Follow This Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy for 2022

The digital revolution has stemmed a new type of famous or popular individual: online personalities. These can often be very niche level “celebrities” focused on varying areas of interest.

Digital online influencers exist in spaces such as makeup, sports, business, NFTs, diversity, entertainment, and everywhere else you can think of.

Levels of influence will vary, and some influencers have far more broad, mainstream appeal than others. But some influencers can be hyper-specific and still provide a potent marketing tonic for a company that exists in their space.

The concept is simple and as old as time, truthfully. Or it’s at least as old as marketing and advertising themselves.

In short, influencer marketing is the new-era version of old-school celebrity endorsements.

When Jaclyn Hill releases her latest video on makeup foundations, parallels exist with Wilford Brimley talking earnestly about his diabetes on behalf of Liberty Medical. Or, for something more recent, influencer marketing is a lot like Taylor Swift doing ads for Diet Coke.

There’s a crucial difference, though.

Since influencers are often niche, it won’t cost you the same money for their endorsement as an actor or athlete. But it’s not a matter of achieving lesser results because you pay less. After all, relevant influencers own significant clout in your brand’s space. They just happen to not be George Clooney. And they are easily accessible for companies like yours--especially if you work with a marketing agency.

You might still believe influencer marketing to be all hype. Still, there’s a reason its market worth has doubled between 2019 and 2021, skyrocketing up to 13.8 billion U.S. dollars. What’s more, influencer campaigns generate an 11x higher ROI than online banner ads.

A caveat exists in all this. Having cultivated an influencer marketing hub ourselves, we can freely tell you that not all campaigns and strategies are made equal. You won’t succeed solely based on deciding you’re going to use influencer marketing for your brand. It’s a detailed approach that takes plenty of forethought and must be expertly executed.

So read on and learn these steps for making your influencer marketing strategy heading into 2022:

Step 1: Examine Today’s Landscape

For those who dislike research, entering the influencer marketing sphere will present a struggle. Fortunately, you’re reading this article, showing you’re okay with some deep diving into crucial topics for your brand.

Fact-finding is integral before you invest your funds into an influencer marketing strategy. More to the point, you must analyze the current state of the market.

A broad example of this type of research would be how consumers have remained optimistic and open to spending even in the face of a pandemic. This sentiment likely means you can be aggressive in promoting products, services, or special promotions with your influencer strategy.

Yet, even if we rewind to the earlier days of the pandemic when consumers were less willing to spend, influencers were a significant part of brand outreach. People were stuck at home, spending time on varying platforms teeming with influencers (e.g., Instagram, YouTube). Thus, influencers focused on establishing goodwill and the wellbeing of their audience.

In other words, there’s always a place for influencer marketing. Your success hinges upon how you use it and if it fits the current tenor of the times.

Step 2: Hone Into Your Target Market

You’ve figured out the tenor of the times, meaning it’s time to decide on the people you wish to reach with your influencer marketing campaign.

Your target audience is really at the center of everything--your knowledge of their wants and needs will make or break your strategy and campaign.

In short, figure out who's engaging with your brand. Or, at the very least, create the profile of your ideal customer. But your most desirable customer still needs to be someone likely to buy your products or services.

During the introduction, we spoke of niches. This specificity-based mindset should be prevalent when defining your strategy. The more you know this customer, the more you can appeal to them, and the more they’ll spend on your products and services. To that point, the Pareto Principle states that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your client base. Focus on those people the most with your campaigns.

So, what do you need to know about your target market?

• Are they really your top customers?
• Where do they live?
• What are their interests and preferences?
• When (or what time) is this audience most responsive to marketing?
• What social media platforms are they using?

Step 3: Find YOUR Influencer

We brought up Jaclyn Hill earlier--who is an absolute powerhouse in the influencer game. You might hear her net-worth and see how good she is at influencer marketing and want her to represent or endorse your business.

But Jaclyn Hill is focused on beauty--and all things related to it--so you’d need to fall within that sphere for her to be relevant to your business. It’s highly unlikely she sells a pipe wrench, or a baseball glove no matter her influence and wide reach.

Your influencer must be someone your audience trusts. Finding that person gives your brand an authoritative voice your target market deems honest. Even going back to 2016, Twitter did research showing 40% of users had made direct purchases due to influencers. And at the time of the study, influencing was still in its relative infancy.

Follow these criteria to find that special someone to help influence your target audience:

• How relevant are they?
• Do they fit your brand?
• Would your audience care about them?
• How far is their reach?
• Look at the number of followers they have.
• The bigger the number of followers, the greater their influence (be mindful of fake followers).
• How engaging is their content?
• Influencers with engaging contact spearhead your target market’s engagement with your brand.

Not sure where to look for someone? Just peruse your own contact list on any given social media platform. You’d be surprised at who has clout with their audience (and exists in your brand’s space).

Step 4: Influencer Outreach

George Clooney wouldn’t have endorsed Nespresso if they turned up to his front door with nothing but coffee beans. No--only $5 million per year would convince the Hollywood leading man.

Don’t let that high number give you heart palpitations. Your influencer won’t cost nearly that much--but you still need to speak their language and impress them, which will involve:

• Reaching out via personal message on the relevant social media platform:
• You can also send a personalized, custom email
• Clarifying that you’re willing to pay influencers money
• Preparing and presenting a pitch, selling your brand in the process

You don’t always have to pay cash--offering free products for shout-outs/endorsements is sometimes a copacetic arrangement. But still, make clear you’re willing to shell out some dough. It’s a matter of respect. It’s not like you’d give customers your products or services for free.

Step 5: Design Your Campaign

Going ad hoc and not ensuring every bit of influencer-generated content is logical and conducive to brand growth leaves profits on the table. So, align your influencer marketing with all other facets of your marketing, advertising, and even customer service. This harmony creates consistency customers come to rely on from their preferred brands. It’s also the foundation of a marketing campaign.

You also want to ensure your influencer marketing content reaches your audience--a crucial component of any marketing campaign.

Thus, all influencer content involving your brand must be on the platforms they’re using, in which case, Instagram is your first jumping-off point.

Decide also if your influencer will promote posts, you’ve made or if they’ll just promote their own posts about your brand.

Lastly, ask your influencer to put your product page link in their bio. This way, their audience has fewer boundaries impeding them from following your call to action.

Step 6: Track Your Campaigns

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And you can’t improve it.

Of course, doing all the necessary pre-campaign legwork reduces the amount of additional work once your campaigns go live. But still, most successful marketing campaigns exist in a perpetual state of flux. You need to learn the nuts and bolts of what works. And you must avoid what doesn’t work--unless you want to waste your resources on something that brings you no value.

Tracking performance successfully means setting relevant goals such as increased brand awareness, expanding your audience, building brand advocacy, and driving sales.

To accomplish the above goals, you’ll need to track the following metrics generated by your influencer content:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Brand mentions
• Follower numbers
• Brand engagement
• Generated revenue
• User-generated content.

Step 7: Align With An Agency Specializing in Influencer marketing in Dubai

We’ve worked tirelessly to turn our company into an influencer marketing hub. And the knowledgebase conveyed in this article definitely proves as such. But we can do more for your business than just supplying you with an informative, actionable piece of written content.

Instead, you can partner with us and tap into our vast knowledge of the influence marketing space. This way, you’ll have the peace of mind in knowing you’re following all the correct steps to generate the ROI your organization deserves.