Here’s Why Influencers Can Be Considered Part of Your Brand’s Tactical Marketing Team – Corporate B2B Sales & Digital Marketing Agency in Cardiff covering UK

Influencer marketing captures an opportunity to move outside of pure product push and into communications from a fresh perspective speaking from outside of your brand voice.

During #SMWONE, Takumi‘s Derek Wiggins and m/SIX‘s Keri Drengler shared a vested interest in establishing brand reach through influential means, and joined forces to discuss what companies have to gain—and what to watch out for—in this new-ish arm of marketing. With the right approach, influencer marketing can be used to create, share, attribute, and amplify the right message.

Here are the primary insights and takeaways:

Drengler is the Managing Director of Digital m/SIX, a media planning and buying agency that specializes in driving commercial and audience growth in today’s data and tech-led media landscape. Wiggins is the US Country Head for Takumi, as well as a public speaker. He is the leading force to driving revenue and developing the Takumi offering to ensure the business remains the market-leading influencer company.

“Influencers are a critical part of the marketing mix,” explained Drengler to kick off the conversation. They meet your audience on their level and where they operate. Picking which creators are a fit for your brand and will help you deliver an authentic message is an entirely different story. Fortunately, she and Wiggins had some advice to share including how to navigate the balance of creativity versus control – that isn’t at the expense of the influencer’s audience.

Choosing the right influencer

In order to amplify your message effectively, you need to project it from the right loudspeaker. Where does your audience consume the majority of their media? Exploring audience platform use can lead you to the right type of influencer. A major medical retailer may not fain much traction with the TikTok crowd. Authenticity counts, a brand is wise to gain an understanding of its positioning and live that message through all of its outlets, even social media influencers. Influencers can be a direct line to your ideal customer and when their position is matched equally a clean partnership is established.

Protecting your brand

Allowing your communication to go through an influencer, essentially a vendor now, does come with its fair share of bumps. Once the posts are out and live, there is no way to contain its audience reach or reaction. The idea of brand safety, mitigating off-topic or harmful conversations, is something to discuss before engaging in the partnership. Influencers know their audience and have a strong, authentic connection, but often aren’t professional marketers. Working with a partner like m/SIX alleviates a bit of the pressure surrounding the hand-off from your digital experts to a handle on Instagram.

“Brands should market when things are good and have to market when things are bad,” relays Keri. Unique circumstances require creative solutions, and influencer marketing is just that. Pairing your brand with the exact people whom you wish to serve is a no-brainer, it’s just a matter of finding the right person.

Test and learn

Before brands embark on a multi-channel approach, go back to basics. What’s the end goal? “Your team doing the cool new dance challenge might align with brand affinity, but not so much with a goal of increased sales,” Keri reminds us. Asking the fundamental question of ‘How can we pair what we do with our customers’ needs will always create a strong campaign.

Reviewing the engagement rates for a specific content type goes far in planning and finetuning a brand’s next steps.

Authentic engagement, regardless of platform, will win every time. Ad Derek reminds us, “influencer marketing is an opportunity to add a tactical member of your marketing team. One who is tuned in to your ideal audience and presents a familiar face in a place they are visiting on the regular.

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The post Here’s Why Influencers Can Be Considered Part of Your Brand’s Tactical Marketing Team appeared first on Social Media Week.

Here’s Why Influencers Can Be Considered Part of Your Brand’s Tactical Marketing Team