You’ve identified great influencer partners. Now it’s time to collaborate on campaigns that deliver results.
Executing influencer marketing initiatives can seem daunting, with many moving parts to coordinate.
In this guide, we’ll walk through an end-to-end framework and checklist to help you run high-impact influencer campaigns tailored for your brand.
Why Following a Campaign Process Matters
Influencer marketing only succeeds when executed strategically and deliberately. Effective campaigns don’t happen by chance.
By establishing a standardized process, you can ensure:
- Influencers have the assets and knowledge to create on-brand content
- Content aligns to campaign goals and tracks back to ROI
- Efforts are coordinated and timed for maximum impact
- Performance is monitored against targets
- Learnings improve future initiatives
With these benefits in mind, here is a 10-step influencer campaign execution process to optimize efforts:
Step 1: Define Your Campaign Goals and Metrics
First, get crystal clear on the precise goals of your influencer initiative.
Do you want to drive awareness? Engagement? Website traffic? Conversions?
Define the ROI you want to achieve and metrics that indicate success. This informs strategies and tracking.
Without clear goals, you can’t optimize efforts or properly value influencer impact.
Step 2: Create a Detailed Creative Brief for Influencers
Next, assemble a thorough creative brief to share with your influencers covering:
- Overview of campaign objectives, guidelines, and expectations
- Brand guidelines on aesthetics, logos, messaging, hashtags, etc.
- Product background, features, and benefits to emphasize
- Target audience and buyer persona profiles
- Examples of ideal creative content formats (videos, reels, tutorials, etc)
- Required deliverables and timelines
This brief ensures influencers create perfectly on-brand content tailored to campaign goals.
Step 3: Set Pricing, Terms and Sign Contracts
Formalize the partnership through written contracts that protect both parties.
Detail payment terms, usage rights, incentives offered, content guidelines, measurement protocols, and more in a legal agreement.
Common compensation models include:
- Paid sponsorships per post, story, or campaign
- Affiliate commissions on sales driven
- Free product gifts
Get agreements signed before content production begins.
Step 4: Ship Products and Give Early Access
Send influencers your products well in advance for them to test and create content.
Give them early access, even before products launch. This allows thorough review and development of high-quality content.
Provide enough sample product quantities for influencers to experiment with visuals.
Step 5: Brainstorm Creative Content Strategies
Collaborate with influencers on creative ways to showcase your products that resonate with their audiences.
Avoid dictating overly specific content instructions. Give influencers flexibility to tap into what works for their community.
Encourage them to come up with fun, engaging ideas to produce visually compelling content.
Step 6: Provide Guidelines on Captions, Tags, and Hashtags
While giving creative license, do brief influencers on elements like:
- Account tagging conventions
- Branded hashtags to include
- Optimized captions to drive clicks and engagement
- Geo-tagging location
- Linking to your website or landing pages
Consistency on these items ensures cohesion across influencers.
Step 7: Set Up Tracking Links and Promo Codes
Create unique tracking URLs, UTM parameters, and promo codes for each influencer.
This allows you to analyze engagement and conversions generated by specific partners. Critical for optimizing efforts.
Step 8: Schedule Posts and Content Calendars
Work with influencers to map out an editorial calendar scheduling all social posts, videos, stories, and other content.
Look at your existing initiatives and schedule influencer content to complement versus compete. Aim for ideal timing to maximize visibility and impact.
Step 9: Amplify Influencer Content
Repurpose influencer photos, videos, testimonials, and quotes across your brand’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, website, email, and more.
Influencer-created assets make great fodder to boost your own organic and paid advertising efforts.
Step 10: Track Performance and Optimize
Throughout the campaign, closely monitor metrics based on the goals defined in step one.
Pull reports on impressions, engagement, clicks, sign-ups, sales, or other KPIs. Document what content styles, CTAs, products etc. perform best.
Use those insights to refine your ongoing influencer initiatives. Continual optimization is key.
Key Takeaways for Successful Influencer Campaigns
Following this strategic 10-step influencer marketing process will set your brand up for maximum impact. Keep these tips in mind:
- Start by defining your campaign goals and success metrics to properly track ROI.
- Provide influencers detailed creative direction through brand guidelines and content briefs.
- Formalize expectations through comprehensive legal agreements.
- Give influencers access to product samples early, with enough inventory for creative testing.
- Encourage influencers to tap into content ideas that will naturally engage their unique audience.
- Use tracking links and codes for each influencer to monitor specific performance.
- Continually analyze data and optimize based on what content delivers results.
Now that you’re armed with a proven influencer campaign framework, it’s time to collaborate with your partners on memorable initiatives that achieve your brand’s goals. For additional guidance executing strategic influencer programs, our team of experts is here to help. Let’s connect to discuss campaigns tailored for your brand!
