How to Really Nail an Influencer Campaign
Breaking it down to its basics, “influencer marketing” is a strategic, creative partnership between two recognizable brands communicating a specific message to a target audience. Yet even as influencer marketing matures and grows, there’s still no foundational way to go about running these partnerships, and strategies must be carefully considered.
Studio71 grew alongside the rise of influencer marketing and the platforms that serve it best. We have been able to hone a process that allows us to be extra thoughtful, thorough, and ultimately successful by nailing the three essential elements of the discipline — developing a deep understanding of the brand’s message, the influencer’s personal brand, and the target audience’s behavior.
1. The Brand
What is the brand’s relationship with their audience on social media?
Each brand establishes how they want to communicate with different segments of their audience. They work to craft a specific personality and messaging across social platforms in order to build and nourish communities of likeminded fans. Take Studio71, for example:
On Instagram, our tone is more conversational and lighthearted, as we are targeting a segment of our audience who are fans of pop culture and of the talent who partner with us. On LinkedIn, we are looking to reach potential employees, clients, and the media, so our communication is a bit more buttoned up and industry-focused.
We at Studio71 are pros at creating strategy and messaging that will be the most effective per branded platform. As true extensions of any campaign, influencers must always ensure that the brand is appropriately represented in their content; solidifying tone of voice and brand messaging is imperative to activating talent partners who are a true fit and reflective of the brand’s spirit.
2. The Influencer
What is the influencer’s relationship to the brand and its audience? Is the brand a natural fit for the influencer’s personal brand?
By building their own personal brands, influencers have carefully cultivated relationships with growing communities of fans. Understanding of what excites and engages their audiences most, influencers can inform the subtleties and nuances of content style that can make or break a brand campaign. Let’s take a look at lifestyle creator, Michelle Khare:
Khare’s curiosity knows no bounds and is reflected within her original content that spans a wide variety of topics — from beauty, to entertainment and fashion, to extreme fitness challenges. Because her multitude of interests and content appeal to a wide variety of consumers, it might be hard to accurately nail down her audience at first glance.
With the launch of Studio71’s proprietary data tool, Arrow, we are able to fully leverage both first and third-party data — alongside our well-established relationships with macro-to-micro talent (including Khare) — to understand the complexity of influencer audiences. This means that given a particular brand or audience demographic, we can accurately predict how Michelle’s audience is going to connect with the overall campaign concept. This data-driven approach connects brands to influencers who they may not have considered previously, but who make total sense from an audience and data perspective.
3. The Audience
Who is the audience? Why and how do they use social media, and what kind of content do they seek out?
Nothing is more important than a comprehensive understanding of the campaign’s target audience. As more consumer behavior information becomes available across social platforms, reaching the right communities can be as simple as fishing where the fish are. Let’s take a look at the Gen Z segment, for example:
This young generation is coming to the game already trained, growing up fully immersed in all things social media. With a strong penchant for video, they tend to use Instagram to discover new brands and YouTube to watch product reviews and “how-tos” before making a purchase. Any brand wanting to reach a Gen Z audience should consider an influencer activation both platforms to maximize awareness, affinity, and purchase intent.
Having executed over 7,000 brand + talent campaigns since our inception, Studio71 knows what types of content will perform the best and on which platforms. With so much to keep in mind, having an end-to-end solution can definitely help ease some of the pain associated with Influencer Marketing campaigns. As said by our SVP of Client Services, Mike Fallon,
“Navigating the waters of Influencer Marketing can be challenging. Our goal is to simplify the process by focusing on human connection at all stages, from talent selection and content creation to distribution and amplification. At Studio71, our data-informed creative strategy combined with our service-centered approach provides a true end-to-end solution for brands and creators to connect authentically with their audiences.”
While influencer marketing may seem simple at first glance, the variations and subtleties in these three aspects can determine the ROI of a particular campaign. It is important to look at all data resources and capabilities between the two parties to give a more wholistic look at the campaigns potential success. The brand, the influencer and the target audience must all fit together to take advantage of this lucrative marketing technique.
