Influencer Marketing Best Practices: Creating Campaigns That Convert

Over the past decade, influencer marketing has become a fact of life for brands looking to connect with audiences. But what are some influencer marketing best practices that can ensure campaigns go smoothly and meet their goals? 

When executed correctly, influencer marketing campaigns can lead to massive engagement and provide incredible return on investment. However, a few key tried-and-tested best practices can ensure brands get the most out of their collaborations with content creators.

1) Define Clear Objectives

When we talk about influencer marketing best practices, it’s vital that brands establish clear goals and objectives for their campaigns. Partnerships with influencers can increase brand awareness, promote product launches and drive sales, but it’s always best if everyone involved clearly understands the goals a campaign is setting out to achieve.

• Identifying campaign goals: Whether your brand wants to increase awareness about a specific product launch, increase engagement, or drive sales, the content created for your campaign will be driven by those goals. Make those aims clear.
• Establish key performance indicators: There are many ways of measuring the return on investment of an influencer marketing campaign. Whether it’s engagement rate, comments and shares, or website traffic, establish how the campaign’s performance will be judged and measured.  

2) Know Your Audience

Who are you trying to connect with? Understanding that is one of the most important influencer marketing best practices. Before you decide which influencers to work with, you’ll want to make sure you understand who your brand is trying to connect with.

• Research your target audience: Where does your audience live? What sort of content do they typically engage with? What is your audience demographic? Understanding your target audience is an important step in creating an influencer marketing campaign that will resonate and meet its goals.

3) Find the Right Influencers

There is more than one type of influencer. Sure, you could hire influencers with celebrity status and millions of followers, and collaborating with them means your influencer marketing campaign will reach a lot of people, but it can be expensive.

There are also micro-influencers, who typically have smaller followings but generally have a highly engaged audience that follows them for their expertise in specific niches. Macro influencers have bigger follower counts but don’t always have a niche.

An influencer management agency like MODERNSPEAK can help identify influencers best suited for your brand’s goals. Take our collaboration with PARK Distillery, for example, when the Alberta-based brand launched two new gins. 

The campaign featured nine creators from Calgary and Edmonton, including sommeliers and cocktail enthusiasts, two mid-tier creators with between 70,000 and 350,000 followers, and seven micro-influencers.

Micro vs. Macro Influencers

Many brands find that working with micro-influencers (who typically have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers) provides a great return on investment. Their followers trust their expertise, and they often have strong bonds. If the goal of your influencer marketing campaign is related to the area a micro-influencer focuses on, they can be a tremendous asset. 

On the other hand, macro-influencers can bring incredible brand awareness because they’ve got a larger reach and a diverse audience. 

Authenticity counts! Your influencer marketing campaign will go best if the influencers you work with genuinely align with your brand’s values. 

4) Use Organic Social to Generate Brand Awareness

In many ways, organic social media is the authentic, community-driven side of social media marketing. Organic content is critical in building awareness about your brand, which is a big part of attracting potential consumers. After all, they can’t purchase your product if they don’t know about it.

What is organic social media? It’s all the free content that users—including businesses and brands—post to their own accounts. It allows users to engage with their audiences, increase visibility, and increase brand awareness. 

Organic social is a foundational piece of modern social media marketing, and while it may not directly lead to conversions, it is an important part of the awareness stage of the marketing funnel.

5) Track Campaign Success

There are lots of tools out there for brands to track the success of their marketing campaigns. 

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes are among the most popular and pinpoint the specific sources of traffic to a website, but even without UTM codes, there are lots of effective ways of tracking a campaign's impact.

There’s a ton of data out there, and tracking the overall metrics of a campaign through social media engagement and follower growth can tell you just how many people you’re reaching. Comparing the timeframe during which a campaign ran with sales patterns can tell your brand a lot, too.

It’s also worth considering the use of attribution models and social media listening tools, which provide sophisticated analysis of brand sentiment and shifts in custom behaviour.

Take Your Campaign to the Next Level with MODERNSPEAK

Influencer marketing campaigns can provide an incredible return on investment. They increase brand awareness, provide high engagement rates, and drive sales. 

Understanding influencer marketing best practices helps set your brand up for success. Working with an influencer management agency can help assist with your campaign.

At MODERNSPEAK, our talented team has collaborated with brands and influencers alike to create campaigns that resonate with audiences and drive results.

E-mail hello@modernspeak.co or call 587-900-0962 to find out more about how we can help your brand build its next influencer marketing campaign.

Influencer Marketing Best Practices FAQ

Why is influencer marketing important?

Influencer marketing helps brands connect directly with audiences, raising awareness and driving sales. People who follow influencers do so for a reason, and it’s often because they trust them and feel an authentic connection with them. 

By working with influencers who align with your goals, brands can create marketing campaigns that resonate best with their audience and get a great return on investment.

What is the best strategy for influencer marketing?

Brands should be aware of the different types of influencers and the audience demographics they reach. Working with influencers on marketing campaigns isn’t only about content creation. It’s about finding a target audience and collaborating to drive awareness, engagement, and sales. 

It’s not always about the largest audience possible when choosing an influencer, either. Micro-influencers have a following of between 10,000 and 100,000 people but have authentic connections and a high level of trust. They can be a great resource for reaching the right audience.