How To Launch An Influencer Marketing Campaign As A New Influencer

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Are you an Influencer who has just sealed a marketing campaign with a brand? And you are about to run an influencer marketing campaign your client, only to realize that you aren’t very sure how to proceed next? There are probably a lot of questions running in your mind, for instance, “What does campaign success look like? Or what is the best way to ensure that you meet the client’s Campaign's objectives?” etc.

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Well guess what? You aren’t alone. Despite Influencer marketing being popular and a lot of Influencers sharing their marketing campaign experience, newbies seem to have absolutely zero idea on where to start from. So, what we are saying is, it's quite normal to have all these thoughts lingering in your mind. After all, success doesn't come easy. It needs your dedication, enthusiasm, and of course hard work.

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When we say “Influencer”, it doesn’t only apply to people who have many followers on Facebook or Instagram, as what most people think of. According to Merriam-Webster, Influencer is defined as “a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media”. So, this is regardless of which social media platform you are active on. So, you can also be considered an influencer on YouTube if you are a content creator who has a decent channel following size, and you have influence over them.

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A successful campaign is paramount to your personal brand's legacy. It opens more collaboration doors with other brands since brands want Influencers who can deliver immaculate results and not someone that will waste their time and money. What better way to prove your worth than to have a portfolio with successful previous campaigns?

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However, a campaign's success is not only dependent on the brand or Influencer alone. Both you (the influencer) and your clients (the brands) must take an active role to ensure the campaign achieves the intended goals. In this article we will give you tips on how you can launch an Influencer campaign and increase your chances of achieving successful results.

1. Understand Your Client

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A good collaboration starts with understanding your client. Not only should you learn details about what the client does, you must also understand and identify their needs, expectations, contradictions, and goals for the campaign clearly to achieve a successful campaign. Therefore, understanding your client should be at the top of your priority list.

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Whilst understanding your client sounds like an easy task, it isn’t quite so. It requires time, effort, and patience. Of course, the effort to understand your client shouldn’t only be applied at the initial stage of your collaboration, rather it should be a continuous effort at each stage of your collaboration to make sure both parties are consistently on the same track.

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One of the most straightforward and best ways to get a grasp of your client’s needs, goals and expectations is to consult them directly. Consulting gives you authentic and real information because you get it directly from the horse's mouth. So hit up your client and schedule a call or meeting with a series of questions to get your insight on the types of content that best works for both your brands.

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In addition to this, you can also launch mini research as a way to understand your client. Scout through the list of Influencers they have collaborated with in the past (if any). Spend some time understanding how the other Influencer ran the campaign. If you have a chance to get your hands on some specific insider info, for example, the exact strategy and campaign results from one of the past influencers, then do that too.

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This will give you valuable pointers on how to approach the client’s campaigns. However, this approach only works if the brand has used Influencer marketing before. In an event where you are the first Influencer the brand is using, focus on their target customers or audience. Get to know them by understanding how the brand interacts with them.

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Easier said than done right? Let’s use a more practical example. Let’s say you are a healthy lifestyle Influencer, and a fitness brand approaches you to run a campaign for their home exercise equipment. You will first have to understand what the brand wants to achieve. Is their goal to reach buying influence? Or is it to create product awareness? Or perhaps to engage and retain existing customers?

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To understand this, schedule a meetup or a call with the client. And ask them what the intended outcome and strategy is they have in mind, for example, mentions, gifting, contests or giveaways, co-creating the content etc. During the same discussion, brainstorm and suggest content ideas to check if it resonates with them. 

2. Create A Plan And Understand The Brand’s Goals

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As the saying goes “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”. It goes without saying that planning provides clear direction for anything you wish to embark on and that includes Influencer marketing campaigns. To run a successful campaign, you must ensure that you thoroughly understand the company's goals because they will determine how you should make your decisions on everything pertaining to the campaign.

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Make it a point to also understand the brand's selected metrics, that is, engagement, ROI, leads, increased subscriber following etc, because these will help you assess the success of the campaign. Go to the drawing board and break down the information you will be furnished with into small chunks to clearly understand it. You could even give suggestions to the brand on how to approach the campaign considering you understand their goals, target audience as well as your own audience (which are the people that the brand wishes to reach out to).

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Always remember the collaboration should be a win-win situation. Even if it is paid, you also want to make sure your personal brand’s image and reputation remains intact and that you open the possibilities for growth. Therefore, you must create your own plan and goals before initiating the campaign. Of course, this means your plan and goals will somewhat be guided by the brand’s as well.

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Your goals could be as simple as increasing visibility, garnering more views or increasing conversations around your content. As you set your goals make sure they are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to avoid overestimating your capabilities. This is not underestimating your capabilities but rather making sure you take on challenges you can manage to avoid disappointing yourself.

3. Curate Striking Imagery

It’s 2022, marketing has greatly evolved, and brands are working tirelessly to get their content in front of as many eyes as possible. Unfortunately, this has caused many people to become less sensitive to advertising triggers, and people tend to just scroll down their social media feed and scroll past sponsored content without batting an eyelid. Despite marketing changing the approach from traditional media to the internet and social platforms, the audience still doesn’t like to see ads.

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If you think this isn’t true, just think of the number of times you have canceled pop up ads on your news feed or the number of times you’ve scrolled past sponsored content or even canceled a content video you were interested in watching because an ad popped up. This doesn’t make your goal to reach an audience through the marketing campaign easy. You need to think outside the box and fight this hard to combat indifference an audience on social platforms display.

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You must strive to create visually striking content that grips your audience’s attention at first glance. We are not saying trick them or shock them. What we are saying is, create anything to battle the shrinking interest and attention span that your audience has. Think of something that an audience doesn’t normally see on the platform and use it for the campaign.

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Consider using colors that strike an image to reel your audience in and find a way to incorporate bodies and faces since the human brain is wired to visually engage with other human forms. But remember, your decision on content has to be something the brand you are collaborating with approves. If they already have content, they would like you to display, take a look at it and if it isn't as attractive as it needs to be, suggest to them the kind of content that will get them the attention they need.

4. Consult The Brand’s Marketing Team

As mentioned earlier, the client you are collaborating with cares about boosting their brand while at the same time, you, as an Influencer, care about your personal brand as well. But as an Influencer you may get carried away and focus on the client’s brand more than your own because they are the ones paying your bills at that moment.

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The truth is, both of you should make sure that the content created is mutually beneficial and not loop-sided. To ensure that happens, work closely with the brand’s marketing team. Make it your mission to understand how the team works, starting from the way they think and their experience in the field.

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Once you understand what you are dealing with, communicate with them regularly as you curate the content to make sure that they resonate with their intentions. If the brand you are working with already has some content put together and just wanted to add your voice or imagery into their equation, feel free to make suggestions for possible changes. They are likely to listen to you since you clearly are the one with the Influence over your audience.

Conclusion

For a lot of Influencers, the thought of running an Influencer campaign can be nerve-wrecking. It’s quite normal even if you have done it several times because your reputation and growth is at stake and depends very well on the campaign’s success.

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If you understand the client’s brand, their goals, and needs, and you can customize the content to fit both their brand and your personal brand, you can create a lasting impression through the success of the campaign.

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There are a lot more tips out there, but if you can apply the ones we’ve shared with you effectively, then you are on the right track to running a campaign that could boost your resume and satisfy your client at the same time.

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