1 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.' Jim Rohn on the power of influencers 2 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
In This Guide, You ll Learn: What An Influencer Is What Influencer Marketing Is 3 Steps to Launching An Influencer Marketing Campaign Which Social Media Platform(s) Make The Most Sense For Your Brand How To Measure Results Of Your Influencer Marketing Campaign 3 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
What Is An Influencer? An influencer in the context of marketing and branding is a person who has developed a large social media following of engaged users. These users have opted in / subscribed to receive the influencers content, via friending, following or subscribing to their social media profile, such as YouTube, Pinterest, Vine, Instagram, etc. Whenever the influencer publishes media, whether it is a new video on YouTube, a six second video on Vine or an image on Pinterest, the follower will see it in their media stream. Examples of famous influencers include Nash Grier (10.9M followers on Vine), Zoe Sugg (6.5M subscribers on YouTube) and Chris Ozer (605k followers on Instagram). In addition to these fairly well known social media stars, there are literally tens of thousands more who have developed highly engaged and faithful followers north of 100k strong (and growing) each. Even at 20k+ subscribers, influencers become interesting and relevant to brands, depending on the niche that the brand focuses on. Additionally, being an influencer isn t just about having a lot of followers. It s also driven by expertise and credibility on subject matter and the trusted relationship between the influencer and his or her followers. 4 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
What Is Influencer Marketing? These social media influencers or Influencers are being hired by brands to endorse their products in their social media posts in a marketing tactic that is quickly growing popularity called Influencer Marketing. By using Influencer Marketing as a brand awareness tactic, brands are leveraging the Influencer s expertise, credibility, trusted relationship and the wide distribution Influencers have built up and developed over time through creating content that connects. The largest demographic that brands are reaching using Influencer Marketing is the Millennials. Millennials are commonly considered those people whose birth 1 years range from the mid 1980s to the year 2000. Millennials are consuming 2 more media online and on their mobile devices than traditional media channels. 1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/millennials 2 Source: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/survey finds millennials watch tv actual tvs/206229 5 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Research suggests that Internet and social networking represent nearly 40% of time millennial spend daily consuming content while print advertising represents less than 3%: In order to reach Millennials, Brands are shifting budget away from advertising on TV, radio and print, and moving that budget to Influencer Marketing. And, millennials are responding to influencer s endorsements. A recent research study by Nielsen also showed that buyers trust experts and influencers over branded content. According to the report, here s how 3 expert/influencer content performed over Branded content : 88% Lift in Brand Familiarity 50% Lift in Brand Affinity 38% Lift in Purchase Intent 3 Source: http://www.inpwrd.com/nielsen 6 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Also, according to a McKinsey & Co. study, marketing inspired word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising, and these customers 4 have a 37% higher retention rate. To add to the power of Influencer Marketing, Influencers typically represent what s cutting edge in trends, products and services in the market. By using Influencers to promote their product or service, Brands get the additional benefit of being positioned as having new and desirable products and services that have not yet reached mass appeal, but are being used by the in crowd. 4 Source: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/the_consumer_decision_journey 7 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
3 Steps to Launching An Influencer Marketing Campaign Although Influencer Marketing campaigns come in many flavors, there are three primary steps that pretty much every campaign launch follows: 1. Identify The Right Influencers 2. Engage With Influencers 3. Define Campaign Objectives 1. Identify The Right Influencers To get the best results from your Influencer Marketing campaigns, it is important to find Influencers whose followers align with your target audience. For example, if you sell children s books, choose Influencers who are followed by moms (and who talk about mommy stuff). The best way to find out who these influencers are is to start by researching the social media websites where your target audience spends their time. For example, if your target audience is moms of small children, you may want to check out Pinterest, a social media network which has predominantly female users (upwards of 70%, although more and more men are joining). Continuing with the children s book example, you can search for mommy / children s books related topics in Pinterest and you will find Pinterest users (or Pinners ) whose pins are very popular. These Pinners would be good potential targets for your Influencer Marketing campaign, due to their popularity and alignment with the subject matter you care about. In addition to searching on social media websites, there is a host of tools online that can help you find influencers. Klout, PeerIndex, and Buzzsumo are three 8 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
