How to Build a Powerful Influencer Marketing Strategy in 2021
17 November 2021 . minute read
Are you trying to build a powerful influencer marketing strategy for your business in 2021?
You must be well aware that the influencer marketing arena has changed. In the past, it was celebrities and a handful of famous bloggers who were endorsed by marketers.
But now, with the rise of social media influencers, these are the people being endorsed to share brands’ stories in a powerful way.
This is mainly because social media influencers are regular people, and consumers tend to connect more easily with authentic, relatable and credible influencers. Also, it is much cheaper than hiring celebrities – another point to keep in mind when building your influencer marketing strategy.
Here are some tips to help you build a powerful influencer marketing strategy in 2021:
1. Determine Your Goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
To build a successful influencer strategy, first and foremost, you will have to be goal-oriented.
Your goals have to be structured around:
- Creating brand awareness: Your brand awareness online can be measured through social media likes, follower count, the number of people using your hashtags and engagement such as comments and shares.
- Attracting new targets: Attracting new targets involves every aspect related to brand awareness but for a totally new product line. You will have to hire influencers who can create hype and drive targeted traffic.
- Lead generation: The end-goal of every marketer is to increase sales. The number of leads and customers you are gaining can be tracked with conversions and sales. However, things can get a little tricky if you neglect to implement specific landing pages or codes for each influencer.
Once your goals are set, you can start focusing on measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your campaign. The three metrics that are most commonly measured in influencer marketing are engagement, sales/conversions and impressions/views.
When you know which partnerships work and which don’t, you will be able to get the most out of your campaign.
2. Allocate a Budget
As per a report that revealed influencer pricing benchmarks on different social channels, the cost of your influencer marketing campaigns on Facebook is $25 per 1000 followers. Instagram influencer cost is $10 per 1000 followers, Snapchat influencer marketing will cost you $10 per 1000 followers and YouTube marketing will set you back $20 per 1000 followers.
You can allocate your budget accordingly, depending on the number of followers you need.
3. Select the Right Influencers
Before you select your influencers for your marketing campaigns, you will have to answer a list of questions.
- Who is your target audience?
- Where does your target audience spend their time (their preferred channels)?
- What are your goals, and will the influencers be able to fulfill your business needs?
You will have to examine a potential influencer’s profile and their relationship with your target audience closely. Also, check if the influencer has already collaborated with similar brands.
Your influencers can be bloggers, social media stars, industry experts, customers, celebs, thought leaders or non-competing brands.
Tools like the Alexa Audience Overlap Tool are great for finding influencers who can reach your audience. Simply enter your website URL or the URLs of sites that have the audience you want to reach. You will get a report on several sites that share a similar audience. It will also open up opportunities for guest blogging.
Alternatively, you can use Alexa’s Competitor Backlink Checker to discover influencers. The tool allows you to enter up to 10 website URLs, and it will search your potential audience. You can then run the backlink checker to get a report of the links that point to your list of sites. The list can be used to pick sites that will probably work with you, mention you or link back to your website.
Experts also suggest investing in micro-influencers. They are the ones who can cater to a specific niche and market segment. You will likely be getting lower engagement if the influencer is a big name.
Statistics show that influencers with 1,000 followers usually get likes on their posts 8 percent of the time, while influencers with 10 million followers normally get likes just 1.6 percent of the time.
4. Create High-Quality, Engaging Content Influencers Can’t Refuse
If your influencer marketing strategy involves guest posting, you will need to work on developing content ideas your influencers can’t refuse.
Come up with ideas that target top keywords and cover the gaps they may have in their own content. You can take the help of an SEO agency that can do competitor research and search intent analysis to find the keywords you should target.
You can also use the Alexa Keyword Difficulty Tool to discover the top keywords that will benefit the influencer. The tool allows you to enter a topic related to the influencer’s industry and pick frequently searched low-competition keywords. Using the keywords, you can craft content for the influencer to help them get more traffic to their site.
5. Reach Out to Your Influencers
The type of influencers you choose will determine how you reach out to them. If you have chosen micro-influencers, you can directly reach out via a private message on the same site or channel.
If your influencers are more established, you can check out their profile for any contact information for business inquiries. They might have even added a link to a website denoting brand partnerships.
6. Review and Refine Your Strategy
Even as your campaign progresses, you should schedule dates where you can measure your campaign’s progress. As mentioned earlier, you can track your campaigns through your hashtags, likes, social media mentions and so on.
Wrapping Up
Building a powerful influencer marketing strategy needs time, patience and effort. But it is all worth it in the end.
By following the essential tips mentioned above, from campaign conception to execution, you’ll be on your way to building an effective influencer marketing strategy in 2021.
Influencer marketing can attract thousands of new targets that can turn into paying customers. Just make sure that you execute it properly to guarantee your best chance at success.
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