So you want to reach a broader audience, huh? We can help with that. Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing and most effective ways to reach and build trust with a new audience.
To launch a successful influencer campaign, it’s important to identify your 5 W’s - Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
The “Who” is pretty simple. Who do you want to reach and who are you going to reach out to?
By identifying the first person, you can create an “audience personality” and identify the second person. An audience personality is basically a description of the type of people you are trying to reach. What’s their name? What’s their occupation? Are they married or single? Do they have kids? Are they creative or fact driven? Identify all of these details about your target audience and you will be able to name the influencers you want to reach out to. If your desired audience is predominantly female, single, makes $55k annual salary, and is age 24-30, you know you want to reach out to influencers who match that description because they will most likely have a similar following. If your desired audience is male, ages 36-45, married, makes $109k annually, and is crafty with his hands, you know you want to find influencers with that kind of following and niche. If your desired audience is fema– well, you get the point. Define your audience and you’ve picked your influencers.
The “What” is also pretty simple. What are you marketing? Whether it’s a product or an experience, the “what” of your campaign is pretty obvious. But the “why” is where this gets more interesting. But we’ll get there.
The “When” of your campaign is the entire timeline from the start to … the next start. Because, let’s be honest, marketing never ends. But to decide the when of your campaign, you will need to determine a starting time and a “wrap up” time. The starting time can be when you start sourcing influencers to market to or it can be when you officially ask them to be a part of the campaign. Either way, once you start, it’s on. Make sure your timeline is completely filled in, start to finish. Keep communication with your influencers open during the specific campaign and continue to keep them involved in the conversation with your brand so when it’s time for the next campaign, they’re already on board.
The “Where” for the campaign depends on if you’re marketing a product or an experience. If it’s a product, the “where” is more than likely your office/storefront or the mail if you’re sending the items to the influencers. If you’re marketing an experience, the “where” is the location of the event. Easy, right?
Now for the “Why.” This can be a little trickier to identify, but it is so important to a successful campaign.
The why is the overall theme of the campaign, whether it matches your brand’s overall theme or not. Take the Stanley Cup again for example. The Stanley is a durable, insulated, large cup that fits in your cup holder. If you just send influencers the cup in a pretty package, they may tell their audience anything. But, if you send the influencers the cup with a gym bag, resistance bands, and a gatorade, it will paint the picture for one of the many ways that Stanley cups can be used in your everyday life. If you’re marketing an experience, like a museum, sure you could invite people who would be interested in the content of the exhibits, or, you could invite a mom’s group to remind people that this is a place for all age groups.
Now that we’ve got our 5 W’s out of the way, it’s on to the final step - “How.”
How are you going to market this product to the influencers? How are the influencers going to market this to their audience? How are you going to impress your boss? This is the part where you make sure to dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s. Revisit your previous steps before and make sure you know every question and every answer. Who am I reaching out to? How will I choose them? How will I contact them? What am I sending them? How will I source this? When is this happening? How will I choose an appropriate timeline? Where is this happening? How will I make this happen there? How will I secure the space? Why is this happening? How will I convey this message? How will I capture my audience’s attention? How will I keep this conversation fresh after this campaign? There are more questions to ask than I have space to write, but make sure you’ve got the answers, and you’ll be fine.
And there you have it, the basics of a good influencer marketing campaign. Happy marketing!