, leading to better campaign outcomes.

• Resource Optimization: Aligning strategies ensures optimal use of budgets and resources, avoiding duplication of efforts across different marketing channels.

Identifying and Defining Your Marketing Goals

The foundation of all successful influencer marketing strategies lies in clearly identifying and defining your marketing goals. These goals can vary greatly depending on your brand's needs and the stage of your business.

For example, iGaming brands may need to drive new registrations and FTDs, while gaming brands may focus on installs. Here are some common objectives:

• Brand Awareness: Increasing the visibility and recognition of your brand among your target audience.

• Lead Generation: Gathering information from potential customers to nurture them towards making a purchase.

• Sales: Directly boosting the number of products or services sold, often tracked through affiliate links or promo codes used.

• Customer Loyalty and Retention: Engaging existing customers to foster repeat purchases and long-term loyalty.

Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (this is what we call SMART) to ensure they guide your influencer marketing strategy effectively.

Budgeting for Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing budgets can vary widely, depending on the scale of your campaign and the type of influencers you plan to collaborate with. Compensation models include direct monetary payments, commission-based earnings, and non-monetary perks like free products or exclusive access.

Monetary compensation is used the most, and many influencers prefer it.

Allocate your budget based on your marketing goals and the expected ROI. For instance, brand awareness campaigns may require a broader reach, potentially needing more investment compared to targeted lead generation campaigns.

Also, remember that you need to define what part of your budget will be set for testing. It’s especially important when you are stepping into new markets and trying the waters: in the beginning, even with thorough preliminary research, you can’t be 100% sure your influencers of choice and selected types of content will perform perfectly.

The Famesters agency experts have an experience of over 7 years on influencer marketing – it helped us crystalize an optimal strategy for testing, and here’s our advice. We suggest using 40% of your budget for testing to reveal the best-performing influencers, content types, CTAs, etc. Then you can scale, already knowing you have selected the best directions and reduced risks.

Here’s a pro tip from Famesters experts: Yes, you totally can and even must negotiate prices with influencers and make them fit into your budget. Some influencers may set prices out of the blue just because they are inexperienced and don’t know the market yet; others just hope to get more for their efforts and check if it’s possible with you.

Research the market, learn the CPMs, and negotiate the prices – it’s almost always possible to get a better deal than you are offered from the beginning.

Choosing Campaign Types and Key Messaging

• Select the Right Campaign Type: It depends on your goals. You might opt for sponsored posts, brand ambassadorships, giveaways, or takeovers. If you need more creative ideas, just ask the influencers: nobody knows what works for their audiences better than they do.

• Craft Your Key Messages: Develop clear, compelling messages that influencers can incorporate into their content. Ensure these messages align with your brand voice and campaign objectives.

  
  

  This doesn’t mean you have to write an entire script for each influencer, and definitely, you shouldn’t require influencers to follow your scripts with no swinging at all. We’ll talk about it further in the article.

Choosing the Right Type of Influencer

First, the influencers you collaborate with must align with your brand identity. Carefully check if an influencer you are looking forward to working with actually shares your brand’s values. Otherwise, you may appear in a situation like the Adidas-Kanye one, where the brand had to break with the influencer because of his improper behavior and rhetoric.

Also, define the type of influencers you need for your influencer marketing campaign. The small, niche-oriented ones? The big names with large followings? Let’s see the differences:

• Mega-influencers: Typically celebrities with over a million followers. Ideal for large-scale brand awareness campaigns, but can be expensive and may have lower engagement rates.

• Macro-influencers: Have followers ranging between 100,000 to 1 million. Known for their expertise in their niches, but also having larger followings that value them not only for the expertise, they offer a balance of reach and engagement.

• Micro-influencers: Possess a following of 10,000 to 100,000. Effective for targeted campaigns due to their higher engagement rates and niche audiences.

• Nano-influencers: Your friendly neighbors who are also experts. With less than 10,000 followers, they often have the most authentic engagement and are perfect for hyper-local or community-focused campaigns.

Matching the right type of influencer with your marketing goals is key. For instance, a micro-influencer might be the best choice for niche product promotion, whereas a mega-influencer could be more suitable for a widespread brand awareness campaign.

