Influencer Marketing

Prioritizing Your Inbound Marketing Strategies for 2021

Marketing is a continually evolving landscape. You know this. We know this. But 2020 presented a different challenge than previous years, leaving marketers to dig deep into what they need to do to attract and nurture leads and customers.

2021 will be no different – which shouldn’t make you panic! Part of marketing is doing your due diligence, and we’ve combined resources to come up with some powerful strategies to consider prioritizing in 2021.

SMS Marketing

The popularity of SMS was already accelerating pre-COVID, but the pandemic made the importance of quick, timely, relevant messages more necessary than ever. People needed fast updates on everything, from closures to switches to remote learning. And SMS marketing provided that, plus an average 98% read rate.

SMS marketing is also useful for both leads and customers in non-COVID-related campaigns, as you can implement various campaigns that are engaging to both audiences. For example, for current customers, you can send them text reminders of appointments or meetings. For leads, you may consider sending them branding awareness campaigns or coupons that may encourage them to buy from you.

The best part? With a platform like SMSZap, getting started with SMS marketing is a breeze. You can set up your account in a few minutes, link up with your contacts in HubSpot, and send personalized and engaging messages.

Content Marketing

COVID restrictions sent most people home at one point – to shop or work, or both. This made the demand for digital consumption skyrocket. What does that mean for your efforts in 2021? Your content needs to be high-caliber and plentiful, as well as:

Interactive
Emphatic
Engaging
Relevant to current events (2020 saw everything from social change, major elections, and COVID)
Made for the diverse crowds

That translates to creating and sharing educational, quality content about your products, services, and your company to your prospects and customers. You can use various resources like blogs, ebooks, infographics, social media, and videos to deliver your messages. No matter what type of content it is, it should address your target audiences’ specific pain points at every stage of their buyer’s journey, including the awareness, consideration, decision, and delight stages.

Video

Video can technically be considered a part of your content marketing – but its importance in our “new normal” isn’t something to shrug your shoulders. People longed for some human connection that they couldn’t get in person. Think about how you can use video in your previously “typical” marketing efforts. Are you switching to more online conferences, events, or webinars? These remote types of content are not going anywhere soon.

Similarly, video is just proven to be a useful tactic. In fact, 79% of consumers reported that a brand’s video convinced them to buy a piece of software or an app. A whopping 92% of those viewers also said they shared videos with others. That alone should help you realize the value of investing in video creation and distribution.

Chatbots and Customer Support Automation

When COVID initially hit, people scrambled to cancel flights, hotels, concerts, trips, appointments; you name it. The importance of a quick and solid customer support experience was integral. But customers weren’t the only ones dealing with the consequences of such an uncertain year. Support agents were hit with an influx of tickets to their helpdesk. Fortunately, chatbots and other customer support automation helped and will continue to in 2021.

Chatbots automate specific tasks and conversations by speaking with a customer or prospect through an easy-to-use interface. They lighten your teams’ workloads by tackling more straightforward conversational functions that are necessary but can eat up time. Advanced customer service automation can offload a large portion of support tickets with a high degree of accuracy. These resources also delight users because more and more people want information as quickly as possible and don’t mind speaking over a chat application.

Social Media

2020 certainly had a prevailing theme, and it was that a lot of people were at home for a good portion of it. Because of this, more people were also on their phones searching for news and updates from their favorite brands. One of the most common places to find this is generally a company’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Brands recognized this too. In fact, social media budgets accounted for 24% of all marketing budgets during the second quarter of 2020. And the momentum kept. There’s tremendous opportunity to ride these coattails and continue engaging and re-engaging with new and existing customers through fun, engaging social media campaigns or advertising.

