Last updated on November 28th, 2022 at 03:05 pm
Influencer marketing is preferred over traditional marketing and celebrity endorsements. It is a powerful branding and marketing strategy.
So, influencer marketing is regarded to be an effective strategy by 80% of marketers, according to recent research by Mediakix.
Influencer marketing might be a controversial topic among brand practitioners, but it is proven to be effective in playing the right trick on your target audience. Content creating celebrities like Lily Singh, Logan Paul, and such are doing a great job in maintaining their fiercely loyal audience.
In the last five years, brands have collaborated with several social media influencers to generate awareness about their products and services. With this, the influencer marketing industry will be a $5-10 billion industry in the next 5 years.
Influencer Marketing Can Be Tricky
A Lot of flak faced by Pepsi!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA5Yq1DLSmQ
It’s not always about rainbows and sunshine, but to outshine, you need thoughtful planning and the implementation of content that is preferred by the audience.
Let me take you through some campaigns that failed badly:
Model Kendall Jenner’s controversial Pepsi commercial in 2017 aimed to show global diversity, but it took the wrong turn when Kendall was seeing offering a Pepsi to a soldier during the Black Lives Matter protest.
The campaign stirred controversy for trivializing the protest. After facing a lot of heat, Pepsi apologized on Twitter and dropped off the advertisement right away
Lesson:
If you want to take up a sensitive issue, you need to ensure that the content should not offend the community that you are supporting.
Let me take you to some common mistakes done in influencer marketing.
Refrain from Making these Common Influencer Marketing Mistakes:
1- Don’t Just Pick Anyone
Select someone who understands your niche and does justice to it. Choose an influencer that fits the values your product wants to share with its potential audience.
When you choose a brand ambassador, make he/she has these qualities:
- Right image and the audience needed for your brand
- Good track record
- Reputation
The worst failures happen when influencers don’t follow values set by the brand. I would like you to ponder back to the above given Pepsi ad campaign that received massive backlash for co-opting protest movements for profit.
Another example is when in 2016, U.S swimmer Ryan Lochte was dropped off by four sponsors that were worth $1 million after he falsely claimed that he was robbed at gunpoint at a Rio de Janeiro gas station.
You can’t miss on doing detailed research on his/her background and find someone that aligns with your brand.
About 67.6% of marketers feel that finding relevant influencers is one of the biggest challenges. So, never give up!
2- Avoid Using Email Templates for Reaching Out Influencers
Influencers are not lesser than celebs; they receive tonnes of emails filling their inbox, wherein every other person is asking for some favors.
Your email needs to be very creative that forces him/her to take action quickly.
Prepare one with the following features:
- Personalize your cold emails- Perform a thorough research on their profiles, social media pages, etc. to know their taste
- Get your skills into action with a classic introduction
- Make it rosy by adding compliments (Not too much!)
- Try adding references and mutual contacts
- Mention about the benefits the influencer will have with the collaboration
- Be clear and precise
- Be persuasive in your approach
Something like this:
Pro tip: Avoid a general boilerplate email.
3- Copying and Pasting Instructions Accidently
Let me start with an example. Fitness and detox producer, Bootea was involved in a huge fiasco wherein the brand ambassador, Scott Disick copy-pasted the company’s instructions in his Instagram post without checking even once! The post read the company’s given caption along with the time of post.
It doesn’t end here, model and businesswoman, Naomi Campbell forgot to edit the post given by the social media marketing department and copy-pasted it right away along with a pair of Adidas as her Instagram picture. Now, that super embarrassing!
Proper communication with the influencer is necessary. Be super cautious throughout the whole marketing strategy. Even a small mistake can be fatal.
This was a silly goof up but turned out to be a huge embarrassment for the brand.
I believe that brands should give some freedom to the ambassadors to create something of their own. Many influencers have done a great job of handling the product the right way.
For instance, the water brand, Fiji partnered with Danielle Bernstein’s fashion blog, ‘We Wore What’, with an 8-minute workout video, portraying Fiji’s commitment to hydrate those you feel and want to become as fit as Danielle.
4- Asking for Too Much
Influencers can be celebrities, athletes, millionaires, bloggers, entrepreneurs, tech experts, politicians and likewise who are super busy to see any of your messages.
Your message could have been accepted by the PR team, but there are fewer chances that the influencer gets a hold of it.
