If you’re looking to reach your brand’s goal through influencer marketing, there’s an influencer who can help you get there.
The world of influencer and creator marketing become a multi-billion dollar industry that helps businesses connect with their target audiences.
The key is understanding how influencers work with brands, how influencer marketing aids in different business goals, and the steps necessary to run a successful campaign.
Here are just a few examples of how influencer marketing helps you meet different business goals – and how Later Influence helped their clients see similar successes.
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Goal: Market Research And Expansion
When researching a new market, working with creators with niche audiences is a powerful way to learn about what people want.
Because creators deeply understand their audiences, they can provide insightful data about what’s worked for them; for instance, what messages resonate, what types of content break through, and how previous sponsored campaigns delivered for brands.
For example, a beauty and skincare brand wanted to revamp its go-to-market efforts to appeal to culturally diverse Gen Z and young Millennials.
To get there, the brand used Later Influence to connect with Black and Latinx women creators, under an NDA, to better understand both their perspectives and those of their audience (also typically Black and Latinx women).
The result? Actionable customer research from a new community that helped executives chart a path forward for their expansion strategy.
Goal: Launch a New Product
Influencer marketing is a fantastic way for brands to get their new products in front of thousands of potential customers.
Brands can either ask influencers to simply amplify their existing messages or they can create a whole new campaign that showcases the product.
When supermarket Korean food brand bibigo launched its new Mandu dumplings, the organization wanted a campaign that balanced a fun vibe and the company’s desire for professionalism.
To get there, the bibigo team partnered with Later’s In-House Influencer Marketing Services to find influencers whose style revolved around education or product demonstration.
Overall, the campaign generated 46 million impressions, a 64% increase compared to previous campaigns, successfully raising awareness surrounding the Mandu dumplings.
Goal: Increase Brand Awareness
In highly competitive markets or with newer organizations, developing brand recall can be difficult.
Influencer marketing can help brands build trust with a creator’s audience quickly, breaking through the noise. This is typically done by narrowing down to influencers with the right niche audience and content style.
Frozen beverage company f’real foods used Later’s influencer database to filter verified creators between 200k to 7M followers who also trended with Gen Z, f’real foods’ core user base.
The campaign leveraged “life hacks,” memes, and other viral TikTok video styles.
The result was not only millions of engagements, but the f’real TikTok page got featured in Business Insider for its novel marketing approach.
Read the whole case study here.
Don’t wait to start reaching your goals with influencer marketing; book a free consultation with Later Influence to start seeing results.
Goal: Grow Revenue
The right influencer campaign structure can also drive new sales and revenue growth when creators offer discount codes, exclusive offers, or other value-adds for their audience.
Chocolate brand Lindt and greeting card company American Greetings, for example, each had campaigns for Mother’s Day.
The two brands decided to work together with creators, showcasing the idea of a beautiful card and chocolate bar as a perfect Mother’s Day treat. With audience segmentation and filtering features in Later Influence, the companies were able to find parent influencers in the US who shop at Walmart, their perfect segment.
The campaign generated a 26.8% engagement rate—more than double the company’s already-ambitious goal of 12%.
Goal: Drive Community Engagement And Customer Loyalty
Influencers can help keep your community engaged all year long by promoting other aspects of your brand outside of the offering you’re most well-known for.
The Dallas Mavericks, an iconic NBA team, faced a challenge: keeping loyal fans engaged during the off-season.
The goal was to generate awareness of other events beyond games, like Pride Night, Networking Hours, Food Tours, and Children's Summer Camps. Further, the organization wanted to repurpose influencer-generated content (IGC) to help amplify its internal team’s efforts.
Later Influence's advanced search capabilities helped the Mavericks identify local influencers who could attend and amplify the team’s various events.
The result? 14 successful campaigns with millions of impressions. And what’s more: the Mavericks saved over $20,000 in production costs by leveraging IGC over doing it all in-house.
The Keys To A Successful Influencer Campaign
Every influencer campaign success story requires preparation and planning. Here are some tips to ensure your campaign drives results.
Tip #1: Ensure Product-Influencer-Campaign Fit
When you’re selecting influencer partners, ask yourself: does the creator have the right…
Audience for your brand?
Aesthetic for your brand’s style?
Content, tone, and style match to your brand’s values?
These questions will help you identify if an influencer is the right fit. However, it doesn’t mean you should automatically disqualify everyone else—keep an open mind for creators that might surprise you.
“Many brands think that they need to source & partner with influencers who fall within a very specific niche in order to reach their target audience,” said Sammy Martin, Manager of Professional Services at Later. “While this may be true in certain circumstances, we’ve actually seen more success from diversifying the group of influencers and working with creator personas that the brand may not have considered in the past.”
The data backs this up: The majority (62.4%) of brands have worked with more than 10 influencers, suggesting a good mix of influencers can help you reach your goals faster.
Tip #2: Pay Your Influencers Fairly
All campaigns involve reaching out, communicating with, and ultimately paying influencers.
“Brands are often surprised by the cost of running a successful influencer marketing campaign. Beyond paying for the influencer’s time and content creation, there are additional costs that influencers may charge for such as content usage, paid amplification, and exclusivity,” says Sammy.
“Brands should expect to invest in influencer marketing appropriately based on their goals & needs.”
This is where a tool like Later Influence can help; the platform allows you to negotiate fair influencer contracts, coordinate influencer payments, and get detailed campaign analytics that prove the value of your influencer marketing investment.
Tip #3: Let Creators Be True Collaborators
When you work with influencers, ask for their input on how your core messages can be presented engagingly for their audience and approach to content.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have rules or boundaries! Just make sure you are open to creative or novel ideas.
This is also your time to think about the size of an influencer's audience; bigger is not always better.
“Many brands assume that partnering with influencers who have the largest followings will automatically yield the best results,” Sammy noted. “However, micro-influencers can often provide more authentic engagement and better ROI due to their closer relationship with their fewer, more engaged followers.”
Tip #4: Keep An Eye On Trends
If a new viral trend pops up mid-campaign that might be valuable, don’t be afraid to take advantage of it!
If a trend is the right fit for your brand, reach out to your existing influencer base or a new creator, mentioning you’d like a quick turnaround post within your larger campaign.
Remember to act quickly and trust your creator partners – you want to be a brand that jumps on trends when they’re relevant instead of stale.
The Power Of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing unlocks the opportunity to build genuine relationships with the billions of people who use social media and other platforms every day.
And it’s easier than ever to track genuine business outcomes with the right platform.
That’s where Later Influence and Later’s In-House Influencer Marketing Services are valuable. The platform has a proven track record of helping brands meet their goals, and the Services team is a ready extension of your team.
Even if you already have a large brand following, influencer marketing provides an authentic way to reach your business goals.
Book a call with Later Influence today to unlock your brand's potential.