SEO

When the pandemic subsides, businesses with brick and mortar locations will likely want to send as many people as possible back into their stores. Local search engine optimization (SEO) can help. Try:

Optimizing your “Google My Business Page”
Including local keywords throughout your website content
Strengthening your social media presence and including location-specific content

Position Zero, or Google’s featured snippet, should also take precedence in 2021. As humans become more reliant on technology, they expect the best answer as fast as possible. Position Zero has the most relevant information that answers that user’s question without clicking on any link. Some advice on getting a featured snippet includes:

Figure out what your company can get a snippet for
Writing out the exact question you’re trying to answer in your website or blog content
Use lists or tables
Research related questions and answers – any question can lead to another!
Create high-quality content that isn’t stuffed with keywords .

Another vital thing to consider when tackling SEO is to remember that people are searching for things differently now. People are asking more questions or phrases rather than just words. They’re also using devices like Alexa or Google Home. Search engines recognize this more nuanced context, meaning, and intent to deliver results, so keep it in mind for 2021.

By: Kelly Groover

Clwyd Probert

https://www.whitehat-seo.co.uk/ This presentation was made my Karen Rafferty from HubSpot as part of a seminar at the London HubSpot User Group in London. This video will show you the best tips for implementing a great inbound marketing strategy. You can download the free eBook here: https://info.whitehat-seo.co.uk/tips-… The full transcript of the video can be found here: https://blog.whitehat-seo.co.uk/inbou… Slides can be downloaded here: https://info.whitehat-seo.co.uk/londo… A summary article covering the main points is available here: https://blog.whitehat-seo.co.uk/tips-… We propose is to start to deploy a strategy to both your sales and marketing activities in your business.

It’s important just to reiterate here that with inbound marketing what we’re essentially doing is trying to focus on attracting good fit leads or opportunities for your business. And we do that through producing meaningful content that can enable you to have meaningful interactions with potential customers. It’s about just having good social etiquette. I’m, it’s not about interrupting people, it’s about actually being helpful, being responsive. Being very human in the way that you employ your marketing and your sales strategy. Which of the strategy from the video works best for you in 2018. Let me know by leaving a quick comment below. Details of the next London HUG event #LondonHUG can be found here: https://www.whitehat-seo.co.uk/hubspo…

How To Craft a Successful Social Media Content Strategy

The evolution of social media has given brands the opportunity to connect with their audience like never before.

For us, this means the ability to further our brand presence and voice, drive sales, and direct traffic all through utilizing our social media channels as an extension of our site.

Building a successful social media content strategy is more than just posting on every platform—it’s all about determining which platforms align best with your business.

There are so many different channels out there and more constantly popping up. (Seriously, it’s exhausting!)

Test what platform works best for you

My advice is to test out each platform and make it your goal to find a select group of social media channels that will really make an impact for your brand and drive ROI.

Take TikTok, for example. It’s one of the newest channels with huge potential for reach.

But when we tested it out as a new channel for AppSumo, it didn’t give us the ROI we hoped for. Because our audience demographic didn’t align as well on TikTok as it does on other channels like our Facebook Group, we decided our time was better spent focusing our efforts elsewhere.

And it was the right decision.

Here’s a graph of our Facebook Group engagement based on Posts, Comments, and Reactions from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 8, 2020. During that same time, we saw a 19.72% increase in our number of total members.

Example of progress from social media content strategy

It’s so important to set realistic content goals for your brand, figure out what the top priority is, and understand how your social media content strategy can help you reach those goals.

We set specific quarterly goals.

Whether you want to convert customers to buyers, drive brand awareness, or increase community engagement, the strategy you implement should be focused on those goals you set for yourself.

I found that when I focused on working towards a specific goal, I saw a noticeable improvement in our overall social media.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach and each social media platform you use may have a different goal.

Finding a social media content strategy that works best for your brand takes time, iteration, and patience. Consistency really is key when growing your social media presence!

Dive deeper into goals and metrics:

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Have a good understanding of who your target audience is when outlining your social media strategy. I find it helpful to do some research on your followers when determining what type of content will resonate best with them.