Statistics show that brands swing more towards smaller influencers with more authentic content and engaged audiences:

Qualifying Influencers and Starting Outreach

• Identify Potential Influencers: Use tools, research, or agencies to find influencers who align with your brand's values and have the right audience for your products or services. You can do it manually, but it’s rather time-consuming. Also, don’t forget to check if the influencers on your list are genuine: there are still some fake influencers committing fraud out there.

• Initiate Contact: Reach out to these influencers with a personalized approach. Clearly communicate your campaign goals, expected deliverables, and compensation details.

Managing Campaigns

• Provide Clear Requirements: An influencer has to understand well what exactly you need to tell people, and what’s the idea behind your brand, service, or product.

• Stay in Touch: There always has to be someone (from your company if you do influencer marketing in-house or from an agency if you leverage their expertise) who can answer the questions an influencer may have about your brand, goals, campaign, requirements, etc. There’s always something that has to be negotiated or cleared. Also, the person in touch has to be able to approve the influencer’s draft or suggest corrections to it.

• Monitor Campaign Progress: Keep a close eye on the campaign as it unfolds. Be ready to provide support or feedback to influencers as needed.

Tracking Results and Refining Strategy

• Measure Campaign Performance: Use predefined KPIs like engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion metrics to evaluate the success of your campaign.

• Analyze and Adjust: Review the campaign data to understand what worked and what didn't. Use these insights to refine your strategy for future campaigns.

Influencer Marketing Strategies for Collaborations

Effective influencer collaborations are key to the success of your marketing strategy – this is what your target audience will see and interact with, this is what actually needs to make an impact on their purchasing decisions. Here are some best practices to ensure productive and beneficial partnerships with influencers to ensure the success of your campaign:

Establish Authentic Long-Term Partnerships

• After selecting the influencers whose values and audience align closely with your brand, try to establish authentic long-lasting partnerships to enhance credibility. Building genuine relationships with influencers helps show them and their audiences that your brand is not just another one in an endless line of monotonous advertisers, but is truly useful and trustworthy.

  
  

  Building long-term relationships with influencers can lead to more authentic and impactful promotions. Audiences tend to respond better to ongoing, consistent endorsements.

• Engage With Influencers Beyond Transactional Interactions. Understand their goals and preferences – this way you can establish a partnership based on mutual respect and shared objectives.

  
  

• Most of the brands using influencer marketing prefer to continuously work with the same influencers as they perform better than one-off partners:

  
  

No, it doesn’t mean you can’t get rid of one-off campaigns, at least because everyone needs testing. So, here’s the next thing.

• Evaluate the Need for One-Off Campaigns: Short-term collaborations can be beneficial for specific campaigns, such as product launches or event promotions. Assess your goals to determine if a one-off partnership is more appropriate.

Allow Creative Freedom While Maintaining Brand Alignment

• Respect Influencers’ Creativity: They know their audience best. Allow them creative freedom to present your brand in a way that feels natural and engaging to their followers.

• Set Clear Guidelines: While giving creative freedom, it's crucial to provide clear guidelines about your brand’s values, messaging, and any non-negotiables to ensure the content remains aligned with your brand.

  
  

• Balance Brand Message and Influencer Style: So, based on the previous two points: ensure that the content strikes the right balance between showcasing your brand’s message and maintaining the influencer’s unique style and voice.

  
  

  This has to be the balance between the influencer’s creativity, their knowledge of their audience preferences, and your brand’s requirements.

  
  

• Collaborate on Content Creation: Work together with influencers in the content creation process. This collaboration can bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas that resonate well with the target audience.

Bottom Line

How to create an influencer marketing strategy depends a lot on your brand’s niche, product’s specifics, target audience, and overall goals. But in the end, there are influencer marketing strategies that work the best, and they are: use SMART, be respectful towards influencers and embrace their creativity, build long-lasting relationships, and make your goals and values clear.

Then launch, monitor, evaluate, adapt, and adjust to get maximum results and the highest ROI possible.

Influencer marketing is about more than just working with popular people online; it's a strategy that requires careful planning and wise choices. To make the most of it, you need to set clear goals, choose the right influencers, and manage your budget wisely.

Remember, the goal is to build real, trust-based relationships with influencers who genuinely match your brand's style and values. This approach helps create authentic and effective promotions that resonate with your audience.

Staying flexible and up-to-date is crucial. Done right, influencer marketing can significantly boost your brand's presence and connect you with your audience in meaningful ways. Famesters agency is ready to help you with these challenges – contact us to start now!