5 Effective Ways Influencer Marketing Drives Performance

67% of marketers believe that influencer marketing campaigns help them reach a more targeted audience and this churns out a 11x higher ROI in comparison to traditional marketing (i.e. print, tv, billboards, etc). On top of that, influencers are spending 99% of their time on Instagram compared to other social networks.

"Some 76% of social media influencers say Instagram has the best tools for creators among the major social networks." - Marketing Profs, 2017

It’s all about the ‘gram’ these days.

So, if you are thinking about planning your next influencer campaign but don’t really know where to begin? You’ve come to the right place. Here are the 5 most effective influencer collaborations to drive campaign performance metrics. But before we deep dive into this topic, it’s important to first curate a list of influencers you plan to work with. If you do not have a list yet and are not sure where to start, here are a few tools that can get you started.

Disclaimer: This list serves as a guide to marketers or beginners who wish to involve influencers as a part of their social strategies and campaigns.

1. Discount Codes and Affiliate Marketing

This type of collaborations are the easiest to track. The results are fairly straightforward as redemption rates or web traffic from a specific campaign will be monitored and tracked. If your campaign’s end goal is to drive leads into paying customers, the campaign needs a strong and attractive incentive for customers to convert. One way would be to create a uniquely exclusive discount to encourage impulse buying. A unique discount code that ties to each and every collaborating influencer will help in identifying which influencer has the highest redemption rate.

Make sure to provide incentives to both the paying customers and the collaborating influencers as part of the affiliate marketing. For instance, paying customers get a discount and collaborating influencers get a commission based on the sales. This will drive collaborating influencers to support the brand and actively promote it to their audience.

Here is a good example of affiliate marketing done well.

2. Competitions and Giveaways

These types of collaborations are great for brand awareness as competitions and giveaways usually generate more reach and social conversations. This type of influencer collaborations often requires the audience to tag their friends and to follow the collaborating influencer and/or the sponsored brand. This is also a great and quick way to increase the social following of both parties.

3. Social Media Mentions

Even though social mentions or posts do not have the longevity of sponsored blog posts, they have potential if executed correctly. This approach is typically good for product launches. For example, collaborating influencers get the first look at the new product and get to rave about it before its official launch, this creates social noise and hype around the product just like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Lip Kit.

Additionally, the ‘See More’ or famously known as ‘Swipe Up’ button feature on Instagram stories are making the rounds on the platform enabling influencers to embed external links for their audiences. During the study of L2’s Digital Index: Special Retail, Instagram Stories have a whooping 94% active accounts where Snapchat only has 4%.

If you’re considering this for your campaign, you will need to contact bigger influencers to access this feature, those with at least 10K followers.

4. Influencer takeover

Instead of featuring collaborating influencers on your brand’s social platforms, why not have them takeover the platforms and post about the brand on behalf of you?

This way, a brand could engage with an influencer that speaks on behalf of them and create fresh new content for both their audiences.

Here is an example of an influencer, Jenn Chia taking over AirAsia’s YouTube for a series of 48 hour travel videos.

Episode 1: 48 Hours in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Episode 2: 48 Hours in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 3: 48 Hours in Da Nang, Vietnam

Episode 4: 48 Hours in Kochi, India

Episode 5: 48 Hours in Changsha, China

5. Sponsored blog posts

Blogging is old but it is still not dead. This is great for brands to build SEO and the content lifespan. People often forget social posts come with an expiration date, in many cases that will probably only be a few hours. This could work for a more technical industry like computers and mobile phones.

TL;DR

• One size does not fit all. It’s important to find the synergy between the brand and influencer.
• Influencer marketing can drive up to a 11x higher ROI vs traditional marketing.
• Most influencers prefer Instagram as their platform of choice.
• There are more active accounts on Instagram than Snapchat.
• Consider using discount codes and affiliate marketing to drive performance metrics (website or other traffic).
• Consider running an occasional competition and giveaway for broader social conversations than those in influencers’ posts.
• Consider engaging with big influencers to build hype and noise around new product launches.
• Consider influencer takeovers of your social media accounts to introduce new content.
• Consider sponsored blog posts to build SEO.

It is important to note that both parties (brand and influencer) should discuss their synergy in the collaborations and to create content that both will benefit from in order to yield positive results. In influencer marketing, authenticity and genuineness are the keys to success in many cases. If it is not done properly, it can backfire. We will be discussing this in our next article, so stay tuned!