For example, in looking at AppSumo’s Facebook and Instagram data, I found that the majority of our audience is male and in the 25-44 age range. This is incredibly helpful when planning content out and trying to reach new target audiences.

By understanding our audience demographics, it helps us to determine which platforms we want to focus on.

Based on this data, we prioritize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube in our social media efforts.

Think quality over quantity when you’re determining which platforms you want to utilize for your brand.

Demographics can help form a social media content strategy.

You also can use Agorapulse reports also to find out:

Where your fans are located
If your audience concentrated in a city or region
How old your fans are (the age brackets they fall into)

Example of demographics from Agorapulse’s reports

Dive deeper into research:

Know Your Competitors

In regards to the competition, I always suggest taking a look at what at least three competitors are doing on social media—this provides a great baseline for what works, what doesn’t, and which areas you can provide more value in than the competition.

To get started, find businesses that are in a similar industry, offer similar services, or what similar to what you aspire to be, and start your research from there.

What to look out for

Try to answer a few key questions:

What platforms are they using?
What type of content are they posting—videos, links, educational, photos, etc.?
How often are they posting?
What is their social media goal?
What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Once you have a good understanding of how your competitors are using social media, you can use this information to build out your own strategy.

Identify the gaps in their social media presence and use this to your advantage.

When you have this information under your belt, it’s easy to find ways in which you can improve and stand out among the competition.

We noticed that our competitors weren’t using video to promote their products and services. We decided to test this as a content strategy and saw a noticeable improvement in this metric.

Take a look at these results after we started creating daily videos:

Know your monthly gained subscribers to help form a winning social media content strategy.

When to Post

Consistency is key in regards to your social media presence.

When planning out content, I always do some platform-specific research to determine the best days and time to help maximize our reach with each time we publish.

At AppSumo, we make note of popular days and times, and schedule our most important content around them.

I also use a content calendar to help execute our social strategy.

It’s an easy way to help me plan, create, and manage all of our content in one place.

Tools We Use

We wouldn’t call ourselves AppSumo (where I work) if we didn’t namedrop some of the awesome tools we use for social media.

Along with the free linked tools, here are some personal favorites for my day-to-day work:

Agorapulse. This one’s an awesome way to manage your social media and schedule it in a clean way. I don’t have to dig through comments because the Social Inbox lets me filter through important messages. Plus, Agorapulse’s one-click reports are super-helpful for me to track metrics.
Canva. Canva is a powerhouse. This one’s great for inspiration and a lifesaver when creating graphics that don’t require a ton of graphic design skills. I like to incorporate these graphics into our Instagram when I can.
Crello. An AppSumo Partner, Crello is a great alternative to Canva and helpful for ideas. I use it to create graphics for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s got awesome animations and requires no design skill.
Figma. I use this to create templates for things like our Instagram stories (blog shares, deal shares, etc.). It’s also great for quick and on-the-fly design edits for graphics.
Brand24. An internal marketing team fave, for sure. This one’s great for filtering all AppSumo content on the web. It shows you all mentions of specific keywords on your social media channels, even when you weren’t tagged.

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

Now that you’ve built out your content strategy, the goal is to continue to grow your following. (You’re not out of the woods yet!)

How often to post

The most important thing to remember when trying to grow your social media is to maintain a minimum number of posts per week based on days when your users are most active!

At AppSumo, we post about six days per week with a minimum of 2-3 posts a day.

How to create content for engagement

My advice is to create content that allows your audience to engage directly. I found that when I utilized interactive content, such as polls, we had significantly higher engagement.

Take a look at some of our recent polls, which directly ask our audience what types of content they would like to see more of. This is a super-easy way to promote engagement and actually get feedback directly from your audience.

Here’s us getting the conversation started:

The audience engagement doesn’t end with the content itself! Engage with them in the comment section, posts you are tagged in, and through direct messages.

