Reaching online influencers as a brand is a necessary and important arm of your social media or PR strategy. Read to see how you can execute an influencer marketing strategy and the ROI it can provide.

1. A P P R O A C H T O I N F L U E N C E R M A R K E T I N G
EARNED MEDIA 2.0

2. W H AT I S I N F L U E N C E R M A R K E T I N G ?
D e f i n e d b y t h e W o r d o f M o u t h M a r k e t i n g
A s s o c i a t i o n ( W O M M A )
Influence is the ability to cause or contribute to a change in opinion or behaviour.
An influencer is a person or group of people who possess greater than average
potential to influence due to attributes such as frequency of communication, personal
persuasiveness or size of and centrality to a social network, among others.
Influencer marketing is the act of a marketer or communicator engaging with key
influencers to act upon influencees in pursuit of a business objective.
http://www.slideshare.net/svenmulfinger/womma-influencer-guidebook-2013-pdf

3. W H Y I N F L U E N C E R M A R K E T I N G ?
• Reach audience in authentic tone-of-voice
• Provides third-party credibility – 92% of consumers trust recommendations from
other people – even strangers – over brand content
• Generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising
• These customers have a 37% higher retention rate
• Grow customer acquisition
• Acquire better quality customers
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewong/2014/09/10/the-explosive-growth-of-influencer-marketing-and-what-it-means-for-you/
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/why-influencer-marketing-is-the-new-content-king-infographic/618187

4. W H E R E T O F I N D T H E M
• Across every industry, led by food, lifestyle, parenting, beauty and DIY
• Blogs still lead the way, but social networks are growing quickly – especially
Instagram and Pinterest for certain categories of influencers
• Take steps to narrow down your search based on the campaign objective:
1. Identify the industry and type of content (long-form, photo, video)
2. Match with most relevant platform
3. Use tools to research platform’s influencers which most align with
your target audience
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/why-influencer-marketing-is-the-new-content-king-infographic/618187
http://blog.tomoson.com/influencer-marketing-study/

5. http://traackr.com/faces-of-influence/

6. H O W T O U S E I N F L U E N C E R S
• Like PR, all about building relationships
• Smarter identification
• Vet influencers for levels of engagement, following, content
• If they’ve worked with competitive brands to ensure campaign
alignment
• Who are they influencing? Use Followerwonk to measure:
• Spam followers – less than 15 followers
• Average number of followers’ followers
• Influencers expect creative flexibility, with little imposition from the brand
• Some influencers will require payment and have an agent
• Potential to work on paid social or blog seeding program
• Work with them to align on campaign objectives so you can set up tracking
• Consideration for competitions – on their Twitter to add followers, Facebook for
sharability and comments, blog for editorial
http://www.augure.com/blog/influencers-marketing-status-2014-survey-20140226

7. INFLUENCING PURCHASE CONSIDERATION

8. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/digitizing_the_consumer_decision_journey
O N W H I C H P L AT F O R M S A R E P E O P L E I N F L U E N C E D ?
A N D A T W H A T S T A G E O F T H E P U R C H A S I N G P R O C E S S

9. W H E R E D O P E O P L E S E E K O U T P R O D U C T R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S ?
http://www.socialmedialink.com/blog/72-Social-Media-Link-Releases-Third-Annual-Social-Recommendations-Index-to-Show-How-Consumer-Conversation-
Impacts-Purchase-

10. G E T T I N G I N F R O N T O F T H E C O N S U M E R I N T H E R I G H T P L A C E
Consumer with Intent
Media
PR
Social
Paid
Owned
Influencers
Search
(Google)
SEO
PPC
Website
Blogs
Influencers
Vloggers
PR
E-commerce
(Amazon)
Reviewers
Comparison
sites
Forums*
Paid
Influencers
Digital
Display
PPC
Interaction
Platforms
Marketing
Opportunities
Consumer
Brand
1. Think through the customer’s decision
process and where they interact
2. Identify the channel where we can influence
3. Follow through with the right approach to
influence that channel, using tools at hand
*Forums present risks - do
consider, but chat through with
social lead before proposing

11. I N F L U E N C I N G T H E P U R C H A S E R O F A
C A R S E AT
Step-by-step (intentional purchase):
1. Purchaser googles ‘best car seat’
2. Sees PPC ads
– Shopping ads
• Clicks through to reviews – influencing the store
reviewer (Kiddicare, John Lewis)
– Paid search driving to brand or influencer site
3. Clicks through top organic results
– Made For Mums – article written by Magda Ibrahim
– Mother and Baby – car seat awards
– Which – independent reviews
Other avenues of discovery (passive):
-- Blog
-- YouTube
-- Digital – Outbrain, display, media partnership
-- Paid social
Bold = we can influence

12. I N F L U E N C I N G T H E C H E F
Step-by-step (intentional):
1. Chef googles ‘chicken casserole recipe’
2. Clicks through top organic results
– BBC Good Food
– Good Housekeeping
– Jamie Oliver – paid partnership?
3. Paid search
4. SEO – front page (probably not top 5) – consider second-tier recipes with high search
volume
Other avenues of inspiration (passive):
-- Blogs
-- Pinterest
-- YouTube
-- Owned social
-- Paid social
Bold = we can influence

13. P R O D U C T R E V I E W S
Disclosure and transparency key for paid or product-provided reviews – if any questions, ask Promo Veritas
Best Practices
• Decide on your goals for the review and include in your pitch to the reviewer
• Follow PR best practices – ensure reviewer has all the information they need, be accommodating, build
relationships, etc
• Be generous with product samples - send only full-sized samples and products that best represent your
business, never ask reviewers to return products once they’ve been reviewed, offer second product as
giveaway
• If you get a bad review, don’t defend yourself and your product! You can’t tell them what to write…
Resources:
Amazon Vine programme
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/top-reviewers
http://www.amazon.com/review/hall-of-fame
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/the-power-of-online-reviews-how-bloggers-can-
help-you-get-your-brand-noticed/

14. A C H IEVIN G VA LU E FR OM IM

15. P A I D V S U N P A I D I N F L U E N C E R C O N T E N T
Paid
• Brand control over content – items to agree upon:
• Key messages
• Do’s and Don’ts
• Call to action within the video
• What you want in the video
description box – including links
• Video length
• Ownership of content
• Must disclose partnership in alignment with ASA
guidelines
• Refer to Promo Veritas resources
for contract examples and legal
best practices
• Scheduling campaigns can be difficult if not planned
very far in advance with popular influencers
• Despite payment, similar to dealing with celebrity,
can be fussy with brands
Unpaid
• More natural and authentic for readers
• Paid influencers can be very expensive

16. P R O V I N G T H E V A L U E O F I M
• Track all social metrics from influencer posts – focus on shares for viral effect
• Review any uplift on brand’s social accounts coming directly from influencer
• Track all links through GA to gauge traffic-driving
• Increase in share-of-voice amongst competitors over the period
• Survey target audience pre and post to show uplift in awareness
• Sales data, brand research, lead generation

17. A D D I T I O N A L R E S O U R C E S
• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/tools/customer-journey-to-online-
purchase.html#!/the-uk/shopping/large/generic-paid-search
• https://think.storage.googleapis.com/images/micromoments-guide-to-winning-shift-to-
mobile-download.pdf
• https://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/a-third-of-16-24s-use-social-media-for-product-
research
• http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/stats-influence-purchase-infographic
• http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/a_new_way_to_measure_word-
of-mouth_marketing

18. C ont act us:
t e llme more @ thre epipe .c o.uk