Influencer marketing is constantly rising, and it’s definitely not coming to a halt anytime soon. The reason why? Well, the results of influencer marketing can be amazing, with a successful increase in brand engagement and business performance there’s no reason not to give it a try.
The benefits of influencer marketing vary. According to a survey by Linqia, 89% of marketers used influencer marketing to create authentic content about their brand, 77% used influencer marketing to drive engagement around their brand and 56% used the channel to drive traffic to their websites or landing pages.
1. Measuring ROI
Measuring ROI from your influencer marketing campaign was one of the top challenges faced according to the report from Linqia.
This challenge isn’t only for influencer marketing, quite a lot of brands have been struggling with ROI for many years, more so when it involves content and social media.
To overcome this, you could instead look at the non-financial return, for example driving traffic to your website or landing page from influencer referral traffic, increase in social following, more engagement, looking at the total brand mentions that have been made by your influencers etc.
2. Identifying influencers
Another challenge that quite a lot of brands have trouble with is identifying the right influencers. In order to see success from your influencer marketing campaign, you’ll need to identify suitable influencers.
An ideal influencer would be one that meets the following golden rules:
- Active influencer that shares high-quality content regularly
- Have a large and engaged audience that both comment and like
- Appears to be authentic
- Has a specific theme and style that relates to your brand
However, always keep in mind that the size of an influencer doesn’t always necessarily mean you’ll see success. Smaller influencers also known as micro-influencers that have less followers sometimes have much higher engagement rates than those that have large followings in the millions.
According to Digiday, Instagram influencers that have a following of 10,000 to 100,000 followers receive more engagements (2.4% like rate) compared to those that have 1 million to 10 million followers and more (1.7% like rate). Comment rates also known to follow a similar pattern.
In order to overcome this challenge, you’ll need to understand and identify what your potential audience like, what motivates them, what they want to achieve.
For example travel bloggers, travel vloggers and travel photographers would be your ideal influencers if you are a travel agency or sell travel gear.
3. Approaching influencers
Getting an influencer’s attention is also one of the tough challenges brands face. This is mainly due to the rise of influencer marketing, making it harder for brands to work with influencers as the demand for them increases and is a battle for who can win them for their campaign.
In order to successfully work with influencers, offering them only a financial reward is no longer the best option. To stand out and increase your chances of engaging with an influencer and working with them, you need to also offer extra perks that would be relevant and interest the influencer’s audience.
In Augure’s study, the participants mentioned their most common motivations are when they are able to increase their reach and engagement, create high quality content for their audience, shape their image, receive additional perks (discounts, free products etc), earn money and live new experiences.
To find suitable influencers for your campaign, you should look to use tools like BuzzSumo, LinkedIn, Ninja Outreach or use a provider like Proven SEO for delivery of sponsored blog posts, branded content and social influencer services.
Also See: Learn How Your Fitness Company Can Benefit From Influence Marketing
Conclusion
Influencer marketing will continue to rise as brands continue to see more success. The above challenges are the most common marketers usually face, however there are several more. Hopefully, this article has given you an overview of some of those challenges and how to overcome them. When using an agency like Proven SEO, the challenges you face may slowly become easy with the help from experts. Just always remember, you need to make sure you build a healthy strong relationship with influencers.