One fun way to engage your audience is by creating a hashtag specific to your brand. That way, users can share the love when they post about your brand or products.

At AppSumo, we have a few: #AppSumo, #TacoToolsday, and #6FigureSumoling. This is a great way to get your followers talking about your brand and to see what is being said about your products, even when they don’t specifically @ you!

Dive deeper into engagement:

Check Analytics and Audit

Time to talk numbers.

No strategy would be complete without understanding which analytics are important for your brand.

Understanding what your audience likes will lead to more engagement, followers, and a cohesive feed! It seems simple, but creating content your audience actually wants to see can do so much for your social media strategy.

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For example, on Instagram, I dive into our insights and take note of what content has the highest ‘Reach,’ ‘Shares,’ ‘Saves,’ and ‘Comments. These metrics are really great indicators of which content has performed well based on what our audience likes. That also gives it a boost with the algorithm and helps it reach a bigger audience:

To make the most of these analytics, I dive into our insights weekly. This helps me optimize our content and understand what works for the future!

In Conclusion

Building a successful social media content strategy takes time, but all the effort is worth it when you establish an audience that actually wants to connect and engage with you. That sort of reward will build upon itself tenfold!

Remember that consistency is key when trying to grow your social media presence. You should also keep in mind that finding the right strategy for your brand involves a bit of trial and error. (Trust us—we’ve had our share of hiccups at AppSumo. It’s all part of the learning process.) Set specific but realistic goals for your social media content strategy, listen to your audience, and the growth will follow.

Now get on that social media success track! Till next time!

By: Bronte Mojdehi

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Caitlin Bacher

How To Quickly Create Social Media Content Most entrepreneurs spend WAY too much time creating content for social media. As a result, they avoid it entirely…leading to days or weeks without a single post. This is costing you traffic, leads, and customers…but it doesn’t have to be this way! In this video, you’ll learn my secret to quickly creating high-converting content on social media If you to learn EVEN MORE about how you can save time on social media, make sure to download your FREE copy of The Social Media Roadmap. FREE – THE FACEBOOK GROUP HOST ROADMAP: http://caitlinbacher.com/host-roadmap-3 JOIN THE #SOCIALBOSS FACEBOOK GROUP: http://caitlinbacher.com/fb-group TWEET THIS VIDEO: SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: http://youtube.com/caitlinbacher SAY HEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Instagram: http://instagram.com/caitlinbacher Facebook: http://facebook.com/caitlinbacher Twitter: http://twitter.com/caitlinbacher Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/caitlinbacher Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/caitlinb…

20 Ways to Make Money as a Social Media Influencer

Mike Schmidt Entrepreneur Leadership Network Writer Founder home August 31, 2020 8 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Many people think we’re at the peak of the “creator economy,” pointing to supply saturation, overvalued tech startups and creator burnout as their central arguments. But I think we’re at the beginning. After building a technical product that has facilitated thousands of influencer marketing activations, I can assure you that technology has a long way to go to help existing and aspiring creators achieve their financial goals.

One-third of kids between the ages of 8 and 12 aspire to be either a vlogger or a Youtuber. Kids are no longer aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, engineers; many kids want to become creators on social media. Social media exposure seems to be influencing kids’ future career aspirations.

Pair that with the facts that Youtube made $15 billion last year, with nearly half of that going to content creators. Youtube is the social content forerunner; whenever there is economic opportunity, creators will go. It’s no surprise that Tiktok unveiled a $200 million fund for creators and Instagram is going to start sharing revenue with creators on IGTV. That said, Instagram has a long way to go given that they made $20 billion in revenue last year and barely shared any with creators.

The barriers to entry are nearly zero. Networks reward content creation and more macroeconomic trends such as ecommerce support the growing digital economy.

Here are 20 strategies to help you grow your career as a content creator.

