Your customers are turning to social media influencers for recommendations and tips about the products you sell.
While it would be great to simply reach out to influencers you want to work with, and they will automatically agree to work with you, that isn’t realistic. Outreach and recruitment for an influencer marketing campaign take time and experience to master. Fortunately, we live in an age where there are countless influencer marketing tools to help expedite all aspects of managing your influencer campaigns. The tough part is knowing which one will work for your brand.
Here are some tips to help you find the right influencer marketing tools so that your campaigns can be successful.
Know Your Needs By Doing a Self-Assessment
Before exploring all the features of the tools available, you need to determine your brand’s influencer marketing goals by doing a quick self-assessment.
Here’s a quick crash course on what to answer:
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You need to know what you want to achieve with your influencer marketing.
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Are you looking for brand awareness, lead gen, sales or customer engagement?
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You need to know your Target Audience.
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Who are you trying to reach? Different tools are for different demographics and platforms.
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You need to understand the scale of your campaigns.
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Are you going to need a few Micro-influencers or a few celebrities with a massive reach?
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You need to know your budget. Do you have an unlimited budget?
Knowing these will help you choose the right tools for your marketing strategy.
Understand Your Influencer Tool’s Most Helpful Features
Most influencer marketing tools fall into three feature categories based on what they are used for.
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Tools for Influencer recruitment
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Tools for Influencer Marketing Campaign Management
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Tools for Influencer Reporting
Here is what we recommend looking for in each category.
For Recruitment: Features to Look for in an Influencer Recruitment Tool
Recruitment tools are used to help you find influencers that match your brand’s niche and target audience.
Look for recruitment tools that offer the following features:
Search Filters
These allow you to search for influencers to work with based on their demographics, interests, engagement rates, and follower counts. A search filter can save you hours by allowing you to easily refine your searches to those with whom you would like to work.
Influencer Database Size and Scope
By having a large list of influencers across multiple social media platforms, you get more options to find the right influencers to work with. With that in mind, some smaller databases fit your niche or target demographic better than a larger one that has a broad stroke and includes all types of influencers. It’s best to understand the size and scope of the influencers ahead of time.
Campaign Management Tool: Features to Look for in an Influencer Campaign Management Tool
When managing influencer campaigns, look for the following features.
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Tools to Approve the Content that Will be Shared
This feature helps with the most critical step of an influencer campaign: ensuring the influencer’s content aligns with your brand’s message. Having easy-to-use features where you can agree or collaborate on the content ahead of time will avoid potential headaches down the road.
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Tools to Help With Approval Stages
It’s important to have the proper tool features to help with your approval process. You’ll need to be able to review drafts, send revision requests, and approve the shared content before it goes live. Having a tool that simplifies the approval stages is invaluable for your influencer marketing efforts.
Additionally, look for features like:
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Version control: This allows you to track changes made to the content and ensure everyone’s on the same page.
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Feedback tools: These allow you to share clear and specific feedback to influencers within the platform.
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Tools to Help With Communicating With Each Influencer
Managing communication with multiple influencers can be messy with emails and separate threads, so look for an influencer tool that offers a centralized communication hub or messaging system so you can easily follow along with each influencer’s interaction.
A few helpful features to look for are:
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Centralized influencer message inbox: Communicate directly with influencers within the platform, eliminating the need for scattered email threads.
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The ability to collaborate across a team: Internal team members working on the campaign can access communication history and provide input.
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The ability to use campaign tagging: This is important to help organize your messages by specific campaigns for easy reference later.
3. Tools to Help With Task Management
It is critical to have features to help you keep track of the various tasks and deadlines related to your campaigns. A task management feature helps you stay organized and ensures smooth execution.
Here is what to look for:
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Task creation and assignment features: These allow you to assign specific tasks related to your campaigns to yourself or your teammates. Some of these tasks often include briefing influencers, reviewing content, or sending payments to team members with clear deadlines.
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Progress tracking features: These features allow you to monitor the progress of each task and identify any potential delays so you can ensure your campaigns are completed on time.
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Campaign calendar: Having a campaign calendar allows you to see all of your campaign’s milestones and tasks. When you can see everything in a calendar view, everything becomes a little easier to manage.
By utilizing these features effectively, influencer campaign management tools can save you time, improve collaboration, and ultimately lead to more successful influencer marketing campaigns.
Reporting & Analytics: Features to Look for in an Influencer Reporting Tool
Tracking is also crucial throughout the process. It allows you to understand exactly how your influencer campaign efforts are performing at each step.
Here is what to look for with your influencer tool’s tracking features:
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Tracking Your Campaign’s Engagement Metrics
Having the ability to track your engagement metrics will show you how well your campaign is resonating with your target audience.
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Granular engagement data tracking: The tools you use should be able to track likes, comments, shares, saves, subscribers and other relevant metrics across different platforms and pull them into a dashboard for you.
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Benchmarking: Look for the ability to compare your campaign’s engagement metrics against industry averages.
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Engagement rate calculation: The tool should be able to show you engagement rate calculations. These calculations allow you to analyze the percentage of people who interacted with your campaign’s content relative to its total reach.
2. Tracking ROI and Conversions
It’s important to understand how your influencer campaigns impact your bottom line. Look for features that help you track conversions and estimate your influencer campaign’s return on investment (ROI).
Here is what to look for.
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Conversion tracking and integration: Integrate your tool with analytics platforms like GA4 or Adobe Analytics to track website visits, purchases, or other desired conversions driven by the influencer marketing campaign.
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Campaign attribution models: Choose a tool that allows you to accurately attribute conversions to the influencer campaign, considering factors like influencer content and user journey.
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Customizable reporting and dashboards: Generate reports that showcase campaign costs, influencer fees, and the value generated (e.g., sales, leads) to calculate ROI.
In conclusion
By prioritizing these features when choosing an influencer marketing campaign management tool, you’ll gain valuable data to optimize your campaigns for better performance and ROI. Remember, the right tool should provide a comprehensive understanding of your influencer marketing efforts, from content creation to audience engagement and, ultimately, business impact.
What can you learn more about the Partnerize Influencer Tool Suite? Contact us to learn more.
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