In the last decade, the one form of marketing that has seen massive growth is influencer marketing. Since 2019, the creator economy has almost doubled, and creating content on Instagram and becoming an influencer has emerged as an extremely lucrative career option for several people. These days, many brands opt to collaborate with Instagram influencers instead of celebrities as they feel the former yields better results.
To create a successful campaign with the help of influencers, an important thing that brands need to take into account is influencer data. To derive some value out of their collaborations with influencers, brands must observe and analyze several variables. Having a good look at marketing data and studying it thoroughly gives brands an idea about the type of influencers they should collaborate with and the kind of marketing activities they should invest their time and efforts in.
Before you figure out how to find micro influencers or what kind of campaign you need to build, you should have some awareness about the kind of role data-driven decisions play in influencer marketing. Data can help you create campaigns that help your business significantly and ensure a high return on investment.
When it comes to data, there are three categories you should keep a tab on, performance metrics, spend efficiency metrics, and cost equivalency metrics. While performance metrics cover factors like activated influencers, reach, impressions, number of views, and engagement rate, spend efficiency metrics take into account cost per cost, cost per thousand impressions, cost per click, and cost per engagement. Cost equivalency metrics give one an idea about earned media value or EMV and brand vitality score or VIT.
Getting an Understanding of Key Metrics
To get an idea about how well a campaign has done, you should know about some of the important influencer marketing metrics that one needs to have an understanding of. When you are aware of these metrics and know how to measure them, you can arrive at certain marketing decisions faster.
Audience Engagement
If there is one metric every brand uses to check the effectiveness of an influencer marketing campaign, it is audience engagement. Apart from being an influencer marketing metric, audience engagement also serves as a major performance indicator that helps brands get an idea about their target audience’s preferences. By having a look at the views and likes on a post, you get to know how well it has resonated with your target audience.
Mentions
This particular metric gives you a lowdown of the number of times the brand, product, or service has been mentioned. The more the number of mentions, the more successful the campaign is. As soon as the campaign is launched, you should start keeping a tab on the number of mentions. Since media mentions do not pop up on your channels, it would be a good idea to use a social media monitoring tool that can provide you with accurate data.
Reach
Reach is a metric that gives one an idea about the number of people who viewed or had a look at the post shared by the influencer. It enables you to figure out whether the campaign or post has spread across social media platforms adequately or not. There are many specialized marketing tools that enable you to measure the reach of a post or how well a campaign has traveled properly.
Audience Growth
When you have a brand account on social media, you would want it to grow with time. An influencer can help you in this regard by tagging your brand account in multiple posts and creating more awareness around it. When you run a campaign on Instagram, you should check whether there is a growth in the number of people following your brand account. With time, many of these followers will become your customers.
Website Traffic
These days, most companies or brands have a website of their own. When you invest in influencer marketing, creating more awareness around your brand should not be your only goal. You should also take the help of the influencers to get more traffic on your website. More people visiting your website will lead to greater interest in the products and services you offer and that will result in an increase in your sales as well.
Why You Should Use Data To Pick Influencers
As the creator economy grows, we also witness a growth in the number of fraudulent activities as well. A lot of influencers ‘buy’ followers, likes, and comments to give the impression that they are extremely relevant and popular. When you collaborate with such influencers, your brand does not see any kind of growth. All it results in is a loss of precious time and money.
A lot of brands ask influencers to share screenshots of their analytics and other important information which would enable them to figure out whether they have genuine followers and traction or not. Since screenshots can be manipulated, some brands are now requesting influencers to share their screen while launching campaigns.
Using Content Strategies Optimally
When you have a content strategy in place, you would want it to work optimally for you and deliver good results. As a brand, it is important for you to remember that no content strategy comes with the surety of emerging a success. Therefore, you need to look at things practically while executing a particular content strategy.
If you have put together a content strategy that you believe is unique and has never been tried before, you should test it for some time and figure out whether it is working or not. If it does not seem to be showing any results, you should consider charting out another influencer marketing strategy.
Measuring the Success of a Campaign
Based on the aforementioned metrics, you can measure the success of a campaign effectively. It is very important to check how a campaign is doing after it is launched. You should prepare an elaborate report and determine whether the campaign brought the desired results. While analyzing everything, you must ensure the data that has been generated or provided to you is accurate.
Conclusion
Small businesses tend to have limited resources and that is why they, at times, falter while executing influencer marketing campaigns. However, even if you do not have abundant resources at your disposal, you can achieve a great amount of success in influencer marketing if you analyze the data and metrics thoroughly and make all the important decisions based on that.
