HOW TO DESIGN AN EFFECTIVE INFLUENCER MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO OVERCOME A GROWTH PLATEAU

At some point, every business reaches a growth plateau.

You know the feeling -- month after month, your team is working hard but you just can’t seem to get over the hump.

In fact, we’ve had brands approach us on more than one occasion to help break through that plateau.

And we’ve found that time and time again, influencer marketing can be an effective way to break it.

Now, it should go without saying that influencer marketing is just one piece of the puzzle, but if, as is often the case, your growth stall is happening due to you maxing out many of your other growth channels, then influencer marketing could be the right strategy for you.

For the uninitiated, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves a brand partnering with trustworthy creators that influence your target audience.

When done correctly, influencer marketing can be an extremely effective way to reach a variety of new audiences and reinvigorate growth.

Not sure where to start?

Here are four tips for running a successful influencer marketing campaign that can help you overcome a growth plateau.

1. DO YOUR RESEARCH

There are lots of influencers out there, but not all of them will be a good fit for your brand.

Before you start reaching out to potential partners, take some time to research the influencers who align best with your target audience and objectives.

Once you’ve narrowed down your list, take a look at their social media content to get a better sense of their tone and style.

Make sure to note whether they’ve promoted other brands in the past and especially if they have promoted brands on a recurring basis.

We’ve produced a more extensive guide to finding the right partners if you want to dig in deeper, but ultimately, research is important but will always come in second next to actually testing a prospecting creator.

2. ENABLE COMPELLING CONTENT

If you want influencers to promote your brand, you need to give them the right inputs that will help them promote it well.

If you’re shooting for content that is high-quality, original, and truly remarkable -- the kind of content that will make people sit up and take notice -- you’ll need to give your creators a seat at the creative table.

They’ve put significant time and energy into understanding their audience so they’re well positioned to know what will resonate best.

The best thing your brand can do is to bring concise talking points (usually not more than a page) that leave flexibility in how they are delivered.

At the end of the day, you want them to create something that more closely resembles an authentic product review rather than an infomercial.

Scripts don't create results -- authentic creator voices do.

3. BUILD A PORTFOLIO OF CURATED TALENT AND ALWAYS BE TESTING

Don’t approach influencer like an inexperienced investor.

You can’t just pick a few folks who you think will be winners and then throw in the towel if they don’t meet your expectations.

The best way to approach this is to test and optimize a growing portfolio of talent across different-sized creators in different niche audiences.

We’ve frequently unlocked completely new audiences for brands simply by testing with an unexpected influencer.

It’s tests like these that can be a major ingredient in overcoming those growth plateaus.

4. MAXIMIZE YOUR INFLUENCER CAMPAIGN CONTENT

Take your portfolio of influencers and content and make it go further with a paid social budget.

We often recommend that our brands take their best partnerships further by investing in what we call influencer paid social (or what others often call whitelisting).

This is an influencer strategy where you get usage rights to your best performing content and run paid ad spend behind it to your influencer’s audience.

We typically see this help our brand’s existing paid campaigns perform better due to using more authentic creative that is native to the platform.

Not only that, it reduces overall CPMs and CPA by effectively supercharging the organic campaigns that are already working well.

The beautiful thing about it is that you can do it over and over again. If your audience grows tired of the prior campaign, you have a strong library of more recent effective organic campaigns you can pull from.

CONCLUSION

So next time you find yourself facing a growth plateau, consider whether an influencer marketing campaign may be the right solution.

If you’re looking for a way to reinvigorate the growth at your brand, partner with authentic brand advocates and inject trustworthy creative into your paid campaigns, you may want to consider influencer marketing.

By partnering with influential people that have a connection with your target customers, you can reach a whole new audience and finally break free from that lull.