1. Put keywords that can help identify your interests in your bio so that search engines pick up your profile

There are a lot of influencer and publisher search engines, including more prominent platforms like Google. Search engines aren’t magic; they need something to anchor their decisions. If you help them index your page, you will show up when brands are looking for you. If you’re a mom with three kids, put that in your bio! Do you have a French bulldog? Put that in, too! Imagine if you’re a brand or agency. PR teams look for specific things and they will use tools to search for particular keywords.

2. Don’t buy followers or pay for likes on your posts

This one should be straightforward, but a majority of brands have bot detection services at their disposal. If they determine that your account has a lot of bots following you or engaging with your content, it will be too much risk for them to partner with you.

3. Pick a category that has a lot of ad dollars and optimize your content for that category

PR managers and talent managers are continually searching for new talent to prospect and pitch. If you’re in a popular category, it’s likely to get more results. The most desired influencer advertising categories are animals, lifestyle, travel, beauty and fitness.

4. Delete old branded content

Many brands look for conflict of interests and brand saturation in your feed. You’ll want to remove old branded content. Modern influencer marketing tools can also tell brands and agencies the percentage of how much sponsored content you have. If you have a double-digit percentage of sponsored content in your feed, it could be a major turn-off.

5. Tag and show other influencer friends in posts

Brands and agencies love when you know other influencers — they see it as a two-for-one deal. You also benefit from getting more shares and organic traffic.

6. Run ads to gain followers

Many aspiring creators don’t have a lot of followers in the beginning. Instead of doing the follow and unfollow trick or buying likes, followers and comments, buy targeted ads to get your channel to at least 3,000 followers.

Many search engines don’t track influencers with less than 3,000 followers. You’ll need to pay to play here, but rest assured that creators who do this well eventually make money. If your career is to be a social influencer, invest in your business.

7. Include your pet

The animal category is the highest sought-after category for influencer marketing. Most brands lean on the pet and animal category to hit their growth targets when numbers are sluggish. Pet content gets the most clicks and PR specialists know that. You’ll notice many brands like Ford sprinkle in a dog here and there — now you know why.

8. Make your content consistent

Brands love predictability. Use the same filters, styling and story formats. If you’re looking to work with big brands and agencies, they like to know you are safe to market with. Think about what brands want. They want to drive sales and awareness, so work backward on what you think will make your content appealing in these scenarios.

9. If you’re new to the content game, create at least 20 posts

PR reps will be very scrutinous when evaluating your page and longevity is something they’re looking for. If you’re starting fresh, post frequently at the start. When you cross the 20-posts milestone, start staggering your posts so you don’t come across as spammy. If you’re cleaning up your feed, delete anything that’s not on spec.

10. Remove any NSFW content

Some of the largest spenders in the influencer marketing category are consumer packaged goods brands, and they have strict brand safety guidelines. One post that doesn’t align with their philosophies will get you vetoed from their upcoming campaigns.

11. Create a business account on Instagram

Brands and agencies can often only see your posts if you have a business account. You may lose out on a potential deal if you don’t have one. Furthermore, if you do get a deal, they will likely ask you to connect your account with an analytics service and in doing so you will need to create a professional account.

12. Make sure your contact information, including a business email, is in your bio

Search engines index text on your page and parse our email addresses. The more information you put here, the easier it will be for brands to reach out to you. Search engines also show accounts higher if they have contact information. This is so brands and agencies can have a better experience when reaching out.

13. Reach out to influencer marketing platforms

Find influencer marketing platforms and reach out to them to ensure your data is displayed correctly. A lot of deals are passing through these tech platforms and you want to make sure you are appropriately represented. Many modern platforms will let you connect your accounts, fill in personal details and more.

14. Put your birthday month or your horoscope in your bio

Ecommerce teams love to send influencers gifts. It’s a very strategic move for creators to include their birthday month or a horoscope in their bio because brands often look for unique ways of engaging influencers. Remember, brands are trying to get in touch with you as much as you are trying to get in touch with them.