leading tools to help you with your Influencer research (more tools are listed at the end of this ebook). 2. Engage With Influencers Once you ve identified your target influencers, the next step is to engage with them on a 1 to 1 basis. Before directly reaching out to them, to help improve the chances of a warm reception, you may want to try mentioning them in a blog post on your site, or comment/like/share their content. By doing so, you will get on their radar and they ll know who you are when you come calling. Then, send an email directly to the influencer and share the post where you mentioned them with them (if applicable), and add in your desire to hire them for an influencer marketing campaign. Include info about your product/service and why you think they d be a good fit. From there, its up to the two of you to determine whether they are going to be the right person for your influencer campaign. The more expertise they have regarding your niche and the larger their following, the more effective your Influencer Marketing campaigns will be. Keep this in mind when screening them for your campaign. 3. Define Campaign Objectives Once you find a fit with an influencer, the next step is defining your campaign objectives. You ll want to provide talking points/guidance on the creative assets they will be producing for you whether it be a photo, a 6 second video or a 5 minute YouTube Video. However, it is critical that you let the Influencer own the creative process. They are most familiar with what content will resonate with their audience best 9 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
simply because they developed the very faithful following you are trying to reach out of their own flavor or content. If you are too heavily involved with the creative process, you stand to tarnish the authenticity of it, thereby reducing the likelihood that the influencer campaign will be as truly effective as you d like. You also want to be sure to cover which social media networks they will post the campaign creative assets on. Will it just be posted to Pinterest? Or will they include posting the asset to Instagram and Vine? The more social media networks they post the creative assets to the more eyeballs get to see your campaign, so the more the better! Also, now is the best time to discuss campaign performance metrics (see Measuring Results below for more information on influencer marketing campaign metrics). For some CMO s the performance metrics will be based on impressions and reach, for others it will be based on number of conversions and the ROI driven from the campaign. Either way, have the discussion with the Influencer now, before you launch, so that you have a mutual understanding of campaign performance metrics before the campaign begins. 10 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Which Social Media Platform(s) Make The Most Sense For Your Brand Each social media platform appeals to different demographics and are native to different types of media (e.g. short form video vs. images). Below are some important highlights to know about the five largest social media platforms for your influencer marketing campaigns: Short, snackable 6 second video segments that are typically known for their use of humor, artistic and creativity ability. Users typically are in the 13 25 year old range with approx. 50 million+ users. Vine skews female with 57% females and 43% males. Typical attribution is from a hashtag campaign, as no link attribution is possible. Best for developing a brand story and product reviews over a longer video format. Great and engaging videos will range from 1 10 minutes and typically most influencers will talk about one or more products. This channel has proven very useful for new product launches and unboxings for fashion, beauty, electronic, fitness, and home goods. The audience range on YouTube is wide ranging from 10 65+ year olds with 1 billion plus users. Attribution is based on coupon codes and/or unique links placed in the video s description. 11 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Primarily a photo driven platform, though with the addition of video publishing more recently, it is turning into a very good channel to see both types of mediums. As of December 2014, it surpassed Twitter with over 300 million users. Roughly half of internet using young adults ages 18 29 (53%) use Instagram, which also skews slightly female. And half of all Instagram users (49%) use the site daily. This channel has proven successful for fitness, fashion, automotive and app publishers. Typical attribution is from a hashtag campaign, as no link attribution is possible. A live video platform that can be distributed to followers where the videos are erased after views for one to one distribution, or exist for a short period of time for re views when broadcasted using the Story method. Users on this channel skew younger, and are in line with Vine from 13 35 years old and have a strong user base among late teen and college students. As of December 2014 Snapchat has over 100 million monthly active users. This platform is performing well for movie studios, casual dining brands, sporting teams and live music events. Typical attribution is from a hashtag campaign, as no link attribution is possible. 12 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
