7 Steps To Create An Influencer Strategy
Build an Influencer strategy for your business.
I have never created the same strategy for a brand.
Life would be much simpler to use a templated approach. Then I could churn out strategies replacing text & images. But this has no true value, and will often fail to move the needle.
The best strategies take into account a brand’s long-term business needs. Hence, a templated approach is not fit for purpose.
Where to start when creating strategies.
The best strategies are born from the perfect marriage between research and how you unpack that research relative to a business’ needs. Research is critical to understand the business, competitors, and core customers. The narrative or story you choose will support your strategic views, backed by market statistics and findings. Use visuals to support your way of thinking, as images can better represent a vision than words, most of the time.
When you work for a business or brand, it’s your job to see the business from a different perspective. If you’re running your own startup, it can also help you step back and look at your own business subjectivity.
- Brands don’t hire agencies or marketers to tell them what they know.
- Unpack the market and industry.
- Unlock business opportunities unseen.
- Find nuances in the way consumers see the brand.
- Picture a different future that fits the businesses’ strategic goals.
- Pair the business with the trending behaviours of their customers.
- Change the perspective of what the brand means to the client (you).
- Show ways to create value brands haven’t considered.
The 7 step framework for Influencer strategies.
1. Recap The Brief & Business Goals
Agencies and freelancers alike won’t always get a brief from a brand. If you don’t get a brief, don’t sweat it, ask some key questions to understand better the purpose of what the brand and client want to achieve.
If you’re a Startup and you want to use Influencer marketing, then try to answer these questions first:
- What are you trying to do for the brand’s perception?
- Why should the customer care?
- Who is your core audience, and the sectors they’re most active in?
- What is the long term goal?
- How will you engage with your audience?
- Are there any opportunities outside social media to help drive success?
2. Set Out The Opportunity
When unpacking the opportunity for brands, it’s best to understand their business’ future goals first. The bottom line isn’t always the goal, or result brands try to achieve. Yes, businesses need to sell products and services, but changing an existing brand's perception can be harder and more important than selling product.
Here’s a perfect example of a brand shifting people’s perspectives.
3. Build Out Creative Territory Ideas
Collaborating with brands means you will need to be flexible with your ideas. I have been experienced with many creatives, people who get stuck in the mud, with their ideas. Being flexible is important, especially when you consider that the people working for a brand will better understand both the company and its value to the end consumer.
Images and/or videos to showcase your idea help better sell ideas.
Creative ‘territories’ are ideas you can shape and evolve with the client. Yes, they need to be great, and if they’re not, then don’t use them. Always have 2 or 3 at most, if 1 is strong enough, you feel you don’t need any other options, then articulate that idea and sell it with confidence.
Always include format, channel placement and stretch ideas. Stretch ideas can be used for big ideas which may be considered if the clients see the value, and has a larger budget to play with.
4. Think Long Term About The Relationship
Building a strong relationship with Influencers and Creators can lead to opportunities which have long-lasting effects. Many brands offer a suite of products, so you can leverage other products by knowing their business. Think about how you can create lasting relationships with your chosen Influencers. For example, send out personalised product packages that can be shared through Instagram Stories.
5. Set Achievable KPIs
Work with the Creator/Influencer to set out what must be done for the campaign. Ensure that the brand and benchmarks are agreed upon before the campaign begins. If there are no specific KPIs given from the brand based on awareness, engagement and/or conversions, say this. A slide that explains KPIs will be set accordingly with the client against each Creator focused on business goals shows the brand that this has been considered.
If you’re a startup, understand what engagement each Creator or Influencer you want to work with will deliver and then map out your key measurements for success.
Map out your top line strategy on a slide.
6. Map A Course Through Timings
Timings are a great way to help brands and yourself understand the effort needed. Brands will usually require a day to feedback on any creative and will need 2 rounds of edits as a rule. This needs to be baked into timings, and there’s nothing more satisfying for a client than knowing internal corporate processes. Be prepared, and make it easy for the client to sign off.
7. Be Clear About Budgets
Budgets are not scary. Make sure there are no hidden costs that you haven’t accounted for. There are shipping costs when sending products to Influencers, content calendars to be created, management of assets back and forth from the influencer to the brand, reporting post-campaign achievements . . and more.
Detail the end-to-end process and make sure everything is accounted for. Add a contingency/admin fee between 2% and 10% dependant on the budget, e.g. if the budget is $10,000, then 10%. If the budget is $800K, then 2% will do.
Final thoughts
Use this framework to cover your strategic and creative output.
- Depending on the work you do, you can exclude or add steps.
- Add hero slides to set out the context, with minimal text or imagery.
- Images and videos will elevate your ideas.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t need to.
- Keep it simple.
Thank you for reading,
Rick Govic