15. Have a secondary social channel

Having more than one channel to promote on will help you in the long run, but the main reasons you want to invest in this early on is because brands love when you have a multi-channel strategy. Another benefit is that search engines parse this data and link your other social connections to their databases. The best channels to invest in are Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube and blogs.

16. Find a niche and be different

Do research, create a spreadsheet of creators in your space and be unique. Update your competitive sheet every month.

17. Survey your audience every month

Learn about what your audience loves and be customer-obsessed. Engage with your customers in new ways and try to connect with them. The hardest thing for creators being more disciplined in this category. It’s not just responding to comments — it’s jumping on a videoconference and asking your fans when they love about your content.

18. Go live

Nearly every digital platform is trying to disintermediate TV. Live content is the toughest to produce and therefore the most sought-after. Social platforms will do everything they can to promote it. If you were a product manager at Facebook, what would you do? Send more notifications? Promote more content? Host AMAs, do live contests and have giveaways. It doesn’t need to be fancy — just try something!

19. Be nice

This seems obvious, but creators lose deals with brands because they aren’t easy to work with. This doesn’t mean you have to do everything that brands ask all the time. It just means that creators should engage in business matters professionally — after all, this could be your job!

20. Don’t use hashtags

Unless you’re working on a campaign with an instructed hashtag, avoid it. People know what spam tagging looks like and it looks desperate.

https://div.show/options

By: Mike Schmidt – Entrepreneur Leadership Network Writer

3 Effective And Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

Business team working together on whiteboard at brick wall in office

While marketing in today’s digital world provides many more options for businesses, it also makes it more difficult to know where and how to spend your marketing dollars. And when startups are competing with larger companies who have extensive marketing budgets, it can be especially intimidating to figure out how to win over consumers. Let’s take a look at how businesses can implement low-cost marketing strategies that still get results.

Pivotal Relationships Are Key

Instead of attending low-budget networking event after event, give your time and attention to strategic functions that could lead to beneficial partnerships. Invest in attending high-caliber conferences or becoming a member of trusted organizations.

Also, be sure to research which organizations or groups the high profile individuals in your industry are a part of, and see if you can join those communities. You can use social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Twitter, to reach out and engage with movers and shakers as well. This can increase the chances of meeting and developing pivotal relationships with individuals who have leverage in your industry. Above all, make sure you’re adding value to the people you meet as opposed to asking for favors or advice.

Focus On The Product And Service

Word-of-mouth marketing is extremely powerful and effective, and that’s because it isn’t easy to obtain and isn’t a marketing ploy that a corporation has carefully crafted. Word-of-mouth marketing impressions result in five times more sales than paid media impressions. Not to mention that consumers are more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend.

But without a rock solid product or service, and a near-flawless customer experience, it is difficult to get people to tell their friends about your brand. Hosting focus groups, or using feedback software like SurveyMonkey or TypeForm can help you pinpoint what customers would like to see changed about your product. And it’s important to pay attention to reviews on sites like Google and Yelp to see where your product or service could be refined.

Word-of-mouth marketing drives $6 trillion of annual consumer spending and is estimated to account for 13% of consumer sales.

That’s why it’s important to always be listening and improving – by doing so, you may find your customers do all the advertising for you.

Be Flexible, Yet Calculated

A great deal of the digital advertising rat race is caused by brands constantly hopping on the latest marketing trends just because others are doing it. Seeing competitors running Facebook ads doesn’t mean you should throw money into Facebook advertising the very next day. For one, the ad may not be converting as well as you suspect. Secondly, every brand is different. And lastly, getting a potential customer’s attention can be very challenging on a platform like Facebook where users are scrolling through to catch up with old friends or simply share a life update.

Be flexible and open to experimenting with new and creative ways to advertise your company – but also be meticulous in your ROI calculations. This way, you’ll know which avenues to double down on the next time you’re putting together your marketing budget. You might find your referral system is driving 90% of your company’s leads every month, which implies you can pump the brakes on more traditional forms of advertising.

