The influence of content Creators continues to rise, so much so that consumers often trust their recommendations more than friends and family. With ever-growing credibility, these influencers are uniquely positioned to guide audiences through the entire buyer's journey, from awareness to advocacy.
How can your brand take advantage of this to both earn and please customers? Let’s walk through tried-and-true strategies to transform your ideas into winning campaigns and leverage influencers to drive results at every stage of the buyer's journey.
What Makes a Good Influencer Campaign?
You need a steady stream of eager customers to keep doing what you do best: producing valued products. Influencer partners are instrumental to this because they make people believe in your brand and its value through campaigns that offer several key things.
Authenticity
Creators have the capacity to build authentic connections with audiences. Authenticity breeds trust and credibility, swinging the door open to generate brand loyalty. When influencers match with your brand values and target audiences, their raving endorsements carry more weight for their followers. Consumers of all generations trust Creator recommendations over traditional ads and celebrity endorsements.
Engaging and Relevant Content
Creative and relatable storytelling does more than shine the spotlight on your brand. Influencer content moves beyond promotional information to make your brand offerings make sense in the context of consumers’ lives, driving consistent engagement and loyalty.
Social Proof
But do your products actually satisfy consumers’ needs? Creator endorsements backed by their own experiences provide the peace of mind consumers crave. LTK shoppers need to know that what you offer is top quality, while others want to know that your brand is trustworthy and affordable as they weigh purchase options.
Best Practices for Branded Influencer Campaigns
Influencer campaigns are backed by a solid process to get from ideation to completion. Follow these practical tips to elevate your brand’s Creator campaigns and drive meaningful results.
1. Define Goals
Are you aiming to generate awareness, conversions, engagement, or something else?
Base the goals of your influencer marketing campaigns around historical data and industry benchmarks, as well as the stage of the buyer’s journey you wish to target:
- Awareness: Let consumers know you exist and what you offer without selling.
- Consideration: Reach consumers who may be actively looking for a product or solution to fill their needs.
- Purchase: Provide transparent information for consumers who are primed to purchase, to get them to the finish line.
- Retention: Keep the customers you have happy to maintain cash flow and keep customer attrition low.
- Advocacy: Foster loyalty so that both your team and consumers champion your brand and share positive experiences.
2. Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
How will you know if you’re hitting your mark? KPIs including follower growth, engagement rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, and other metrics help you measure success, but they don’t all make sense for every campaign.
Choose KPIs that match your goals. Again, let’s say your goals are awareness, conversions, and engagement. Your KPIs should include the following few key pieces:
- Awareness KPIs: Impressions and reach
- Engagement KPIs: Engagement rate, quality of engagements, and brand follower growth
- Conversion KPIs: Click-through rate, sales, subscriptions, and increased leads
3. Plan and Execute
Once you know what you wish to achieve and how to measure success, pave the path through influencer campaigns. Take a 360-degree view, and factor in everything from your timeline and budget to best-fit platforms and influencers for the content you want to create—aligning with your goals the whole way.
As you choose influencer partners, research to find those who align with your brand, produce quality content, and have credibility. These will play a crucial role in your campaigns, so be sure to align on expectations, timelines, and quality standards.
4. Measure Results
Step back and see how your efforts are working. Monitor your campaigns and KPIs, and make adjustments to keep moving toward your desired results. After your campaigns are over, examine performance to identify how to improve for next time.
5. Continuously Improve
While each campaign has a finite duration, don’t just put it to bed when it wraps. Instead, refine your efforts by talking to both your influencers and your audience. What worked and what didn’t? Use these insights to forge stronger relationships and increase your success.
How Influencer Marketing Campaigns Align with the Buyer’s Journey to Drive Results
Finding success with Creator marketing means knowing what will resonate and keeping trends in mind. Creator partners and campaigns generate quality content that brings together your goals and the appropriate stage of the buyer's journey.
Awareness
The old tried-and-true method to generate brand awareness has been, “Create some ads.” Think about where this has fallen flat in recent years: Consumers are streaming content to avoid commercials, and they’re installing ad blockers for their web browsers.
Millennials and Gen Zers favor storytelling as more natural and engaging. In that vein, Creators have become the No. 1 trusted source across all generations, with that trust increasing 21 percent in the last year. Upwards of 92 percent of brands are increasing their budget for Creator marketing and connected TV like livestreaming in 2024. Consider forming awareness collaborations with these influential voices to tell captivating stories and scale your reach.
Consideration
With great influence comes great credibility. Creators who amass large followings are seen as being in tune with consumer needs, carrying them from awareness to consideration. Have you ever been moved to try a product after seeing a Creator’s post? Others feel the same way. As many as 69 percent of Gen Zers and 71 percent of millennials try a product after seeing Creator posts.
Some of the most impactful campaigns leverage video and live streaming to pull in consumers who are debating a purchase. Consider implementing live product demos or product releases for real-time consumer engagement via social media platforms.
Purchase
It’s been a long time since consumers thumbed through catalogs, and they don’t head to brick-and-mortar stores as readily, either. These changes in shopping behavior provide opportunities for Creators, especially with over half of consumers preferring online shopping and 23 percent of the population saying the majority of their shopping originates from social media.
Social media is a convenient touchpoint to base campaigns around and drive purchases, especially for Gen Zers and millennials who spend so much time scrolling their feeds. Consider the value of shoppable posts on marketplaces like LTK to offer convenient recommendations and guide consumers through their buying journey.
Retention
You’re always looking for the biggest bang for your buck, and sometimes that means maximizing what you already have. Customer retention costs less than acquiring new customers, and Creators promote your brand and reinforce its value among your existing base. Consumers want this, too, pushing for more Creator content across traditional platforms.
Give the people what they want. Forty-nine percent of LTK shoppers want to see Creator content on TV, while 34 percent of the general population wants the same. Consider incorporating Creator content into your in-store and TV mix to engage with customers and nurture loyalty—and gain a competitive edge.
Advocacy
“I recommend this product, bar none.” You want staunch customer support, and Creators can become incredible brand champions, motivating consumers to engage with and advocate for your brand.
Consider leveraging advocacy campaigns to not only drive customer feedback but also cultivate a culture of transparency and responsiveness. By soliciting input, you can isolate exceptional experiences and their accompanying positive reviews from negative experiences that create opportunities to improve and show consumers that you care about their satisfaction, which in turn fosters long-term loyalty.
Take a Full-Funnel Approach to Influencer Campaigns
Your brand has potential customers in every stage of the buyer's journey, and you need to bring them into your world to join your journey. Influencer marketing campaigns have the power to provide authenticity, engagement, and the proof they need to buy into your messages, but it takes intentional efforts to drive results.
Will you opt for video or social media? In-store or TV content? Through a mix of content generated by trusted influencers, you take audiences from, “I’ve heard of them,” to “I love them!”
LTK is the solution brands and influencers alike trust. Start your journey and reach customers in every stage of the funnel.
Disclaimer: This blog post was originally published by Forbes as part of a collaborative effort. Its contents have been reproduced with permission below and may include minor alterations for formatting or editorial purposes.