These days, marketers are making a huge mistake by asking way too much from influencers. Your message needs to be specific and to the point. The influencer needs reasons for why he/she should join your brand.
Hint: Follow the KISS (keep it short and simple) rule.
Note these:
- Your email content should not have more than 2 lines per paragraph and don’t make it sound too desperate
- Use short paragraphs
- Make it more personalized
- Don’t beg for promotion
- Speak directly about the interests of the influencer and prompt your email based on his/her interests
I have brought to you an example below.
Go the extra mile and provide them everything on a plate, making it easier for them to make a decision.
5- Don’t Just Count on New Followers
Influencer marketing is not just about making a ton of followers.
It is great to have many followers, but that is not the only thing you should measure. Who wouldn’t like to have a huge number of followers?
However, it is more like a vanity metric that is easily manipulated and does not correlate to the numbers that matter.
Even if you have a lot of likes but make poor sales, it doesn’t make any sense. Right! The number of followers obtained from a social media campaign is an amazing thing, but it is not something that you need to be proud of!
Instead, actionable metrics including average time on page, revenue, referral traffic, conversion, leads, social sharing, etc. will aid in understanding where you stand and what type of improvements are required to attain success.
Track the health of your business by considering actionable metrics like:
- A/B test results
- Cohort reports
- Conversion rates
- Funnels
- Newsletter subscribers
- Marketing campaigns
- Customers
These things will help you to deeply understand customer behavior, find ways to delight them and build your business faster. Log into Google Analytics and figure out what would work for you.
6- Not Setting Goals and KPI
Before approaching your influencer, you need to define your short and long-term goals.
Make sure you have the below goals:
Be SMART- Make sure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound).
Adopt Customer-Centric- Make sure you capture your customer’s attention, drive your customer’s actions, and earn your better referral.
Be Ready to Bring an Impact- Goals are not an outcome, it is an activity that will change the fate of the organization in the coming years.
Think about what change you need to bring in the next 5 years. Do you want to keep your customers happier or keep employees longer? Prepare a goal for a specific area you wish to reign and start working from today itself!
How about trying this: Start big, and break it down in small!
Dream big to be on track, break your goals into monthly and quarterly key performance indicators (KPIs).
For that, you need to identify the following goals:
Primary Goals- It includes your top priorities.
Secondary Goals- It determines your objectives to achieve success in each channel.
Try to hit one goal each year, as you get success, try to break down your social media marketing goals to be more actionable and measurable.
Social media KPIs you might wish to focus on:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Audience growth
- Frequency
- Lead generation
- Lead nurturing
- Customer acquisition & retention
- Customer retention
Indeed, you are not going to achieve success overnight.
Once, you inch closer to your goals, break them into smaller parts like these:
- Generation ‘X’ number of views on a new social media marketing video
- Increasing conversion rates on Facebook from ‘X%’ to ‘Y%’
- Bringing ‘X’ number of leads for a certain Instagram post
- Creating a trendy video that will decrease the cost per action on retargeting ads to ‘X’ amount of dollars.
Bottom line
As a digital marketing expert, I have created many social media campaigns and have wasted a lot of money and time in creating the best. I learned the hard way, but today we can analyze our influencer marketing goals and think differently. The secret sauce to influencer marketing lies in being realistic about your expectations and implementing it strategically.
What about you? Do you want to share any other common influencer marketing mistakes? Please leave them in the comment section.
About the Author
Jimit Shah works as a marketing manager at e-Intelligence. He believes in providing digital marketing services for greater impact. E-intelligence provides digital marketing and web design services in India. They are equipped with the right innovative strategy, technical knowledge, and a professional team to help achieve business goals.
Additional Resources:
Hello Jimit, this is indeed a good article. I completely agree with you that one needs to fix clear goals and KPIs for one’s influencer marketing campaign to boost success. Without doing so, it will be like shooting in the dark and expecting to hit the target. This common influencer marketing mistake must be avoided.
Thanks Deepak! I’m glad you liked the article. Yes, without fixing goals and KPIs, no marketing campaign can yield success.
Hello Jimit, you have raised a valid point here, which is relevant to current situation. Lots of people think that more followers naturally bring more engagement. However, this is one common influencer marketing mistake. Quite often, these days, social media followers count has become a vanity metric. One needs to check engagement first to rope in any influencer.
Thanks Rahul, you have made a valid point. Many a time, followers count is just a vanity metric.