Influencer marketing is all the rage these days.

Businesses that utilize influencer marketing have a 37% better retention rate  than those that don’t rely on word of mouth. Again, a Forrester report showed that 80% of all B2C and B2B purchases involve some form of word-of-mouth recommendation during the purchase cycle.

Though there are pros and cons with social media marketing, using influencers leverages the commercial value of influence and gets quick results, usually without any cons when properly executed. Adding this to the huge decrease of the CTR for display ads, which is 0.06%, many businesses have started to add influencer marketing to their arsenal.

But how can you create an effective influencer marketing campaign?

Here are 6 tips to use.

1. Know your “who”…This is the biggest mistake people make in any form of marketing: they just jump in and try to get anyone who can pay them money.

You need to target small groups of people. You need to be the one who comes to these people’s minds when it comes to solving the problem your product solves.

So how can you do this? You need to know your target audience better than they do. That’s why you need to go target small groups of people and make your message clearer and sharper by targeting it toward that group.

How can you know your “who” demographic better than they know themselves?

Do the empathy map exercise. It’s a simple exercise where you can either bring members of your target audience into your company, or you could imagine yourself as a member of your target audience.

Then start answering these questions:

• What does your customer see in her environment?
• What does she hear from her friends and family and everyone else with whom she associates?
• What does she think and feel? What is important to her? What are her most important emotions?
• What does she say and do? What are her attitudes?
• What is her pain? What are her biggest frustrations and obstacles?
• What does she stand to gain from your product? What will she achieve with it?

2. Start with the end in mind… Before you actually start your campaign, you need to start with the end in mind.

You need to know the goals you want to achieve from that campaign and work backwards. This will help you determine the budget you need to set aside to reach your goals. Make sure to keep key performance indicators (KPIs) in mind to measure the effectiveness of your campaign from the get-go.

These indicators could be:

• Audience reach
• Views
• Engagement
• Increase in followers
• Sales

3. Make sure the influencer is a good fit…Before you hire an influencer and start thinking about your campaign, you need to make sure that he or she is the perfect fit for you and your brand. Use a platform like Promo Affiliates which connects brands with suitable social influencers.

The influencers will be representing your brand, and if he or she has values that don’t align with your social media governance program, they’ll do more damage than good in the long run.

4. Don’t make all the content yourself; have the influencer create it…The influencer has a very specific, attention-grabbing personality. That’s what attracts people to them. That’s why you don’t need to make the content yourself. Actually, you shouldn’t. Let the influencer do most of the creative work.

He or she already knows their audience and they know what’s going to resonate with them. But you can always offer to help. Give them a hand and maybe share things that are working with other influencers so they can try for themselves and see the results.

The most important part is that your influencer should be the main act when it comes to creating engaging content because he or she knows the audience better than you.

   5. Don’t always go with big names…When people start thinking about influencer marketing, they think they should go to the big people in the industry, the people who have more followers and so on.

Actually, that’s not always the best strategy, especially when you’re just starting out.

You need to go to the people who have the biggest number of people who are part of your specific “who.” Also, when you go with smaller names, they may be more engaging, which will give you higher ROI.

Plus it’s easier to go with people who haven’t done any campaigns or have only done a few. It will be less expensive, of course.

6. Track, measure and analyze…Your job isn’t done after you create the content and publish it. You need to track the results and analyze them based on the KPIs you set.

It’s not just about the likes and views your content receives. Check your traffic stats and your sales count. Did you reach your goals? If yes, then great! Keep rocking with more campaigns.

If not, then you need to find where the problem is and how can you solve it the next time. After all, influencer marketing is a long-term game.

So track the results, measure its effectiveness and analyze your metrics to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.

Call Debbie at Radsick Ad Group to help you with your next “Influencer” marketing campaign.

Reprint: Forbes 5/17