Executive summary

• Influencer marketing is a tool brands can use to reach established audiences for promoting their messages, products, or events.
• Influencer marketing can improve a brand activation by spreading awareness, expanding reach, and fostering brand loyalty.
• When targeting the right niche, influencers with large followings can help raise brand awareness, while influencers with smaller followings can help generate more conversions and engagement.
• To develop a strong influencer marketing relationship for a brand activation, brands should choose influencers that align with their brand values, provide clear expectations, and collaborate on content production.

Influencers are people who have considerable social media followings and have the position to influence their followers to act in purchasing products or services. Brands can leverage the reach of influencers by partnering with them to spread a message, highlight a product, or promote an event.

Influencer marketing is a valuable tool for brands looking to reach new audiences, foster increased loyalty, and differentiate themselves from their competitors. In an activation where a brand seeks to engage more consumers, influencers can spread awareness and encourage their audience to act. 

The right collaboration with influencers can make a brand activation more successful, engaging, and impactful. A strategic relationship with an influencer can help brands promote to audiences that already have a sense of loyalty and trust.

What are the different types of influencers?

When searching for the right influencer partnership, it’s important to understand the different types of influencers you can work with. You can distinguish between influencers based on two key factors—their audience and their niche. 

Audience

Of course, different influencers have different-sized followings, which changes their reach. The level of following is an important area of consideration for brands looking to partner with an influencer to spread a message, highlight a product launch, or build brand awareness.

Influencers are generally broken into the following categories:

• Mega-influencers – 1 million+ followers
• Macro-influencers – 100K to 1 million followers
• Micro-influencers – 10K to 100K followers
• Nano-influencers – Less than 10K followers

Keep in mind that not every activation needs an influencer that has a massive following. Especially if you want to test out a new product, you might not want to shoot for an influencer who has over a million followers right away. In some cases, larger influencers may simply be out of your reach.

In others, smaller influencers can be better, as influencers with smaller audiences may have stronger connections and an increased ability to encourage that audience to take action. Generally, a mega influencer is best for raising general brand awareness, while a micro or nano influencer will be best for fostering tangible engagement or conversions.

Niche

Many influencers have their own niche or area of interest that they cover. Generally, they will stick to discussing topics, products, and services that fall within or make sense for that niche. After all, when they develop a niche, they begin to attract certain types of people who expect certain content. 

This is important context to have when researching influencers—you should choose to work with an influencer that fits within your industry or niche.

Different categories of niches include:

• Lifestyle
• Fitness
• Travel
• Beauty
• Fashion
• Family
• Food
• Gaming

Brands can decide which niche of influencers makes the most sense for them and their goals. Of course, there may be some crossover between niches—for example, a health food company may target a fitness niche for an audience that may be interested in nutrition also. Consider which audience and niche your message will best resonate with in your search for an influencer.

How to leverage influencer marketing for brand activation

Brand activations are designed to engage consumers and get them to act in support of a brand, whether that’s participating in an activity or signing up for an email list. Through influencer partnerships, brands can leverage an already established loyal audience and encourage even more target consumers to act. The following steps will help you build a brand activation plan that delivers results through influencer marketing. 

Setting brand activation goals

One of the most important steps in creating a successful brand activation and influencer partnership is understanding what you want to achieve out of the activation. Goal setting will empower you to find influencers that are best suited for reaching the audience you’re looking for.

Some potential brand activation goals include:

• Driving a certain number of attendees
• Generating new leads through email or contact sign-ups
• Reaching new audiences
• Spreading awareness about a product or service
• Educating consumers about a brand's mission or values
• Launching a new product with tangible sales

With these goals in mind, you can begin to consider how an influencer may provide support in achieving the most successful activation. These will provide valuable context for the type of influencer you should work with and what audience.

Researching influencers

Although influencers are more prominent than ever, finding the right influencer is easier said than done. Brands have to know where to look and how to research influencers in order to find the best fit.

Some strategies for finding influencers include:

• Asking colleagues in your network for references to influencers
• Reaching out to popular content creators on social media platforms 
• Working with an agency that has a network of influencers  
• Encouraging influencers to come to you by posting a request on social media
• Using an influencer marketing platform with a pool of influencers

Once you know where to look for influencers that align with your goals, you can begin to narrow down the best partnership for you through a thoughtful vetting process. Consider their audience size, engagement rates, and audience demographics in your research. 

Choosing the right influencers

Working with an influencer can be a great tool, but it can also backfire if done improperly—it’s crucial to know which influencers may be in alignment with your brand and who will be most effective at spreading the message you’re hoping to spread.

