Finally, here is the last delivery of our influencer marketing blog series. In case you haven’t been following up with our latest post, go check PART ONE where we talked about what to expect and what not to demand from influencers. Or give a quick read to PART TWO with our tips on how to select the right influencer profiles to work with your brand. We’ll give you a couple minutes to do that…. but don’t forget to come back.
[Three minute elevator music break]
Welcome back! Now that you know the basics for influencer marketing and profile selection, we are more than happy to share with you our ultimate and most simple step by step guide to set up an influencers marketing campaign for your business:
have a concept, creativity is key more than ever for digital marketing
This doesn’t need to be anything crazy. But having the idea of how influencers should talk about your brand or which aspects of your product should be highlighted is always a huge help to get the right content created. Photos underwater, conversations over a cup of coffee, things you can do while your food delivery arrives… honestly the sky’s the limit. And if you feel like struggling with the creative part, contact us and we’ll squeeze our brain juices to give you good ideas!
present the ideas to a cluster of influencers you already analyzed and only work with the ones that resonate with the brand/campaign
Now that you have your creative vision, it is time to present this idea to your pre-selected profiles. If during this process happens that one or two of your pre-selected profiles are not resonating with the style of communication you want to create, it’s always ok to recognize when things will not work and be honest about your expectations. You might need to find new profiles that are open for collaboration and co-creation. And that is ok!
don’t be afraid to ask for their analytics. if you are buying content from them, you deserve to know what the performance of it will look like
This is what we talked about on PART TWO. Professional content creators and influencers should be ready to share their analytics as some sort of guarantee for the investment you are doing by paying them to promote your brand. We wouldn’t trust to work with someone that is hiding information to us, as that can compromise the performance of the campaign.
negotiate payments and posting schedules, be clear with expectations. they will appreciate it too
Yes, influencer marketing should be paid for, that shouldn’t be the discussion anymore. But the conversation you need to have with content creators will be around when and how you will pay them.
First: posting schedules. Give guidance on when they should post your content and this should be aligned with your campaign flow. Also consider collaborators posts on Instagram that will go on both feeds. You have to have a plan of how your feed will look during a campaign and influencers must post within the timeframes you provide.
About payments: depending on how long the campaign is, you can set a downpayment of no more than 50% of the budget. This will also help them get anything they might need to create better content (like props or so). Then set a 20% milestone for when the content gets created and approved to post. The last 30% can be paid after posting and providing analytics of the results.
Every case can be different and you might run into influencers that have their own rules regarding payment times or they might already have a schedule for posting on certain dates. This is all good as long as there is a transparent conversation to set these terms and agreements to establish a proper contract, which brings us to the next step.
create and sign contracts with clear detail of actions required and agreements for both sides
This step is pretty straight forward. Write down all the agreements in terms of actions/posts hired, payments and timeframes in a formal document that both sides agree with and sign.
The best will be finalizing the campaign without even having to look at these files again, but it has happened that one of the sides tries to use and abuse the relationship. So having a signed document as a back support to keep everyone safe is always a good idea.
Something important you have to consider for your contracts is establishing very clear the type of rights and use you will be allowed for the content created. List all the platforms you will be using it at and for how long. Also consider if you want some sort of exclusivity with the content creator (meaning they cannot post about competitors’ products for a certain amount of time), or even for how long do they have to commit to keep the branded content on their profiles. These additional conditions might have an impact on your budget, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and that’s the reason why everything should be laid out clearly and negotiated during open conversations.
co-create with them. two minds think better than one and organic collaborations are always welcomed by digital audiences
Co-creation will make ideas even bigger! Based on our experiences, content creators hate being told exactly what to do, but they are down to be guided with ideas that can help their creativity explode. After signing a contract (you might want to consider an NDA as well), be open for suggestions and brainstorming sessions.
provide influencers with your brand and campaign guidelines
This will make their work easier and you will prevent going through painful revisions that can end up costing money or messing up your relationship with the influencer. You can even consider adding these guidelines to your “influencer welcome kit” after the contract is signed. Here’s the main points you need to include:
- Brief explanation of the campaign’s concept or purpose
- Key messages of the campaign/product
- Do’s and don’ts for the use of your logo and product
- Hashtags to use
- Accounts to tag or mention.
- A brief summary of the actions they have to do, including posting dates
- Brief information about your brand and product
at the end of your campaign ask for analytics/insights of the actions taken by each profile
This will set a standard for your future campaigns and will help you create more and better relationships with the influencers that are giving you the best results. You need to be able to trace your steps back in order to make better decisions for the future. Use the data you are creating in your favor!
key Points of our influencer 3 parts blog:
- influencer marketing is about creating a win-win relationship
- UGC content
- are you giving guidelines to the influencers you work with
- be clear about your expectations
- analyze influencer profiles and don’t fall for vanity metrics
- diversify your influencer selection
- think strategically
- have a concept
- only work with influencers that resonate with the brand/campaign
- don’t be afraid to ask for their analytics
- negotiate payments and posting schedules
- create and sign contracts with clear details
- co-create with the influencers
- provide your brand and campaign guidelines
- at the end of your campaign ask for analytics/insights of the actions taken
Now you are all set to create a better strategy for your next influencer marketing campaign. If you have any questions along the way or need help to get your brand started in real positive influencer marketing, contact us and let’s talk about it.
We love strategies and business talking!
