Influencer marketing is not an unfamiliar territory any longer. The industry is projected to become a $15 billion global industry by the year 2022, up from $8 billion in the year 2019. It is no surprise then that CMOs has continued to emphasise the influencer marketing strategies in their plans.

74 percent of the CMOs that was surveyed in the 2019-2020 Gartner CMO Spend Survey planned to increase the number of their social marketing (including influencer marketing) spending while 65 percent planned to roll out full or to pilot influencer campaigns, with an estimated amount of $6.5 billion having gone toward the campaigns in the year 2019. But just because the investment in influencer campaigns is a very important consideration does not mean it is a simple task.

The widening catalogue of the highly used social platforms, issues that are rampant of fake followers and the inauthentic engagement, and also the intricacies of influencer selection contribute to an influencer landscape that is defined by the constantly escalating complexity. On top of this, marketers are still challenged to think holistically about where the influencers fit within their marketing strategy.

For you to overcome these challenges and to ensure a long-term success, it is very important for marketers to first assess their brand’s readiness for an influencer partnership. We have here three key considerations for doing this.

 

Consideration 1: You need to assess your brand performance relative to the influencers: Marketers should ask themselves question like “can my brand gain a significant lift in the social media engagement from the angle of the influencers’ branded posts over my own brand posts”?

As brands are working with influencers to engage with the consumers along the purchase funnel from the awareness to conversion, marketers also should monitor the attributable brand lift measures such as the engagement rates and the community growth. If you can carrying out this internal review, it can be of help to justify ad spend and to determine whether these partnerships will be an added value.

 

Consideration 2: The Gauge consumers desire to see much more influencer content in a category: Marketers should be able to ask themselves questions like “are consumers desiring more influencer content than what is recently out today in the product category i offer”?

This is a very necessary step to take in the process as the higher consumer interest in seeing more influencer content can be of help to you getting organisational buy-in and dispel any misconceptions that the influencer marketing is not right for a category. 79% of those surveyed in the month of October 2020 Gartner Consumer and the Culture Panel survey claimed that they consume the influencer.

 

Consideration 3: Evaluate your brand performance relative to the sector peers: Marketers should question themselves “are my sector peers making use of the influencers as part of their broader social media strategy”?

Review the sector penetration of the influencer marketing simply by assessing the influencer marketing adoption rates or the sponsored post activity, done across various social channels. Understanding the broader marketplace view will be of help to you determining if and how brands should leverage the influencer marketing. This may be somehow a necessary part of the consumer experience in the categories with high influencer sponsored post activity or it may serve as a competitive advantage and differentiator in categories with low sponsored activity.