Consider what type of content they create. For example, do they create more comedic content? Or are they more serious or motivational? Understanding the tone of their content will help you determine what best aligns with your brand and maximize your reach.

Researching influencers who have alignment with your brand in core values and reputation will allow you to get the most out of the partnership. For example, if you sell a product geared toward a family, you’ll want to choose a family-oriented influencer rather than one who focuses on solo mountain adventures.

In a nutshell, the following questions can be a helpful guide:

• Does the influencer’s following size match our brand activation goals?
• Does the influencer’s industry/niche match the services or products offered by our brand?
• Does the influencer have a track record of successfully collaborating with similar brands in the past?
• What is the influencer’s reputation amongst their followers, and does it align with our core values?

Building a connection with influencers

Once you have an idea of which influencers you may want to work with, the next step is to reach out to them and attempt to build a strong relationship. In many cases, the best way to reach out is through direct messages on their most-used social media platform. However, some influencers may have an email address or agent to contact in their platform bio.

When you reach out, it’s crucial to establish an authentic relationship—you can pursue your business goals while respecting that they’re a skilled creator with their own processes. Keep in mind that influencers build their followings off of being themselves and having unique personalities, so maintaining and respecting authenticity is key.

As you look to build a connection with influencers, consider the following:

1. Different influencers have different motivations, which sometimes can extend beyond monetary gain and into other factors like moral beliefs and personal goals.
2. Most influencers prefer to maintain creative freedom, so brands should stay flexible and open-minded during the content creation process.
3. Brand should be transparent and communicative to create a sense of clarity and authenticity.

Collaborate on content production and delivery

With an influencer in mind and an established interest in working together, you can then start planning what content you want to see and in what form. Collaboration in content between your brand and the influencer will get you closest to your end goal for content that drives brand activation. Consider providing the influencer with a roadmap of what you want to see out of the end result.

For the best results, ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of content will work best for your brand’s goals? Do you want to see a straightforward product or event review or a comedy sketch that incorporates your product or event in a unique way?
• Will your message be better delivered through photos, video, a story, or a live stream?
• Will there be product giveaways or forms of audience involvement during the course of the collaboration?
• Is there a brand story you want to tell through the content?

An understanding of these questions will provide valuable guidance in how your finished content should look. However, it’s important not to be too regimented.

Although you want to provide an influencer with a strong roadmap of your wishes, it’s important to respect their creative freedom, too. You’ll need to find the right balance between providing direction and trusting their creative process so that you can get your message across but also allow the influencer to do what they do best. 

After all, the strength of influencer marketing is that their audiences trust them, so you shouldn’t interfere too heavily with this process and should allow this trust to work to your advantage.

Measuring influencer marketing results

As with any marketing campaign, any influencer marketing collaboration should have measurable metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). These will provide a reference for the success of the activation and the impact of influencer marketing on its success.

Be sure to determine KPIs and metrics during the planning phase of your activation. These should speak to the overall goal of your event so that you can assess how well your partnership helped you achieve it.

Useful metrics include:

• Campaign reach
• Social media engagement
• Social media mentions
• Website traffic and conversions
• Brand sentiment
• Direct sales
• Lead generation and new customer sign-ups

If you have metrics for brand activations that did not utilize influencer marketing, it may be helpful to compare the results of the activations to see if working with an influencer made a notable difference.

Because influencers are experts in their field, consider talking to them afterward to gather their thoughts on the success of the campaign. Learn more about their perspective on how well they feel the content was received by their audience and whether they have any additional insight that you may not be able to gather through your metrics and KPIs.

This debriefing is crucial if you plan to continue the relationship into the future so you know what went well and what you can improve.

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Drive brand activation with influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for expanding the reach and success of your brand activation. Through careful research and collaboration, the right influencer partnership can help you reach new audiences and make the most of your brand activation.

At PETERMAYER, influencer marketing is one of many areas where we can support you in a successful marketing campaign. We’ve connected brands with influencers to expand the reach of their events and build an even more positive perception in the public eye. However, we don’t stop there.

We’ll also help you develop a cohesive marketing campaign to maximize the reach of your message, gather data to shape a successful brand strategy, develop memorable content, and so much more. Most of all, we’ll help you unlock the inherent joy within your brand to connect with consumers in the most meaningful and memorable way possible.

Contact us today to learn more about influencer marketing and how we can support you in using it to maximize the results of your brand activation.