With most of us spending an average of 2 hours on social media daily, it is no surprise that influencer marketing has become one of the most used marketing tools for brands to drive brand awareness and create a buzz among their target audience.
Nevertheless, this marketing tool is more than what meets the eye.
A successful influencer-driven marketing campaign involves a few important factors and steps to determine its effectiveness.
Today we will be diving further into these factors, helping you navigate and understand influencer marketing and gifting better, so you can do it tastefully for your next campaign!
1. Identifying your marketing objectives.
If you are ever tempted to emulate what other brands do for their influencer marketing, take a pause to reflect on your own marketing objectives before that.
Is this a new product you are launching into the market? Or is this a branding campaign to which you want to capture the values you stand for as a brand? Are you looking to drive conversions via your e-commerce stores?
Once you have identified your marketing objectives, it's also important to dive deeper into your niche target audience.
Are your audience working adults who are often on Instagram? Or are you looking to target students who may prefer consuming TikTok content? Do they usually look for online reviews before purchasing a product?
By identifying your target audience and understanding how they think and the kind of content they consume, you are able to get a better idea of how to best run your influencer marketing campaign.
2. Selecting the right influencers for your brand or products.
It is very important to note that influencer marketing should not be perceived as a walking billboard. This means you do not select an influencer just because of their reach or engagement rate, but rather dive deeper into who they are, what they value, their lifestyle and whether your brand is aligned with their personal values.
After you have narrowed down the persona of influencers you are looking for to represent your brand, you can now determine the category of influencer you want to engage with.
This usually is based on their number of following. And before you get ahead of things, be sure to decide this by aligning it back to your marketing objectives.
As a very general rule of thumb, if you are looking to run an awareness campaign, you will be looking into reaching a wide audience. For example, working with a couple of high following influencers or engaging a larger number of influencers with a smaller following to make up for the numbers.
And on the flip side, if you are looking to run a sales conversion campaign, then you will be looking into the engagement rate, carefully selecting a handful of influencers with high engagement rates and working with them for a longer term to garner the results.
If all of these seem overwhelming to you, or if your team does not have the capacity to filter through these nitty gritty details, you can reach out to us to provide support and guidance in this influencer selection and engagement process!
3. Curating The Influencer Gifting Products.
Now that the more technical part is out of the way, here comes the fun part!
When you are looking to curate an influencer gift kit, there are a few key factors that you can put into consideration.
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How does your gift kit include elements that best represent your brand?
It could be the selected colour themes, decorative elements or the choice of items that is aligned with your brand values (eg: premium or luxury items if your brand is a high-end brand, fun and bright colours for an approachable and young brand).
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How does your gift help the influencer to tell a better story?
This usually comes down to the presentation of the gift, or the carefully curated items that can create a specific vibe or functionality that strengthen your product positioning. (eg: a travel kit for an airline brand, a DIY baking set for a milk brand).
But all in all, it's crucial that your gift kit needs to look aesthetically pleasing, as this will encourage influencers to post more about your brand and product on their platform.
Influencer marketing is definitely an engaging marketing channel that can drive impact if it is done purposefully. Another good practice is preparing it in advance with enough lead time to plan for your campaign so you can ensure all the details are well thought out and executed seamlessly.
Here at WISHFUL, we are more than happy to support you if you are looking to explore using influencers to promote your brand. From the selection of influencers, to the curation and ideation of the gifts aligning to your objectives followed by the fulfilment, we provide end-to-end influencer marketing & gifting services so you don't have to do it on your own.
If you are interested to explore the services we provide, do not hesitate to reach out to us via email at corporate@wishful.my or WhatsApp us at +6012 733 1246 with your enquiries and we will get back to you.
