What is Influencer Marketing: How to Develop Your Strategy

When navigating through today’s digital space, it is likely to stumble upon the concept of influencer marketing. Up until a decade ago, influencing consumer opinions was reserved for A-list celebrities, as compared to today where anyone can be an influencer, which creates more opportunities for brands to reach their target customers.

It is almost impossible to scroll on any social media platform without seeing an influencer marketing strategy in action. Having a dedicated influencer marketing plan is a great way for businesses to showcase themselves in a digital space in front of their target audience to build brand awareness, increase purchase considerations and attract new customers.

Brands need to start implementing influencer marketing in their marketing strategies if they don’t already, as they could be in the risk of being left in this growing market. Especially in the UAE where over 50% of the population is active on social media, it is vital for brands to focus on their digital marketing & influencer marketing strategies. Being a Dubai-based PR Agency, we at POP Communications have the chance of engaging with the city’s thriving influencer scene for coordinating multiple campaigns.

What is Influencer Marketing?

For a long while people have been swayed to buy thing because famous people talk about them or have used them, so the term ‘influencer’ may not be a new phenomenon. But as the everyday use of digital platforms has risen, brands have leveraged influencer partnerships with real people to seamlessly integrate their business messaging into our news feeds. It’s just like spreading ‘word-of-mouth’ but with some notable upgrades.

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that involves leveraging individuals who have a significant and engaged following on social media or other online platforms to promote a brand, product, or service through endorsements. These influencers, have the ability to affect the purchasing decisions of their audience due to their authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their followers.

Types of Influencers

• Mega-influencers: Celebrities or individuals with millions of followers.
• Macro-influencers: Individuals with 100,000 to 1 million followers.
• Micro-influencers: Individuals with 1,000 to 100,000 followers.
• Nano-influencers: Individuals with less than 1,000 followers but highly engaged audiences.

Influencer marketing is a great way for brands to increase their reach and gain access to a large and engaging audience moreover, it can also allow brands to target a specific niche based on their target market by picking the right influencer for them, the best way to have a better understanding on the right influencers would be through a influencer marketing agency, like POP Communications. Additionally, brands can also have access to a loyal followers that trust their influencers so much that they would buy products that are recommended by them.

Developing an Influencer Marketing Strategy:

1. Define goals and objectives:
   • Essentially what brands usually want is to gain brand awareness and recognition in the region, this can be a great start point for helping brands to set their campaign goals. Additionally, brands can also set targets for boosting interactions on their social media pages. Taking these steps would be helpful for the brand to increase their sales conversion rates.
2. Identify your target audience:
   • It is vital to brands to know their target audience, as this is the first step to knowing how exactly they would need to market themselves to be more recognized around their target market. This would also mean that brands would need to understand the demographics needs and analyze which social media they spend most time on.
3. Find the right influencers:
   • Selecting the most appropriate influencers for brands is the key as this helps in ensuring that the brand is meeting its target audience through the followers of each influencer. Adding on, brands should keep a check on the engagement that their selected influencers have just so they are not collaborating with influencers who have a low engagement, making it less likely for the brand to gain revenue from them.
4. Develop campaign details:
   • Determining the budget for influencer marketing is important for a brand as this would help them manage the campaign and consider the costs that they will come across. Also, the duration of the influencer marketing campaign should be set prior to the implementation so that it is easier to manage the campaign, this may include having deadlines for posting schedules, and content creation to name a few.
5. Create a content strategy:
   • Working with influencer would mean that brands can give their set of requirement to the influencer, and they work on these them to create the content that best suites the brand, these requirement may be anything from a key message that a brand would like to show to their audience through a campaign, to deciding on the deliverables the brands would like the influencers to create, such as; videos, stories, posts. Keeping this mind, it important for the brands to allow their influencers to have the creative freedom and create content that will stay relevant to the brand and authentic to their pages.
6. Implement campaign and measure performance:
   • Lastly, once an influencer marketing campaign is delivered its essential for brands to analyze the KPIs and understand the results that it has given. As this will help them decide what their goals or objectives could be for their next campaign. The performance could be analyzed with various indicators such as, reach, engagement, and sales.

Pop Success Stories:

POP Communications has collaborated with many influencers to successfully generate brand awareness for different brands, from F&B to fashion. An example would be Bombay Borough, an all-day Indian Bar & Eatery in Dubai. We collaborated with around 80 influencers who visited the restaurant and shared reviews on their social media, through which we generated more than 455 pieces of social media coverage. Another example would include, Hey Marly 0 a German based footwear and accessories brand in UAE.