You’ve heard a lot about the benefits of influencer marketing, but you want to make sure you time it right. It’s a good idea to pause and establish this up front, as there are a number of factors to consider before launching an influencer campaign. First and foremost, you and your key stakeholders need to understand that communicating value is key. The right time for an influencer campaign is when a clear message needs to be conveyed to a well-defined audience. While broad messaging can work, niche, specific messaging tends to drive the most effective and trackable results. Some of the best opportunities to utilize influencer marketing are:
Support a launch
Share a story
Demonstrate how a product or service works
Promote a sale
Influencers can be activated over the course of a campaign and/or over the course of a defined period of time. Before committing to a long term influencer partnership or ambassadorship, we recommend starting with a one-off campaign to test a few key elements:
How the influencer is to work with
How the campaign/content comes out
How the influencer’s audience reacts to the campaign/content
These learnings are invaluable when it comes to confidently building out longer term programs. Sometimes, an influencer can seem enthusiastic at the outset of a project, but something could change throughout the process. When that happens, the brand is much better off to be able to easily cut ties, rather than deal with having to get out of a longterm contract. While there’s always the potential that a first campaign could go great and a follow up could fall flat, this process adds at least one extra layer to safeguard against that happening. Knowing when to launch a campaign also revolves around knowing what the ideal time frame is for setting up and producing the campaign. While every campaign is different, on average, optimal program timing is around three months. This includes:
1 month creative development- You want to give yourself enough time to put all the pieces together in creating your ideal campaign and marketing goals.
1 month influencer selection & contracting- Once you know what your goals are, spend this time looking for the perfect influencer to partner with, and give yourself enough time for the back and forth between you and the influencer(s).
1 month content production and distribution- You have your campaign and you have your influencers. This should be the time to put all the pieces together and let the influencers create and publicize the content they create for your marketing campaign.
Timing is everything when it comes to a successful influencer campaign. This also holds true to timing your campaign launch to what’s happening in the world. The difference between a good joke and an insensitive one is bad timing, and it’s the same for a well-timed promotion, launch, collaboration or marketing push - most perform best when attention is high. Timing is both a matter of attention as well as ethics. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you optimize the timing of your campaign:
Coordinate your timing to attention. This is also a great case for having short-campaigns tailored to key seasonal conversations.
Update your Standard Operating Procedures for your Social Team. You should proactively identify under what cases managers and team members should call timing into attention.
Be a part of Conversations and Solutions; even when it’s not a direct promotion. You can promote a brand through both product and action.
45ting push - most perform best when attention is high. Timing is both a matter of attention as well as ethics. Here are a few things to consider when finalizing timing: