What makes your influencer marketing campaigns unique?

Influencer marketing has become too crowded and every other person calls themself an influencer. Since there are so many brands which need promotion, they capitalize on these influencers by labeling them as micro and macro influencers. While this can help, it can also tarnish your brand image at times. So the unique way to find them is to understand your target audience in depth, then shortlist your influencer list and choose who seem true to their word, people resonate a particular influencer with a character, your brand should blend in. Ex: Shahrukh is mostly romantic, respectful of women etc. So any brand which is looking to promote women friendly or women oriented can possibly have him as the influencer/ brand ambassador.

Die Idee von Influencer-Marketing ist es, die eigene Brand durch authentische Personen positiv zu beeinflussen. Authentisch sind sie dann, wenn sie perfekt zu deiner Zielgruppe passen (oder einer Teilmenge hiervon). Und bestenfalls ist deine Zielgruppe diejenige, auf die du deine Produkte oder Dienstleistungen ausgerichtet hast. Doch was heißt jetzt perfekt passen? Indem der Influencer glaubwürdig in dem ist,was er tut. Beispiel: ein professioneller Holzfäller oder Förster kennt aus seiner täglichen Arbeit die Eigenarten von Holz und die Anforderungen beim Baumfällen. Diese Personen wären also ideale Influencer für einen Hersteller von Motorsägen, indem sie authentisch über das Produkt sprechen können.

Firstly, it's important to be the voice of your customer. But it's equally important to hear your business partners - Sales, marketing, procurement, customer support. Secondly, matching the needs of your customers to their needs is important. While doing this show them value from your offering - influence them, open up their minds to different perspectives, challenge them. This is where influencers come into play. They need to be your brand advocates, they need to resonate the thoughts of your brand as well as your customers.

To make your influencer marketing campaigns unique, the eCommerce entrepreneur must scope out 2 different things: 1- Different audience objective, segmented by the influencer’s audience profile. 2- Scope of the campaign will be different, based on the profile and lifestyle behavior and style of the influencer.

Knowing your audience doesn't just mean demographics, preferences or pain points. Of course it's a basic principle but it's not enough. It's also about understanding how they feel, what they stand for, what they really believe in, to inspire them with authenticity, real meaning and the right influencer they can identify with and definitely trust.

Tailored, Not Templated: You know what's old school? A one-size-fits-all influencer script. We tossed it out. Each influencer now gives our brand a unique voice, suited perfectly to their audience. And guess what? People can tell the difference.

Precision in platform choice and influencer's audience, contributes to influencer campaign success! Take, for instance, Nigerian influencers like Jackie Aina and Dimma Umeh, who have mastered the beauty game on Instagram and YouTube. On the tech front, individuals like Mark Essien have excelled on Twitter, showcasing the power of strategic platform selection.

Platform-native content is key to engaging your target audience and boosts relevance among your target audience. Select creators wisely for each platform. E.g. On Instagram, choose popular creators with high-quality content, while on TikTok, micro/macro influencers boost credibility. Despite criticisms, strategic templating is vital for scaling creative output and combating ad fatigue, a major issue in paid campaign performance. Proper templating maintains credibility and is effective for creator content in paid campaigns.

For Calvin Klein Fragrances' campaign, we strategically chose platforms catering to an immersive sensory experience. Instagram and YouTube were pivotal for their visual storytelling, while TikTok added a dynamic, youthful edge. This trinity of platforms, paired with a cohesive retail strategy, ensured a seamless journey from digital buzz to tangible in-store interaction, anchoring our commercial success.

Selecting the right social media platforms for influencer marketing is pivotal. Tailor your choice to your product and goals. For beauty products, Instagram and YouTube offer visual appeal. Software finds its niche on LinkedIn and Twitter for insightful content and case studies. Precision in platform selection optimizes your influencer campaign.

Audience size and relevance matters - but if the content solves a real need for people, easy to understand, the campaign has a big chance!

Creating SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) for influencer marketing is essential for a successful campaign.

Setting SMART goals was the linchpin for our Calvin Klein Fragrances campaign's success. We sought not just immediate impact but strategic brand growth. With targets tied to both vibrant brand storytelling and hard metrics—impressions, engagement, conversions—we ensured each influencer collaboration was a step towards doubling our revenue. This balance between narrative and numbers, short-term buzz and sustained loyalty, is what sets apart a campaign that's remembered from one that resonates.

Behind-the-Scenes Bonanza: We thought, why not pull back the curtain? Showing the making of the product, the team, the hustle – it brought an unexpected closeness between the influencer, the brand, and the audience.

Setting SMART goals is a cornerstone of influencer marketing. Define objectives (e.g., brand awareness, leads, conversions, loyalty), establish measurable metrics (impressions, clicks, sales), and allocate necessary resources. Clear goals and metrics ensure campaign success and ROI evaluation.

Collaborate with "Right" influencers is the key. As much as the platform, picking influencers who can "influence" your audience is important. Research around their published content, engagement rates, and value of traffic is important. Influencers have their own branding, and you need to be respectful of that for your own campaign success. Brands try to use influencers as a channel of promotion, and try to impose company branding guidelines that may not align with how their audience engage with them. It is like signing Arnold Schwarzenegger for a soap opera.

I've sponsored over 600 podcasts in my career. Here’s what I’ve learned from the $60M in revenue they drove: 1. Find a host that would use your service. It has to be an authentic endorsement. Their audience will know they don’t care about this product unless it’s something they would use. 2. Give value prop direction, but do not write the script for the host. It has to be said and written in their tone. 3. Share performance numbers with the host so they can better understand which read was more successful than the other. It’s a mutual partnership and should be managed as such.

Especially in podcast advertising, a collaborative approach to creative is best. Give them enough breathing room in your talking points to let the hosts’ personality shine through the reads and allow them to sound like themselves. They know what their audience wants and will respond to; that's literally a big part of what you're paying them for. Don’t overly script them or more than likely, you’ll be disappointed with the end results, both creatively and in terms of sales.

Work with influencers who have tried your products and can give you reviews of the products or services you offer. That way, their content will be from a personal experience, and you will be surprised at how effective honest and persuasive their content will be.

It's essential to choose influencers whose values and audience align with your brand and objectives. Effective collaboration requires a mutually beneficial relationship and a clear understanding of goals and expectations. When done right, influencer marketing can be a powerful tool to enhance your marketing efforts and achieve your business objectives.

Optimizing your content is key to engaging your audience effectively. It should not only resonate with them but also be presented in a format they prefer. This means tailoring the storytelling and presentation to align with how your audience typically consumes content, ensuring it captures their attention and interest.

Relevant content on the right digital platform and delivery of the message in the most interesting way goes a long way in making your campaign unique.

Optimizing content is vital. It should be relevant, engaging, and align with your brand. Use keywords, hashtags, and diverse formats to connect with your audience effectively. Content quality and variety are key to a successful campaign.

For me asides the marketing campaign itself, the relationship with the influencer is of great importance to me because I have seen that having a sort of bond with the influencer enables them to own the campaign which ultimately unlocks some genuine insight and ‘real’ influence that’s needed for my campaign. I go out of the way to ensure I court an influencer before hand and build that relationship before engaging them for a campaign and when this is done well the briefing and every other thing comes into play before we make magic together. That’s my secret and it’s worked thus far.

The Feedback Loop: Here's something I've found helpful – turning influencer campaign debriefs into brainstorming sessions for the next one. Influencers know their audience; their feedback has become our compass for continuous innovation.

Not Just a Campaign, A Cause: We tied our campaigns to causes that both the brand and influencers cared about. This wasn't just marketing; it was a shared mission that resonated deeply with the audience, transforming customers into advocates.

Monitoring is key, however it's important to avoid vanity metrics and fake performance. Defining and understanding the right goal first, to make sure following the right KPI, then knowing where you start from, where you want to go and what you need to achieve it.

One of the important aspects that brands tend to miss is that the influencers know their followers well, at least the content that ticks. Brands tend to script the entire influencer post which is why many influencer led content fails. While it is ok to control the broad narrative and establish a broad do's and don'ts, it is recommended not to go to the extent of what content they need to post, or be too restrictive.

Réguler davantage les activités des influenceurs en incitant à un meilleur cadrage contractuel de la prestation. L'absence de contrat dans le marketing d'influence nuit aux petites structures qui se voient contraintes d'accepter les conditions des influenceurs sans pouvoir driver.

Do your competitors have an influencer marketing strategy? The first step in creating your influencer marketing strategy is to analyze the strategy of your competitors and the brands in your sector. This analysis is not about copying what your competitors are doing Analyzing competitors and the market will help your brand to: - Know which brands in your sector are creating campaigns with influencers; - Find out which influencers your competitors work with; - Find influencers who are ambassadors for competing brands; - Understand what kind of campaigns they run and for what purpose; - The impact caused by each mention and the interactions achieved; - Finding mistakes made by competitors and not making them in your strategy;

Redefining ROI: I actually disagree with the traditional 'return on investment' metrics. Our best campaigns didn't just convert views to sales; they converted indifference to emotion, and consumers to community members. That's the real return.

Selling X Marketing X Disrupting :D Having come so far, I submit that this is to just exist in present is actually therapeutic: it allows me as a creative to set aside the sense of concern for a more positive aggressive conviction to thrive towards disrupting your tomorrow.  A reality that we can change only in this very second, oh and that second just passed away. We are mere atoms in a drop of water found in the ocean. Yet our delusional ego’s put our existence in the epi-center of the universe, hypocritically we know nothing of. We need to see ourselves as stewards of an ongoing conversation, To secure our tomorrow, this is a necessity.  Disruption is a necessity! “I act in the present to disrupt your future” - Fahad Kidwai