If you have the right connections and your product solves a big enough problem, you might even find that you don’t need to advertise at all – the key is to find out what’s best for your business.

When all your ducks are in a row in terms of advertising – creative concepts, prospect targeting, brand messaging, high-quality imagery and crisp copy, advertising can work wonders for a company of any type.

Marketing and advertising works, which is why the U.S. digital advertising industry alone is valued at $192 billion. Yet, if you’re strategic and crafty enough, and focus exclusively on relationship-building, your product, and word-of-mouth marketing, your company can significantly minimize advertising spend.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.

Jia Wertz

I am the CEO of Studio 15, a socially responsible fashion brand. After leaving behind a 15-year career in the corporate fashion world, I started a company that focuses on doing good and supporting women. It’s Studio 15’s mission to promote and collaborate with other female-owned businesses and to support female entrepreneurs in developing countries through a partnership with Kleos MFG, a non-profit organization.

Source: 3 Effective And Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

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Uncovering The True Value Of Influencer Marketing On YouTube

It’s Friday night and your epic evening includes the couch and a YouTube video, where your favorite influencer mentions a new food-delivery app. Ten minutes later, you download the app and order food but don’t use the special URL or promo code. Historically, marketers would be unable to attribute your purchase to the video you just watched because you behaved in an “immeasurable” way outside the bounds of last-touch attribution metrics.

For too long, YouTube influencer marketing has been measured incorrectly — or, at least, terribly incomplete; it’s typically measured like a digital channel, where only direct link clicks (vanity URL, bit.ly or promo code) are measurable. This has left many user actions untrackable to even the most powerful brand measurement teams.

To make “untrackable” user behavior trackable, my agency commissioned a study from Jumpshot observing a pool of 149,608 anonymized users through clickstream data to see how users interacted with brand integrations run by three brand partners. We found that about 75% of conversions resulting from brand YouTube influencer marketing campaigns were not being tracked.

Can you guess how this happened? That person watching a YouTube video on Friday night either went straight to a search engine and purchased directly through the brand’s site or went to a third-party marketplace like Best Buy, Amazon or Target to make their purchase. “But what if they saw another ad that persuaded them?” you might ask. This study doesn’t merit the attribution of these conversions to multi-touch measures across the sales funnel, as most user actions occurred within the first 20 minutes of watching the video.

While this reveals even more validation for brands already using YouTube for influencer marketing, it also shows opportunity for brands that aren’t yet tapping into the platform.

How do you know if influencer marketing — especially on YouTube — is right for your brand?

Many marketers practice influencer marketing in some form, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. If you answer “no” to any of the following, then your brand probably isn’t ready for influencer marketing:

• Have you optimized every single one of your other marketing channels (SEO, email, PPC, blog, ads, etc.)?

• Does your brand have flexible legal and regulatory controls over your creative and messaging?

• Are your branding and creative teams willing to give up control to an influencer?

If you said “yes” to all of the above and can say yes to everything on the following checklist, YouTube influencer marketing might be a good fit for your brand:

• Does your brand need to be explained in more than two words?

• Have you optimized static images that just don’t seem to be working as well as you thought?

• Is storytelling a key element to your brand strategy?

To those who said yes to the above, keep reading.

Why should I consider YouTube for my influencer marketing campaign?

Within the industry, YouTube is recognized but greatly underestimated. The industry is flooded with information about influencer marketing on Instagram. Many marketers mistake this as a sign to put their influencer budget behind Instagram alone, even when the platform is almost three times as saturated with influencers (830,000+ influencer accounts) as YouTube (347,000+ influencer accounts).

And Jumpshot data found that when it comes to ads on YouTube, influencer marketing conversion rates (2.7%) are five times higher than traditional pre-roll and mid-roll ad conversion rates (0.5%).