This channel has become the benchmark channel for fashion and apparel brands. It is also predominantly female users that consume the content on the channel, over 70% female although more males as of recent are joining an aggressive pace. Typical user demographics are females age 20 35. Typical attribution is possible via direct links in the pin description and calls to action on the images. 13 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Measuring Results From Influencer Marketing Campaigns Influencer marketing should generally be considered as an upper funnel marketing tactic first, then a lower funnel tactic second. In other words, the primary metrics of an Influencer Marketing campaign should be focused on driving engagement and expanding the reach of your brand to new audiences. An effective influencer marketing campaign will also drive conversions and successful ones are extremely ROI positive. Case Study: Casper Mattress saw a 3x return on investment within the first week of launching their YouTube influencer videos. The challenge, however, in measuring ROI directly from Influencer Marketing campaigns is that there are several limitations in tracking campaigns directly to conversions. For example, Vine and Instagram do not allow using links. In YouTube, viewers watching an influencer s YouTube video might not click on the attributed link in the video description, however after watching the video, they may directly go to your site and purchase your product. Although tracking conversions coming directly from influencer marketing campaigns may be problematic, there are some important business metrics to track: How many engagements did the influencer s media receive (likes, comments, shares, etc.)? Was new, incremental traffic generated to my website, microsite or landing page? 14 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
How many more times was my brand or product mentioned online during/after the campaign when compared to before the campaign? How many new fans, followers or subscribers did I acquire during/following the campaign? How many mentions did the #hastag used in the influencer marketing campaign get? How many new inquiries did my inbound sales team receive? How many sales or leads were directly attributed to your influencer marketing campaign? It is also helpful to note: What value did the influencer(s) bring compared to the financial cost? Which influencer had the greatest impact (likes, shares, comments, etc.)? How was the campaign perceived? How close to our goals did we come? What did we learn? 15 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
In Summary Unlike Facebook and Google advertising, which focuses on using interruption based marketing to get clicks and conversions, Influencer Marketing leverages a more permission based approach where credible social media Influencers endorse your Brand, product and service. As paid media channels such as Facebook and Google continue to get more competitive and more expensive channels to advertise on, Influencer Marketing is becoming a valuable alternative for CMOs to drive brand based engagement and new user acquisition. Including Influencer Marketing into your media mix is a great way to amplify your brand, product and service in front of new audiences in an engaging and welcoming way. email us at: growth@sciencegrowthlabs.com 16 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
Additional Resources Below are the additional resources for getting the most out of your Influencer Marketing campaigns: Articles/Research Pew Research: Social Media Update 2014 Blog post: Generate Social Media Buzz Kim Kardashian Would Envy, With Influencer Marketing Blog post: The Viral Power of Content Marketing Using Influencer Campaigns Tools To Find Influencers Klout.com Visible Technologies Traackr Little Bird BuzzSumo PeerIndex Keyhole 17 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com
About The Authors: Corey Quinn runs the business development and corporate marketing divisions for Science Growth Labs, LLC. He s a Santa Monica native and his passions include online B2B marketing, entrepreneurship, family, hiking and the occasional glass of red wine. Connect with Corey on twitter: @coreyquinn Rob Ilas is a sales director based out of LA at Science Growth Labs. He has a background in ecommerce and helping brands determine the best channels to drive customer acquisition. His interests include travel, investments, food and the latest tech innovations. Keep up with him by following on Twitter and Instagram @robilas About Science Growth Labs, LLC: Science Growth Labs was developed by Science Inc., which builds, buys and invests in disruptive media, services and ecommerce companies. Leveraging broad learnings from crafting digital marketing strategies for Science portfolio companies like Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay and Urban Remedy, Science Growth Labs applies innovative customer acquisition techniques to outside brands, both startups and large corporations. Science Growth Labs combines creative tactics to market brands on influencer networks across Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine, while also tapping into expertise in paid acquisition channels on Facebook, Twitter, Google and Bing search. 18 CMO s Guide To Influencer Marketing www.sciencegrowthlabs.com