How to Develop an Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy in 2024

Studies suggest that 80% of consumers are likely to purchase something recommended by an influencer. With this, the power of influencer marketing becomes very clear. Consumers believe in influencer’s recommendations as much as they believe in the products or services recommended by their friends or family members. It may be difficult for new businesses to build trust among their target audience. And this is where influencer marketing comes into play. If you want to grow your business faster, you can collaborate with relevant influencers and get your products and services promoted in the most efficient manner. Let us further explore the world of influencer marketing and understand how you can build an effective influencer marketing strategy in 2024:

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a subset of social media marketing based on influencer partnerships and endorsements. Individuals who have a dedicated social following or in simple words, a good number of followers, are known as influencers. They are viewed as experts in their industry and consumers often trust their favorite influencers more than any brand in the market. 

These influencers get compensated by brands for promoting their products on social media. This is how influencer marketing becomes profitable for both influencers and brands trying to expand their market reach. It works well due to the high amount of trust that influencers have built with their audience. Products or services recommended by them are like social proof to a brand’s target audience. 

Types of Influencers

Not every influencer has an equal follower base. Some have a large following while others have small and more specific audiences. In order to choose the right influencer, you need to identify which influencer can help you get the reach and engagement you are looking for. Based on the number of followers, influencers can be divided into four major categories as listed below:

1. Nano-Influencers: Nano influencers are the ones with less than 10k followers. These influencers have smaller audiences, but they are more connected with their followers. Partnering with nano influencers might be a great idea when you want to target a specific set of audiences, particular demographics, or a particular community. This allows you to reach the most relevant audience without spending a lot of m

oney.

2. Micro-Influencers: These are the influencers with 10,000 to 100,000 followers. They usually have an active presence on top social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, etc. Micro-influencers have a very dedicated and passionate audience who highly trust recommendations from their favorite influencers. Research shows that micro-influencers have a 60% higher rate of engagement compared to macro-influencers.

3. Macro-Influencers: Macro influencers are the ones with 100,000 to 1,000,000 followers. They are considered industry experts in their own niche. They earn this reputation through consistent content creation and by continuously engaging with their audience on social media. You can collaborate with macro influencers when your primary goal is to expand market reach. However, it might be a bit costly.

4. Mega-Influencers: Mega influencers, also known as celebrity influencers, have more than 1 million followers. They are extremely popular on social media. Public figures like actors, athletes, musicians, etc, also lie under this category. Collaborating with mega influencers can be highly expensive, but if you want your brand to look premium and luxurious, you can consider partnering with them.

Creating an Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing can make your online campaigns even more successful. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with expecting that influencer marketing will be a crucial part of your marketing tactics. However, not every influencer marketing campaign becomes successful. This may be due to a lack of strategic planning and approach. Let us understand how you can build an effective influencer marketing strategy that works for your business:

1. Find The Right Influencers & Understand The Payment Structure

Research should be the first step in creating any strategy. You can start by deciding which platform you will be focusing on the most. It shouldn’t be a random decision. It will depend on which platform your target audience uses the most. You can even go for multiple platforms later but for starting, you should stick with just one platform. If you don’t know where to start, you can use social listening or just partner with an experienced influencer marketing agency like MadHawks. 

Now, you will have to look for the type of influencers you want to partner with. It may depend on your budget, your industry, your target audience, and other factors. The compensation may vary for every influencer. Even the influencers having the exact same number of followers can have highly different payment structures. You will need to do quite a good research in order to understand how all this works.

2. Set a Budget and Create a Management Plan

After understanding the payment structures of different types of influencers, you can set a budget accordingly. Also, make sure that you invest sufficient time and effort into planning your influencer marketing program and implementing it. Influencer marketing campaigns do not work like paid ads that you can just execute once and be done. You need to monitor these programs constantly in order to make sure that everything works as per the plan. 

Influencers are human beings and it’s common for them to make mistakes. They might be working with other brands as well and may forget to post about your products on time. You will have to be constantly in contact with them and ensure that they work as they have promised. If you are planning to collaborate simultaneously with multiple influencers, it would be better to partner with an influencer marketing agency. 

3. Set Campaign Goals

Now that you have decided on a budget, you must set objectives that you intend to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. Your goal may be to increase brand awareness, expand your reach, improve social media engagement, or increase your customer base in a particular demographic. Having a clear goal in mind will help you work with a consistent strategy throughout your influencer program. 

4. Influencer Outreach: Find a Way to Contact Influencers

Once you have finalized everything, you need to think about how you are going to contact the influencers. This is another step where you need to do research about influencers. But not about their audience size or compensation as you have already decided on these factors. Here, you need to find influencers who already post content related to your industry. 

Also, make sure that their accounts are legit. Scrolling through their feed and checking their comments will help you understand whether the engagement is real or they just have fake followers. You can use social media marketing tools to identify potential influencers for your brand. 

Now comes the final step where you have already filtered out some influencers and you need to reach out to them. For nano or micro-influencers, you can directly message them on Instagram. Macro and Mega influencers may not reply or acknowledge direct messages. Most mega influencers provide contact information in their bio or some of them even have a dedicated website to manage partnerships. 

5. Review Your Strategy

Keep reviewing your influencer marketing campaign from time to time. Even if it is ongoing, you can check whether everything is going as per the plan or not. Reviewing your strategy will help you understand your pain points that you can improve in the next campaigns. Not every influencer marketing campaign is successful. But as you keep creating strategies and learning from past mistakes, you will eventually get better results with every campaign. 

Choosing The Right Influencer Marketing Agency in India

As mentioned above, partnering with an experienced influencer marketing company can be of great help. As a business owner, it may be difficult for you to create a strategic plan for an influencer marketing program when you already have multiple hassles going on. Be it identifying the right influencers, collaborating with them, or managing the entire program, a good influencer marketing agency like MadHawks will do it all for you. Contact us today for any further information.