Why Influencer Marketing should be measurable - Influencity

Influencer marketing strategies are becoming more and more prominent in the business world and many companies that are just starting to execute this genre of actions are taking a huge risk by not working with the appropriate tools and guidance.

The extremely positive results of influencer marketing speak for themselves, but it’s essential to know the terrain and work with professionals and the right tools, in order to carry out well-planned actions.

Why must Influencer Marketing be professionalised?

Designing and executing an influencer marketing strategy means aligning the values and the image of the brand with those of the influencer selected for the collaboration. Since brands seek to identify their values, the company can’t leave fate in the hands of unreliable people.

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The budgets being dedicated to influencer marketing are gradually increasing and, consequently, so are the expectations in terms of the results. It’s for that reason that the sector needs a more professional attitude in order to continue to grow.

Influencer marketing has gone from being an anecdote of a handful of brands to one of the most important marketing strategies for companies worldwide. As a result, every process, from the analysis of campaign results to connecting influencers and brands, needs to advance and become more professional.

“The budgets being dedicated to Influencer marketing are gradually increasing and, consequently, so are the expectations in terms of the results.”

Define your objectives before taking the plunge

Launching an influencer marketing campaign without having your objectives clearly defined is counterproductive and will prevent you from determining the actual impact of your campaign.

The different marketing actions that are developed throughout the duration of a campaign have different effects, hence why it’s so important to measure the results of each action. Without concise objectives, you won’t be able to carry out this evaluation. Let’s take a look at some examples:

• Get people to engage with the posts
• Impact an ample audience
• Significantly increase your following

“Launching an influencer marketing campaign without having your objectives clearly defined is counterproductive and will prevent you from determining the actual impact of your campaign”

How to establish measurable objectives

We’re going to take a look at the three main objectives that influencer marketing campaigns tend to focus on: visibility, engagement and revenue. For each one of these objectives, different metrics must be taken into account:

Visibility

If what a brand wishes to achieve is improving awareness or the visibility of its products, the campaign should focus on measuring the volume of people impacted and other data, such as the increase in followers.

Engagement

Engagement is another common campaign objective. Brand loyalty increases when the audience interacts with its publications.

Collaborating with an influencer so that they can share their thoughts and feelings about a brand is an important touch in the eye of the consumer. Brands know that by doing this, these profiles are demonstrating that their product or service is important to them and not just another one on the market.

In order to analyse the effectiveness of these actions, it’s important to measure the CPE (Cost per Engagement), which is done by dividing the total cost of a publication by the number of likes, shares or comments. By doing so, you can see which posts have been more profitable and which ones have a higher acceptance rate.

Revenue

Calculating the revenue of an influencer marketing campaign can often create confusion, since not all sales made throughout the duration of the campaign will derive directly from these marketing actions.

In order to have a better idea of the campaign’s effectiveness, the best method is to facilitate links affiliated to each influencer participating in the campaign. Not only will this provide the brand with more precise information regarding the efficiency of the campaign in terms of its revenue, but it will also allow the brand to evaluate which influencers have been more “profitable”, by dividing the cost of what was paid to each influencer by the sales they generated.

“If what a brand wishes to achieve is improve awareness or the visibility of its products, the campaign should focus on measuring its reach”

Benefits of measuring and monitoring your campaigns

Just like with any other marketing strategy, measuring and monitoring your influencer marketing campaign is essential in order to oversee its development and make well-informed decisions quickly.

• Why you should measure your results: Creating reports and measuring results is important for comparing the originally established campaign objectives with those achieved. It’s a very beneficial process for learning from mistakes so that they don’t happen again in future campaigns, as well as providing you with a summary of the campaign which serves as an internal communication tool between departments.
• Why you should monitor your campaigns: analysing your campaign shouldn’t just happen when determining the results. It’s also important to monitor your campaigns throughout their development to give yourself response time if a mishap occurs or if the campaign doesn’t go to plan.

How to measure your campaigns

There are two ways to measure your influencer marketing campaigns: manually or with technology. Why should you use technology?

• Costs in time and money are drastically reduced, up to 10 times less than manual analysis.
• No need to assign personnel to monitor each post or KPI.
• Automatically measure the following parametres: date and time of publication, likes, comments, engagement, etc.
• Using a tool means campaign data is accessible for all team members with a simple access code.
• Using a software to monitor your campaign will provide you with precise information without being subject to manual errors.

Perhaps you’re interested in: Analyse your campaigns with influencers: KPIs and metrics for success

Influencer marketing is not a temporary solution, but a long-term investment

Despite influencer marketing only having a relatively brief history, there are already a number of experts on the matter who strongly defend long-term collaborations between influencers and brands as being the most effective method to maximise sales.

The following are just a few of the main benefits of establishing a long-term relationship between influencers and brands:

• The influencer knows their audience better than anyone and, for that very reason, is a valuable asset when designing effective content to post.
• In comparison with short-term collaborations, long-term commercial relationships establish a bond between the influencer and the brand and product recommendations will be much more credible, due to their frequent repetition.
• This repetition will encourage the influencer’s audience to trust the brand and/or the product or service being recommended.
• It will facilitate future contact and negotiations with the influencer.

Furthermore, due to the speed with which current trends develop on social networks, working with influencers on a long-term basis is the best way for a brand to make sure they’re not losing their online presence.

Are you getting the most out of your campaigns? Download our latest eBook and find out if you’re correctly measuring your influencer marketing actions!