How to Build an Influencer Marketing Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

Build a robust Influencer Marketing Strategy by identifying the goal and target audiences, finding, the right influencer, and tracking success.

For every dollar spent on influencer marketing campaigns, brands earn an average of $5.78, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. This highlights the growing impact of influencers in today’s social media-driven world. However, like any marketing approach, achieving success requires a well-thought-out strategy. In this article, we’ll explore what an influencer marketing plan means, why it is essential, how to create a good Influencer marketing strategy and showcase examples of top campaigns to take inspiration from.

What is an Influencer Marketing Strategy?

An influencer marketing strategy involves a brand's careful planning to collaborate with the right influencers to achieve specific marketing goals. It streamlines the entire process, from defining objectives and selecting the right influencers to executing campaigns and tracking their success.

How to Build an Influencer Marketing Strategy

Here are all the steps you need to follow to create a robust Influencer Marketing Strategy

Define your Goal and Objectives

Before getting started with any type of marketing, it's necessary to define a goal which you want to achieve. There are many benefits of influencer marketing which help your brand grow. However, you must decide on one primary goal of your campaign. Below are a few goals you can achieve with the help of influencer Marketing

• Social Media Presence: Boost your product and social account's presence on different social media accounts.
• Brand Awareness: Make your target audience aware of your new product and services.
• Lead Generation: Get contacts of your potential customers to convert them in future.
• Sales: Sell products directly through influencers.

Once you know the goals, you have to set an objective which is measurable like "increasing lead generation through social media channels by 20%" or "Boosting 10% sales through influencer's referrals." These objectives will help you in analysing the Influencer marketing campaign's Success.

Know Your Target Audience

A target audience is a specific group of people identified as the most likely to be interested in a brand's products or services, based on factors like demographics, interests, and behaviors. Marketing campaigns of every brand keep its target audience into consideration. In the case of influencer marketing, a target audience will help you find the influencer right fit for your brand and also in designing the campaign.

Below are the factors that help in identifying a target audience include:

1. Demographics: Age, gender, income, education, and occupation.
2. Psychographics: Interests, values, lifestyle, and personality traits.
3. Geographics: Location, region, or urban vs. rural setting.
4. Behaviour: Purchase habits, brand loyalty, and online behaviour.
5. Needs and Pain Points: Specific problems your product or service can solve for them.

With the help of these factors, you can create a buyer's persona helping to in properly identify who your actual customer looks like.

Plan Your Budget

Influencer Marketing gives a better return on investment, but how much a campaign will cost will be determined by the factors mentioned below:

1. Influencer Type: Nano, micro, macro, or mega influencers typically have varying fee structures based on their reach and engagement. Check out the influencer's price list in India for more.
2. Campaign Scope: The complexity and scale of the campaign, including the number of influencers involved and the type of content produced.
3. Content Production Costs: Expenses related to creating high-quality content, including photography, videography, and editing.
4. Duration of Campaign: The length of the collaboration or campaign can influence overall costs.
5. Exclusivity Agreements: Fees may increase if an influencer agrees to exclusive partnerships or content rights.
6. Performance Metrics: The budget may be allocated based on expected outcomes, such as conversions or engagement rates.
7. Platform Choice: Different social media platforms may have varying costs associated with influencer promotions.
8. Negotiation and Relationships: Existing relationships with influencers may lead to better rates or value for money.

Before you plan your budget, take into consideration all the factors above with the approximate cost you have to put into the campaign.

Choose the Right Influencer for Your Campaign

Influencers have command over a specific niche on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Below are multiple factors which determine which influencer to choose:

1. Relevance: The influencer's niche and content should align with your brand and target audience. For example, if you are a supplement brand, a fitness influencer could be a better choice compared to a tech influencer.
2. Engagement Rate: High engagement (likes, comments, shares) indicates a strong connection with their audience, which is often more valuable than sheer follower count. There are many tools in the market which provide influencer engagement rates.
   

   Here's the table of the average engagement for different types of followers. However, keep in mind, that this rate may vary depending on different social media followers.

   Influencer Type	Follower Range	Average Engagement Rate
   Nano Influencers	1,000 - 10,000	7% - 10%
   Micro-Influencers	10,000 - 100,000	5% - 7%
   Mid-Tier Influencers	100,000 - 500,000	3% - 5%
   Macro Influencers	500,000 - 1 million	2% - 3%
   Mega Influencers	1 million and above	1% - 2%

3. Authenticity: Look for influencers who have a genuine voice and build trust with their audience, as this can lead to more impactful collaborations.
4. Content Quality: Assess the quality and style of the influencer's content to ensure it aligns with your brand image.
5. Past Collaborations: Review their previous partnerships to see if they’ve worked with brands similar to yours and how those collaborations performed.
6. Platform: Choose influencers based on the platforms where your target audience is most active (Instagram, YouTube, etc.).
7. Budget: Ensure the influencer’s fees fit within your marketing budget while still providing value.
8. Brand Alignment: Evaluate their values and image to ensure they align with your brand’s ethos and messaging.

Design the Campaign

Once everything is set, you have to design a campaign for your target audience with the influencers you've collaborated with. This is where the goals and Objectives will play a big role in deciding the core idea of your campaigns.

Here's a breakdown of the best types of influencer marketing campaigns for different goals:

Even though you may decide how you should be approaching the campaign based on your goals. You have to make sure that you don't dictate the influence of content creation. First, provide your aim for the campaign and let them decide how to create content around it.

Track Campaign Success

Finally, once the campaign is executed, now it's time to evaluate the success of the campaign. What you are going to measure will depend on the objective you set in the beginning. Below are the metric you can track:

To track influencer marketing success, you can measure the following key metrics:

1. Engagement Rate: Monitor likes, comments, shares, and clicks on the influencer's content to gauge audience interaction.
2. Reach and Impressions: Analyze how many people viewed the influencer’s posts to measure brand visibility.
3. Website Traffic: Use tools like Google Analytics to track referral traffic from influencer campaigns to your website.
4. Conversions: Track the number of sales, sign-ups, or downloads generated from the influencer’s unique links or discount codes.
5. Follower Growth: Check if there’s an increase in your social media followers after the campaign.
6. Brand Mentions: Monitor how frequently your brand is mentioned across social media and online platforms.
7. Return on Investment (ROI): Compare the campaign’s cost with the revenue generated to assess financial success.
8. Content Performance: Assess the quality and impact of influencer-generated content, especially how it resonates with your target audience.

These metrics help you evaluate the effectiveness of your influencer marketing efforts.