Influencer marketing can scare a business owner that is yet to venture out into this rewarding yet essential marketing tactic. To find success with an influencer marketing campaign on social media, you’ll need to work with influencers who are a right fit for your business. So how do you initiate this process? What will it cost? Will it bring in sales? This blog seeks to answer all of these questions and more, giving you a complete picture on how to use an influencer campaign for business success! A business of any size can get started on this. It really is a simple process, let’s begin. 

Understand your campaign goal

Why do you want to work with an influencer? Of course, for most business owners it is to generate sales. However, there is more to an influencer campaign. You could also focus on building higher levels of brand awareness, and upliftment of brand image. For some business owners, increasing social media engagement is what they are after. Another pathway is to try and enhance conversions. This could include:

• Newsletter subscribers
• Free trial signups
• Email list building

Defining your budget

Now, you need to think about how much you want to spend. Small business owners may be tempted to look over this, but it is best that you do not. If you understand how much the campaign is going to cost your business, it will be easy to figure out if you are in the red or the green after the campaign comes to an end. 

Some business owners choose to pay for their influencers with the products they offer. If you go down this route, all you have to do is calculate your campaign by understanding your cost per influencer. For example, if the average cost to ship a package is $14 and the product cost is $13, your cost per influencer will be $27. 

Don’t start with too much on your plate. By beginning with baby steps, you’ll understand if this sort of campaign is right for your business. In some cases, you won’t pay the influencer with your products. This will be discussed later on in the blog, as there are multiple ways in which you may pay for their services apart from the products themselves.

Another important thing about budgeting is to be true to yourself about how much you want to spend. A big budget does not always mean greater success with the campaign. But being aware of the numbers will help you decipher if your ROI makes sense. 

Finding the right influencers

When it comes to choosing the right fit, you’ll have to pick from nano or micro influencers, midsize influencers, or large influencers. The audiences of nano influencers are often loyal followers and they trust the word of the influencer. The disadvantage here is that because influencing often is not a full time job for these types, they lack the technical expertise to work with clients.

Meanwhile, the mid tier influencers have more of a genuine two-way relationship with their audience. Now, the only thing is that these people will likely want to be receiving monetary compensation. 

At the top tier level, you’ll benefit from an unmatched reach, paired with high quality content that will definitely help you see the desired results. However, a huge audience does not always mean that they will convert to your product as many variables are present in this pool. If their audience is Taiwan and you don’t ship there, then a million followers won’t do you any good. So don’t just look at the numbers. Ask them to show you the analytics so you can understand what their audience is made of. Do this no matter what size influencer you’re working with. 

Tools of the trade 

You can use influencer platforms such as Dovetale to find the right influencers. This platform will help you identify Instagrammers and Youtubers, and you can search based on specific keywords, locations, niches and audiences. You cannot search for TikTok influencers on Dovetale yet, turn to Hypetrace for this. 

Once you’ve found an influencer, validate their work by going over the quality of content and the numbers. During the validation process, key things to look for are whether they are currently creating the type of content that you need for your products, and whether their followers are genuine. 

Reaching out 

This step is where you actually start reaching out to influencers. So here is where a lot of business owners become intimidated by the fact that these people have a lot of followers. 

Keep in mind that the hype is always less than what you think it is. As a general rule of thumb, even someone with 50,000 followers is only getting 5 DMs a day. Follow counts should not discourage you from reaching out! When you do reach out, be friendly, clear and firm about what you are asking for. 

Negotiation

Now that you’ve reached out to the influencer, you’ll need to get into negotiation mode. If you’ve gotten a response back, you’re in luck. If you haven’t, follow up in a week. Once you get that yes, it’s time to get into negotiation mode. Negotiating with influencers can be tricky. You might be wondering, how much do you pay them? Should you offer a product? And what kind of content should they create?

Influencer marketing strategy varies widely. While nano influencers might be totally fine with getting paid in product, more experienced influencers generally prefer monetary compensation. How much you should pay really depends on a couple of things:

• Their experience
• How many followers they have
• How much content they’re going to be creating for you

For example, a good rate to pay a micro influencer might be around $100 per post. A mid-tier influencer may ask for around $1,000, and a top-tier influencer could cost anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 or more. And these are just ballpark numbers. You need to decide on the exact compensation based on the deliverables you expect from the influencer. 

So now you’ll want to draft a contract and have it signed before you get started. Your contract should outline the scope of work, the timeline, the compensation, and any other specifics that are important to you. Here’s a breakdown of the details you’ll need to finalize: 

• How many posts will they create?
• What kind of posts?
• How will they disclose that they are working with your brand?
• When will the posts go live?
• When will you pay them?
• How will they deliver their posts?
• Will they provide analytics on the performance of their posts? 

Once you’ve finalized these details, it’s time to start creating your content. Let your influencer do their thing and watch as your brand gets some shine. 

In conclusion

You’ll want to measure your campaign performance. So after the campaign, it’s really important to review your results to see if you met your goals and to understand the return on investment. You’ll want to check your campaign metrics like the engagement rate, the reach, and of course the sales data. And that’s it. It’s that simple. Just to recap, to set up an influencer marketing campaign, you need to: 

• Set your goals and budget
• Research your influencers
• Reach out
• Negotiate
• Put your plan into action
• Review your results 

Influencer Marketing Strategy

If you’re still a little unsure about how you’d want to proceed with this, reach out to SetHub. We are always on hand to help business owners with their social media influencer marketing needs. We’ve got a dedicated team on hand to assist you! Reach out to us and you’ll hear back with some curated advice within one business hour.