Influencer marketing become the key marketing channel for many brands nowadays. We already discussed how brands use influencers and why: approximately 35% of consumers aged 18 to 29 say influencer posts are the number one way to get them to try new products. If you’re thinking about your long-term strategy for working with influencers here are things to consider.
Short-Term vs. Long-Term Campaigns
Influencer marketing become one of the main channels for many consumer products. Developing a long-term strategy offers several advantages for your marketing mix. While short-term campaigns can provide quick boosts in visibility and sales, they often lack the depth and sustained impact of long-term strategies.
Let’s compare it closer:
1. Short-Term Campaigns:
- Quick Wins:
These are typically designed for immediate results, such as a product launch or a flash sale. - Limited Engagement:
The engagement tends to peak during the campaign period and may not sustain afterward. - One-Off Promotions:
Influencers may work with the brand only once, which might not build long-term trust with their audience.
2. Long-Term Campaigns:
- Sustained Impact:
These campaigns are designed to build and maintain brand awareness over a longer period. - Deeper Relationships:
Influencers and their audiences develop a stronger connection with the brand, leading to more authentic promotions. - Ongoing Storytelling:
Brands can leverage influencers to create a narrative that evolves over time, keeping the audience continuously engaged. - Increased Trust and Credibility:
Long-term partnerships with influencers help build trust with their audience. When followers see an influencer consistently endorsing a brand over time, it enhances the authenticity and reliability of the promotion.
By committing to long-term influencer partnerships, brands can achieve a more substantial and enduring impact. As influencer marketing continues to grow, with the industry projected to be worth $21.1 billion, the importance of strategic, long-term collaborations becomes even more important.
Main tips on building long-term influencer strategy
Now let’s review how to approach the development of your long-term strategy. Remember that strategy is a compass - not a roadmap. It means that you need to define the main principles but not a strict plan without an option to step aside.
Start with your overall brand and marketing strategy by answering questions about your audience and the value your product brings to them. Then move on to defining how influencer marketing can apply those principles.
Based on that, create blueprints that clearly describe how your brand works with influencers:
- Criteria for Selection:
What are the criteria for the selection of the right influencer. - Setting Goals and KPIs:
How to set up goals and KPIs for each collaboration. - Brand Guidelines:
What are brand guides - how influencers should communicate the brand to keep the overall image consistent. - Alignment with Marketing Activities:
How all collaborations are aligned with other marketing activities or product launches. - Analyzing Results:
How to analyze the results and collect a knowledge base.
Think about those generic rules but without building limits for influencers. Offer them creative freedom to develop content that feels natural and resonates with their followers while ensuring that it aligns with your brand’s messaging and objectives. This balance between guidance and creative liberty helps in producing engaging and authentic content.
Build your process
To make your long-term strategy work, you need to ensure effective implementation. For that, you need to build a process that allows you to consistently have promo campaigns, analyse results and make iteration changes in your approach. Here are a few tips on building the process:
1. Understand the amount of work and resources you need.
This includes budgeting for influencer payments, allocating time for campaign planning, and managing communications.
2. Build your toolset and set up automations:
Invest in tools that optimise your work. Automation tools can handle repetitive tasks, allowing your team to focus on strategy and creative development.
3. Create a list of influencers you’re working with regularly:
We already discussed why you should keep working with the same influencers, so keep that list up to date.
4. Schedule regular milestones:
Build your routine with weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly meetings dedicated to reviewing campaign results, planning upcoming initiatives, and engaging with influencers.
5. Consider hiring an influencer marketing agency:
If your internal resources are not enough, consider partnering with an influencer marketing agency. Agencies have the expertise, networks, and tools to manage campaigns more efficiently and can help scale your efforts. They can also provide valuable insights and industry best practices to enhance your strategy.
Stay open to new experiments
Today dynamic rhythms of new technologies, social media platforms and behaviour patterns require marketers to be even more flexible and open to new ideas and experiments. The way to success is to have an overall strategy, vision and plan to understand what your team doing and what results to expect. But your strategy also has to have space to test new approaches and react to changes. Remember to regularly revisit your strategy and apply changes to stay relevant.
