According to AdWeek, 75% of marketers are now using influencer marketing, and it continues to rapidly grow. While more and more marketers are understanding its value, there are still important questions to consider before launching an influencer marketing campaign. Today we address some of the most common questions about influencer marketing:
How much should I expect to pay an influencer?
The most common question that comes up when working with influencers, is how much you can expect to pay. There are a number of factors that go into this and marketers can expect to pay different rates for each influencer. The size of the influencer’s following is the most common metric that’s used to set influencer marketing prices but it’s also important to consider the engagement levels, the influencer’s experience working with brands as well as the type of perks you are able to include within the partnership. For example, if you can offer your influencer free giveaways or early access to unreleased product, they’re more likely to negotiate the price of the actual post.
To give you a sense of price per post, 97% of micro influencers charge less than $500 per promotional post on Instagram. For more information, check out our post – How To Pay A Micro Influencer.
What should I look for when working with Influencers?
The first step in influencer marketing is to identify potential influencers. Before you begin your market research process, it’s best to set up pre-defined criteria to determine the extent and type of influence your brand is seeking.
Once you’ve decided the kind of reach, demographics and quality of content you’re targeting, you can begin your market research. Running social media searches and setting up google alerts are great ways to identify influencers that meet your criteria; however, the best influencers to work with are ones that are already fans of your brand!
Go through your social media following and existing brand mentions and determine if any your current customers or online audience meet the pre-determined criteria you’ve just set. Not only will these influencers be more likely to reply positively to your outreach, they’re often open to promoting posts in exchange for product discounts or giveaways.
How do I track the success of my Influencer Marketing campaign?
Influencer marketing should be one part of your brand’s larger strategy of increasing brand awareness and driving sales of products or services. For each campaign though, it’s common to set specific KPIs that are measurable. For example, social media mentions and new followers, website referral traffic, email signups and direct sales conversions are all success indicators when measuring the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaign.
The most common way to track these metrics is to supply your influencer with a unique referral link, like on bitly, that can track the clicks and respective behaviour on your website. Giving the influencer a unique discount code or offer, is another way to measure the effectiveness of one influencer over another.
Finally, social media platforms like Instagram provide analytics on the impressions and engagement for each post. If this is important to you, make sure that disclosing these numbers is part of your influencer marketing partnership when negotiating with your influencer.
Being thoughtful and strategic about your influencer marketing campaign is the best way to yield strong results. Be open to learning from each partnership as influencers tend to have a pulse on the market and can provide deep insights into your brand’s positioning.