The debate is over… marketing campaigns with digital influencers work.
It’s not novel or cute or curious. It’s not on the verge or the horizon. It is here and it matters. If we take nothing else away from the Fyre Festival debacle, we should recognize that influencer marketing can sell just about anything…
Working at Google in 2011, we talked about an approaching inflection point for clients: the specific moment in time when more than half of your website traffic or searches would come from phones and tablets. We spent months telling our clients “it’s not too late to be early on mobile,” as we urged them to build mobile landing pages and mobile optimized campaigns. Eventually, we had to start saying “it’s too late to be early on mobile, and this is your last chance to avoid missing the boat.”
When it comes to influencer marketing, we are quickly approaching the latter. So let’s talk about why influencer marketing works and how your brand can jump on the bandwagon (which is quickly rolling away).
Reasons it works:
Trust in the Voice
According to a study conducted by Google and Ipsos, 40% of millennials say their favorite YouTube creator understands them better than their friends and 60% of millennials are more likely to take purchasing advice from their favorite creator over their favorite TV or movie star. We trust them because we feel like we know them. We’ve watched our favorite creators grow into the stars they are today. In fact with YouTube, we often feel partially responsible for a creator’s success.
Authentic Delivery
At their core, YouTube, Instagram, and FaceBook Video are direct-to-camera platforms, or as is often the case, a direct-to-smartphone platform. Billions of social media users are accustomed to a broken fourth-wall and creators speaking directly to them. Scripted or not, digital content creators do not feel scripted, which means brand integrations feel more genuine.
Understand the Platform
Platforms like YouTube are weird. And I mean that with full admiration. There’s no other way to explain why Charlie Bit My Finger has 866M views or why What Does the Fox Say has 820M views. You may have the best creative agency in the business, but the creators who grew up on this platform best know how to build appealing, authentic digital content.
How to do it Right:
Incorporate data
The world of YouTube Influencers requires some degree of a leap of faith, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be scientific, strategic, and data-driven. In the past, brands might say, “Dude Perfect are 30-something, white-guys who love sports. Let’s use them to sell footballs to 30-something, white-guys who love sports.” This might work, but challenge these assumptions. New platforms like FameBit, which is now owned by YouTube, allows you to choose creators based on detailed demographic and psychographic profiles of their audience. Your influencer targeting strategy should be every bit as data driven as any other digital media buys.
Relinquish Control
This is the scary one, but it’s often the clearest indicator of why some influencer content feels authentic and some feels staged. Sure, you should develop a creative brief, but you must give creators tons of freedom. Even ultra-brand safe groups like the federal government have found ways to relinquish control. Check out what Rhett and Link created for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when asked to get teens to stop texting while driving.
Measure
According to a survey of marketing professionals conducted by Tomoson, every dollar spent on influencer marketing leads to $6.50 of revenue. That’s an enormous return, but it’s also something you need to measure for yourself. Vanity metrics like views/impressions/clicks have their place, but they don’t tell a full story. Consider partnering with attribution providers that can measure your campaigns impact on brand metrics, or partner with YouTube to run Brand Lift Studies that measure changes in purchase consideration, brand awareness, etc.
Influencer Marketing may seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve worked with advertisers on influencer campaigns in the seven figures, and seen others experiment for only $2,500. Test it. Measure it. Learn from it. Contact a Multi-Channel Network that manages multiple YouTube stars or do it yourself through a platform like FameBit. Don’t let your brand miss the boat...
If you’re looking for help launching your first creator campaign or have questions about influencer marketing, reach out to StoryArcConsulting@gmail.com at any time!