Are You Looking at the Influencer Marketing Long Game?

Most savvy marketers don’t need to be sold on the value of influencer marketing. The evidence is all around us, as brands of every size partner with influencers to connect with their audiences.

But though more brands each year are maintaining or expanding their investment in influencer marketing, many are still not making a significant, measurable impact with their efforts.

According to a new report called Influencer 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing, sponsored by Traacker and TopRank Marketing, many brands are failing to understand the full potential of influencers. They’ll launch a one-time influencer campaign, but they won’t invest the time and money needed to integrate influencer marketing into their long-term strategy.

The study – which surveys 102 brand leaders from enterprise companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon Web Services and American Express ­– shows:

• 43% of marketers are experimenting with influencer marketing
• 28% are working with influencers at the campaign level
• 24% have a continuous “always on” influencer program, but only 5% have integrated influencer marketing into all their activities

The problem is: you can’t build meaningful relationships with people through a one-off campaign. Yes, you might attract some attention, and rack up impressive views and likes. You might even reach your goal for sales or conversions. But if you stop at just one campaign, you’re missing a huge opportunity to establish trust and build a loyal base of customers. Influencer marketing is most effective when you focus on the long game, not the short term.

The “Influence 2.0” approach pushed you to incorporate influencer marketing into every step of the customer experience. This means starting with the customer and not the influencer – making sure you understand your audience, and making them the center of your marketing efforts. Consider these questions:

• What is our audience looking for? What questions can we answer? What problems can we help them solve?
• How can we design our content strategy to address their problems, or provide the information they need?
• Who are the influencers who would be the best at meeting our audience’s needs? Who would inspire trust and confidence? How can influencers help our audience make informed decisions?
• What are our audience’s main expectations? How can we be helpful to them, and continue to meet these expectations in everyday moments?
• How can our influencer marketing reach people on a personalized, human-to-human level? How can we build more authentic relationships with our audience?

Get in touch with MtoM – and learn more about creating a long-term influencer marketing strategy.