Is working with Influencers worth it?

What does "influencer marketing" mean?

This type of marketing communication is simply derived from the word "Influence". In marketing, this term is nothing new, it is simply a type of marketing where a certain audience is influenced by a certain celebrity that the target group follows, e.g. George Clooney & Nespresso; Michael Jordan & Nike; Michael Jackson & Pepsi; Roger Federer & Rolex, Ken Block & Monster and many other famous personalities. Simply put, it is about lending a face or name to a given brand, of course for a considerable fee.

"Influence? I'm not being influenced by anyone!"

Although you may not admit it immediately, you will soon find that the decision-making that precedes every purchase you make is primarily influenced by your surroundings. Your surroundings strongly influence which products or services you buy, because you yourself are a little afraid that you will make the wrong choice. Therefore you prefer to go for the option that your acquaintance, friend, girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband has already chosen. Although in this context, the influencer probably won't be your wife or husband, it will be someone you follow on your smartphone or computer.

Who is an Influencer?

• someone with influence and significant reach online, such as 100,000 followers on Instagram
• someone who is a so-called "online celebrity"
• someone who people watch in their free time because they enjoy their content
• someone many followers look up to

Why should I be interested in influencers as a business owner or marketer?

Appropriately chosen Influencers can bring:

• increased brand awareness
• increased sales
• higher customer loyalty
• diversifying website traffic sources
• backlinks

Today's generation spends perhaps too much time on social networks (especially Facebook & Instagram) or Youtube, which brings an opportunity for earning mainly to those who enjoy filming or photographing interesting content. Once you find an Influencer who has an interesting reach and at the same time addresses your target group, you can quickly find a very interesting pillar of your marketing activities. As we mentioned above, Influencers greatly influence our decision-making process, which precedes every purchase, and therefore it is convenient if the decision-making process is facilitated by, for example, an Influencer, since the recommendation applies very similarly to him. This recommendation, if properly communicated, can pay off in the form of increased sales and brand awareness.

How to identify a suitable Influencer?

This is the alpha and omega of any cooperation you establish. It is not easy to determine which influencer will move your target group so strongly to convince them that your brand is exactly what they need. It's important to mention that people follow an influencer for the content they create, not the products they promote, so we can't convert followers to customers.

The most important thing is to know if the followers the Influencer is reaching are among your potential customers. It just doesn't make sense to promote makeup or bras to an Influencer who makes videos in a workshop about cars and tuning. This influencer will definitely not have the return on investment that you desire.

Last but not least, it is necessary to look at the comments, the ratio of the number of likes to the number of followers, ask those around you if they follow this Influencer and so on, as the Influencer can even have a negative impact on your brand (e.g.: "your brand connects with someone, who drives under the influence in the evenings?")

What are the most common ways of cooperation? 

Thousands of followers still do not guarantee any success, so it is important to agree with the influencer on how the products or services will be promoted. We have selected the most used ones.

• Product reviews on social networks ("I bought this makeup, although I was afraid, it pleasantly surprised me")
• Sharing a unique discount code exclusively for Influencer followers (MARTIN20 will give you a 20% discount when shopping at XY.cz)
• "Unboxing", i.e. unboxing the product on camera with an Influencer's comment (Today I prepared for you the unboxing of the XY news)
• Product placement - inconspicuous placement of a product in creative content (with or without an Influencer labelling the product)
• Sharing your brand's campaigns or posts (strongly discouraged)
• Competitions for products on the Influencer's profile (mostly e.g. share and win product XY)
• Events, or events at which an Influencer will appear (We are opening a new store, Influencer XY will also arrive")
• Influencer event support (XY company supports track races...)
• Inviting an Influencer to the company's own content (own video on own Youtube channel with Influencer)

How to evaluate cooperation with an Influencer?

Evaluation can be done in many ways. It also depends on what the goal of the cooperation is. Businesses work together either to increase brand awareness or for direct sales performance.

a) Data analysis in Google Analytics (for beginners)

• comparing the quality of traffic your marketing pillars are generating
• measure the year-to-year differences in website traffic

b) Data analysis in extended Google Analytics in connection with discount codes (for advanced users)

Note: as someone who likes to dig into numbers and analysis, I choose this version because I can see exactly the benefit of each campaign

• set up a discount code that the Influencer shares
• filter the code in a special sheet in Analytics (you can see exactly which products are sold thanks to the given discount code)
• evaluate products that are sold to you through the code and optimize campaigns

c) Reporting directly from the Influencer's account (have the influencer send you the reach that their posts generate)

• each online tool also measures the number of people it has reached
• reach can be taken as enhancing brand awareness

d) Rely on your gut feeling

• some collaborations are difficult to evaluate, as it is impossible to measure everything, the user can simply buy the product even without a discount code and you will never find out that it was thanks to the collaboration with your influencer