Influencers are masters of creating quality content and interacting with your target group – but they’re probably not so familiar with the more technical aspects of marketing.
This means how you brief your influencer is one of the most important components of your influencer marketing campaign.
In it you can tell them exactly what you need in order to maximise your click through rates – that is what they should do in the content as well as how they should present it.
But also, in particular if you are working with an influencer marketing platform, it is likely the content creator will apply to your campaign based off what you write in the brief.
Therefore, it needs to convey what kind of influencer you are looking for – which channel, what follower demographics you want and your desired reach. You’ll need to peak their interest too!
See our checklist for more advice about what to look for in a creator.
Get the brief right and you’ll get sales. It’s really as simple as that.
We analysed hundreds of influencer marketing YouTube videos to see what you need to say in your brief to get the best return on investment.
No, don’t panic – we don’t mean write a script.
This is your creative pitch to the influencers – the story of your campaign – and you need to make it stand out in the crowd.
It can be as simple as a giveaway to the influencer’s followers or a competition.
Try and steer away from pitching just another product placement video and come up with something more appealing for creators.
EXAMPLE
A pen manufacturer came up with the idea of having YouTubers draw a personal life story with their products. For the manufacturer it worked much better than simply having a video that talked about their pens – that’s boring even for writers!
At the end of the day, the content creator knows their audience best. Let them take care of the creative concept for the video.
And this is especially true if your story is a standard product placement.
You’ll end up with a better quality video that’s more believable to the influencer’s audience.
Explicitly communicate to the content creator in your brief why your product/service/brand is great and what your unique selling point is.
If this is clear in the influencer’s mind, they can translate this to their audience.
Videos that simply feature a product but don’t communicate why that product is being talked about don’t achieve the same click through rates as those that give detailed reasons as to why the YouTuber is presenting it to their followers.
Some brands send the creator the product a few weeks before they do the video.
If the product is a mobile gaming app – tell them to get to a certain level before they do a demo video. This ensures the influencer has a good understanding of the game and how it works, in turn making their video more authentic to the audience because they can show they’ve been playing it.
Or a food box service could send two or three boxes to the creator so they can get a grasp of how the service works, timings, try a few recipes and have time to prepare – maybe invite people to join them for the meal. Again it makes the video more trustworthy to the viewers.
If you do not give the audience a good offer they will skip the part of the video that features it.
Your offer – discount, free trial, test sample, whatever – needs to make the viewers feel special and preferably be unique to the community.
If they don’t feel appreciated they will not accept the placement.
If they feel they are getting a good deal – especially if it is time limited – they will feel a necessity to act now or miss out.
Better to have no offer than a bad one!
Make Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse
Analysing this video commissioned by a German glasses retailer you can see a large proportion of viewers skipped over the minutes which featured the brand and product.
In this case the promotion was a 10 per cent discount – something regularly promoted on several websites.
But 50 per cent of viewers dropped off when the voucher was discussed.
The audience clearly didn’t feel the offer made it worth their while to keep watching.
If the audience does not feel they’re getting a good deal, they will simply tune out and not watch the promotional part of the content.
The number of viewers watching the content drops off throughout the video.
Getting the name of your brand or product mentioned in the first 60 seconds means that you have caught most of the audience.
If you are only being talked about at the end of the video, far fewer people are going to hear your message.
TOP TIP
Even better if the YouTuber talks about your brand or product throughout the video – then 100 per cent of the audience is going to hear about you. Although this will cost you more.
That’s right, one! Anymore and your viewers will be confused.
Videos that contain multiple calls to action such as ‘do you like my look?’ and ‘do you have the same problem?’ as well as ‘what do you think of this product?’ encourage discussion but not just about your product.
In fact people might be more inclined to address the other questions and not talk about your product at all.
If people are not talking about it, they are not clicking through to your website either.
TOP TIP
Tell your content creator you just want one clickable link to your website – not multiple links to websites or other videos.
This ensures that if a viewer acts, they only have one choice – and it’s to your product website.
Ask the creator to promote the video or give a sneak peak before it’s published on their other social media channels.
This gets the audience more excited about the content and they are more likely to act when they finally see it.
It also improves the average views of the content and gives it another layer of authenticity – the influencer is excited to show you the video… this product must be good!
This is essential. Without tracking links it is impossible to measure the success of your campaign.
For any video you sponsor, give the YouTuber a one-off tracking link to your website – then you can see exactly how much traffic is generated from that specific content and you can judge if the campaign is a success.
But it is also worth keeping an eye on your organic traffic from the time the video is published.
Our analysis showed that some viewers don’t click the tracking link, but still go to the website either through Google or by directly typing the brand’s url.
So if your organic traffic is higher than usual the day and days after the video goes live – assuming you are not running additional campaigns – this rise should be counted in your conversion calculations.
TOP TIP
If the data shows the content got the clicks you planned, it might be worth your while to sponsor that creator again?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Only the first three lines of the video description appear under the content without it being necessary to open the description box.
If your link is not there, in order to get to it the viewers have to click to read it – this extra click will loose you sales.
Specify where you want your link to the creator and make it super easy for the audience to act on the content.
If your goal is a highly sales driven campaign and you have chosen a good influencer to represent your brand, then the tips above should get you the results you want.
But if your campaign is more geared towards raising awareness of your brand or product, then it will help if you also use your social media and engage with the audience.
Join in the conversation – give explanations, comment, like. If you are a constant presence, you will foster interest in your brand and product or service.
Focus on the marketing technicalities in your influencer briefing, your creator will bring the creativity – follow these ten tips and you’ll not only maximise your click through rates, you’ll also be able to measure your content’s success.
