Top 7 Tips for Managing Successful Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Online shoppers can’t physically inspect your products before buying them on online marketplaces, such as Amazon, Google Shopping, eBay, and Walmart. As such, recommendations are one of the few ways that online shoppers can connect with your products, and influencer endorsements are one of the best forms of recommendation. Influencers spend years gaining the trust and respect of their followers, making them ideal advocates for your brand.

Nowadays, many brands run influencer marketing campaigns. That shouldn’t be surprising, as influencer marketing is one of the best forms of social proof. Their followers trust their actions and guidance within their particular niche. This trust is incredibly valuable to growing brands.

Influencer marketing campaigns can be challenging to manage and execute, but have no fear. In this post, we’re sharing seven tips for how to manage and maximize the results of your influencer marketing campaigns.

1. Create Goals for Your Marketing Campaigns

As with any project, a successful influencer campaign starts with clearly defining goals. Your goals should be tailored to your specific brand, as goals will differ depending significantly on your current social media development level. Common goals among brands include brand awareness, brand engagement, driving traffic to your listings or website, driving sales, or increasing followers for their social media.

2. Clearly Define Your Goals to Your Social Influencers

Now that you have clearly defined goals, they need to be communicated to your influencers. If your influencers are not on board with your goals, they are not the right fit for your influencer campaign. Additionally, if your primary goal is to drive traffic to your listings, they need to be aware of that so they can be sure to include all relevant links.

3. Engage with Your Social Influencers

Engaging with your influencers keeps them excited about your campaign. Before the campaign starts, message your influencers personally and see if they have any unanswered questions. Also, follow their account and like some of their posts. Start engaging with their brand, so they start engaging with yours. During the campaign, continually message them about their efforts, progress, and results. It is your role to keep them in the loop about changes or errors in their posting. After the campaign is over, thank them and discuss their results. Influencers are not Facebook or Instagram Ads; they’re people, and they need to be engaged to maximize efforts.

4. Allow Your Social Influencers to Be Creative

Micro-managing influencer’s content is how influencer campaigns turn into advertising campaigns. Influencers know their audience best. Let your influencers play around with styles, messaging, and so on. The best way to ensure they stay aligned with your goals is to give them the freedom to be creative.

5. But, Give Them the Specifics

There are a few specific details that do need to be communicated. This type of communication includes giving them a specific link for your listings or website, how many pieces of content they need to produce, whether the product needs to appear in the post, and so on. These communications should be made before you hire an influencer.

6. Track Post-Performance Metrics

Like any marketing campaign, you need to have metrics to see how the campaign performed. In the case of influencer marketing, tracking likes, comments, views, click-through rates, and so on can provide insights into overall campaign performance. Knowing the ROI on your influencer marketing campaigns will allow you to identify what is working and what is not working. If promoting products on Amazon, you can use Amazon Attribution links to associate performance metrics with individual influencers.

7. Create A Relationship with Your Highest Performing Influencers

Now that your influencer campaign is over, identify the highest performing influencers based around your goals and post-performance metrics. These are going to be the influencers you want to create long-term relationships with. You can do this in several manners, such as asking them to join other influencer campaigns, reposting their content, continuing to engage with their brand, and so forth.

Looking for Help with Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns?

Kaspien was the first major third-party seller to combine influencer marketing with Amazon marketing. We’ve spent over 4 years running over 150 influencer campaigns for our partners. Learn more about how we can drive traffic to your listings through influencers.