One of the reasons I believe there are fewer influencers on YouTube than Instagram is because of the time investment. A 14-minute video involving creative, unique storytelling that audiences can watch beginning to end as they would a show are much harder to produce than a static image or 60-second video muddied by algorithms. YouTube can be a great platform for brands that want to tell longer-form stories through creativity that appeals to specific niches of followers.

That said, I’d recommend brand representatives tapping into influencer marketing avoid taking complete control over creative. Audiences know when brands are selling to them, even through the voices of their favorite channel on YouTube. Let the creator do their thing. Ask them how you can support their video with more materials and let them use your product or service in a way it was not intended — simply, let go.

Optimizing Campaigns

Our analysis found that for every transaction through a direct link, there were three more untrackable conversions. How can brands use this information to help optimize their campaigns?

Understanding your true conversion value is critical. If you don’t understand the power behind your channel, you’ll be unaware of when and how to optimize and support the channel.

Say you run an AdWords campaign in December. You keep it going through January but also decide to run a YouTube campaign with one influencer at the beginning of January. You see conversions from AdWords tracking in December and a similar level of conversions coming from your YouTube campaigns in January. You believe both channels are working effectively, maybe slightly below ideal. Then, all of a sudden in the middle of January, your AdWords conversions jump.

Your data analytics team tells you it’s time to put more budget behind AdWords, but your knowledge about the trackability of YouTube influencer campaign conversions tells you that those extra conversions are likely happening as a direct result of your YouTube campaigns, and the user is simply searching after watching and then purchasing. You now know that a consequential boost in AdWords budget isn’t necessarily the answer and that it might be more effective to use your budget to optimize your YouTube campaign.

Last Word

Influencers are deeply connected and in tune with coveted audiences. Their true power comes from being seen as trustworthy and relatable by their audiences. As a result, it can be a powerfully effective tool in any marketer’s toolbox.

As more people look to YouTube to produce and consume entertainment, it’s imperative that marketers engage with the platform intelligently. Around 65% of influencer marketing budgets are set to increase by the end of 2019 alone, and influencer ad spend is projected to reach $15 billion over the next three years. With concrete data pointing to YouTube influencer marketing’s effectiveness, now is the time to optimize, and if nothing else, test. It beats a Friday night watching videos on your couch.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

Bradley Hoos

Chief Growth Officer at The Outloud Group, an influencer marketing agency.

Source: Uncovering The True Value Of Influencer Marketing On YouTube

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Tag: Influencer Marketing

Prioritizing Your Inbound Marketing Strategies for 2021

SMS Marketing

Content Marketing

Video

Chatbots and Customer Support Automation

Social Media

SEO

By: Kelly Groover

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3 Effective And Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

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Uncovering The True Value Of Influencer Marketing On YouTube

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SMS Marketing

Content Marketing

Video

Chatbots and Customer Support Automation

Social Media

SEO

By: Kelly Groover

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Test what platform works best for you

Set realistic social media content goals

Know Your Audience and Conduct Research

Know Your Competitors

What to look out for

When to Post

Tools We Use

Engage with Your Audience and Grow Your Following

How often to post

How to create content for engagement

Check Analytics and Audit

In Conclusion

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1. Put keywords that can help identify your interests in your bio so that search engines pick up your profile

2. Don’t buy followers or pay for likes on your posts

3. Pick a category that has a lot of ad dollars and optimize your content for that category

4. Delete old branded content

5. Tag and show other influencer friends in posts

6. Run ads to gain followers

7. Include your pet

8. Make your content consistent

9. If you’re new to the content game, create at least 20 posts

10. Remove any NSFW content

11. Create a business account on Instagram

12. Make sure your contact information, including a business email, is in your bio

13. Reach out to influencer marketing platforms

14. Put your birthday month or your horoscope in your bio

15. Have a secondary social channel

16. Find a niche and be different

17. Survey your audience every month

18. Go live

19. Be nice

20. Don’t use hashtags

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