The implementation of an Influencer Marketing strategy starts with the definition of its objectives. To avoid a fatal misstep, a few questions need to be asked: are my influencer campaigns aimed at increasing brand awareness, organic traffic to my website or increasing sales? What are the benefits for my brand of relying on a quantitative influencer strategy, particularly by using the seeding technique? Should I only rely on one or two KOLs throughout the year if I want to focus my strategy on quality? Are these two strategies opposed to each other or can they complement each other in my next campaigns? We explain everything in this article.
Influencer marketing has proven itself over the last few years and it’s not about to stop. If the idea of having a brand represented is not new, the explosion of social networks and the multiplication of the number of KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) offer this pillar of performance a very bright future.
Business Insider Intelligence estimates that within 2 years, Influencer Marketing should reach 15 billion dollars, compared to 6.5 billion in 2019. Over 92% of marketers believe that influencer marketing is effective. This is more than considerable data that proves once again the strong impact of collaborations between brands and content creators.
Consumers today are looking to follow the opinions of people who are like them: in this case, influencers who have largely taken on their roles. They influence the choices of an audience that seeks reassurance before committing to a purchase. These KOLs, who share their experiences of products or services, create a favourable dynamic for brands thanks to their reputation and legitimacy. Brands therefore have everything to gain by associating themselves with these opinion leaders – whose engagement rates are generally much higher than the brands themselves on their own networks – in order to reach their target audiences sustainably and effectively through them.
Influencer marketing is booming more than ever and the platforms have understood the stakes. After Instagram, TikTok and Twitch have developed new commercial features to meet the needs of audiences and brands. Short videos appear on the feed in full screen, accompanied by music whose main purpose is to inspire the “call to action”. Indeed, influencer marketing boosts awareness, visibility, sometimes even credibility, but above all, sales. The recommendation of a product or service by a KOL encourages purchase. In fact, according to Digital Marketing Institute :
Influencer marketing also allows brands to adopt a highly targeted approach to reach new customers. The arguments in favour of influencer marketing are numerous. It allows you to develop brand awareness, increase sales, reach new customers, etc. It is up to the brand to define the type of strategy it wishes to implement for its Influencer projects.
The implementation of an Influencer Marketing strategy that focuses on the quantitative allows a brand to :
Through this strategy, the objective of brands is to gain notoriety by distributing their content to as many people as possible: this is what we call seeding. This Influence technique consists, in fact, of a brand sending its products to numerous influencers so they could spread the word on their social networks. They are chosen according to the brand’s sectors of activity, the characteristics of their social accounts, their audience data, their universe, etc.
It is therefore viral marketing, the main objective of which is to get people talking about a brand in order to rapidly increase its visibility. Here, it is important to have repetitive content in order to capture the attention of Internet users in the long term. Thus, the more influencers regularly share feedback on a product or service, the more brand awareness increases and thus attracts, with all these actions, more customers.
In addition to increasing brand awareness, seeding also helps to improve a brand’s overall ranking on social platforms thanks to the numerous pieces of content shared. The use of this type of Influencer Marketing strategy is particularly adapted to new product launches or when a brand wants to quickly increase its notoriety. The brand can motivate purchases by setting up a distinct promotional code through KOL for example.
KOL marketing is an essential lever for brands in the long term. The link that is created between the influencer and his audience is emotional and this link serves for the image of the brand with which he collaborates. In this market of emotions and recommendations, the brand must precisely target the profiles of KOLs who will represent it, notably through the status of ambassador.
Regularly collaborating with content creators in influencer marketing campaigns enables them and their reputation to be associated with the brand. Intervening over a longer period of time enhances the value of influencers. Repeated collaborations reinforce the authenticity of their discourse with their audiences. It is not uncommon for them to spontaneously evoke a brand with which they work regularly or even for which they are ambassadors, because the brand or the product is anchored in their daily routines.
Here, it will be a question of finding those personalities who share the brand’s values and with whom an authentic human relationship of trust will be established. Conversely, during the collaboration, the brand must respect the identity of the influencer: it is not a question of imposing content on him/her, but rather of integrating the brand and its products into his/her universe. Long-term relationships between a brand and its influencers are based on the principles of “Brand Safety” and “Influencer Safety“.
Regular collaboration with a KOL can take the form of sending new products, invitations to events, etc. This makes it possible to develop the loyalty of the influencer by providing him/her with content to publish regularly, thus exposing the brand each time. This recurring and often spontaneous content increases brand awareness. This is how the relationship between a brand and an influencer evolves towards an ambassador status. Collaborations can be diversified (takeover, co-creation, capsule collection, etc.). By using takeover for example, the brand benefits from the influencer’s network and vice versa. It reaches a new audience and gains new followers.
The Daniel Wellington brand was innovative in creating Influencer Marketing campaigns with a large number of KOLs. In exchange for a free watch, the content creator was invited to post photos and share a promotional code with his community. An operation that was repeated several hundred times, with KOLs from several countries (Belgium, United Kingdom, USA, etc.). By seeing KOLs everywhere wearing a Daniel Wellington watch, and by mimicry, consumers quickly became interested in the brand and sales exploded. The brand had a dual objective: to bring visibility to its brand, but also to drive traffic to its website and e-shop, in order to convert audiences. With more than 20,873 mentions, including more than 7,000 from influencer accounts, in 2018, Daniel Wellington was, for a few months, the most cited brand by influencers on social networks.
The leading cosmetics brand Rimmel also built a similar strategy in a viral campaign a few months ago. The brand’s idea was simple: Rimmel suggested that they communicate about the launch of their new mascara and post photos on Instagram with their heads upside down. By playing with the users’ scrolling habits on their Instagram feed and by relying on the power of the communities of more than 200 influencers, the brand succeeded in getting people talking.
The result of this operation? More than 2.3 million followers reached through the influencers’ networks, 343 pieces of content created with 210 influencers, 75,000 bookmarks and more than 1,000 comments registered on these posts.
What if to have a really effective influencer marketing strategy, a brand had to find the perfect balance between quantity and quality? A strategy based on quantity by collaborating with a large number of influencers and proposing a lot of content allows in the short term to get a better visibility and to increase brand awareness. And concluding long-term partnerships with a small number of influencers to propose quality content and develop projects in line with the brand’s values (co-creation, take-over, etc.) to gain authenticity and closeness with followers.
To enable you to activate the most relevant KOL profiles for your brand, Kolsquare offers a complete technological solution to identify the content creators most in line with your brand, to manage your campaigns and to measure the performance and results of your Influence projects through key KPIs.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare has built the largest community of influencer marketing experts in the world, and offers hundreds of customers (Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, El Corte Inglés, Lacoste, …) the latest Big Data, AI and Machine Learning technologies to drive inspiring partnerships, tapping into an exhaustive network covering 100% of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers in 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As a Benefit Company, Kolsquare has been pioneering Responsible Influence by championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations to inspire change.
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