Historically, a short term approach has been somewhat of a norm within influencer marketing. One-off campaigns that span just a few weeks, or even a few days, are unfortunately not a rare sight. However, more and more companies are moving away from campaign-based influencer marketing in favour of an always-on strategy.
In this article, we’ll outline three reasons why we at Cure Media always advocate an always-on approach to influencer marketing, and why we believe this strategy is here to stay.
What is an always-on influencer marketing strategy?
Always-on influencer marketing means that brands establish a constant brand presence on social media via the influencers that their target audience follows, relates to and relies on. The idea is to appear in consumers’ feeds (and lives) during their “moments of need”, to make sure your brand is top of mind when it’s time for a purchase decision.
What are some of the benefits of an always-on approach?
Benefit #1: It helps you build trust and credibility amongst your target audience
You know that friend that only calls you when they need you? You don’t want to be that friend. At the core of influencer marketing lies relationships, i.e. the bond that influencers have spent years building with their followers, and that you, as a brand, can tap into when collaborating with them. As with all relationships in life, building trust and credibility takes time, and this is no less true in an influencer marketing context. If you only do a couple of influencer campaigns every now and then, you are that friend who only shows up when it’s beneficial to you. On the other hand, by adopting an always-on approach, one in which you consistently and over time get to know your audience through relevant influencers (and even more importantly, give your audience the chance to get to know you!), you will stand a much better chance of being the brand they have top of mind and ultimately choose to invest in.
Benefit #2: It enables you to measure and optimise results over time
As with any other marketing channel, you need lots of data and insights to evaluate and optimise your results. Work with one-off campaigns and you will have little-to-no chance to improve along the way – or at least, you’ll have to wait until the next big launch to do so. When working with influencer marketing in an always-on manner, you can tweak and finetune the results, responding to trends and patterns in previous activations. Which influencers perform best? What content lands with your audience? Which messages resonate and which platforms deliver the best results? Only by monitoring the finer details of your work, can you find the unique recipe that will deliver in line with your business objectives, or the goals for that specific campaign.
Benefit #3: It makes you stand out from the crowd
Okay, let’s face it – almost every B2C brand works with influencer marketing today. The fact that you’re working with influencers to reach your audience will therefore not set you apart from the competition. What will do, on the other hand, is the strategy you choose to apply to the channel. Even though there is a shift currently taking place, many brands still have a single campaign-oriented approach. By instead applying an always-on strategy to influencer marketing, you can build up a constant presence in your audiences’ lives that will make them choose you over the competition. You will not be the brand that disappears between peak seasons, or becomes silent between new product launches – you are there for the long run, through the people they follow and relate to. In order to do this in an authentic way that adds value to your audience, you do of course need to know what types of content they want to engage with, and what they’re passionate about – but that’s a whole different chapter.
Summing it up
There are many benefits of an always-on strategy for influencer marketing, and as an award-winning influencer marketing agency, we have witnessed time and again that an always-on marketing approach is the most effective way to achieve the best results for your business. Whatever your goal, be it raising brand awareness or increasing customer loyalty, driving traffic or launching a new product, always-on influencer marketing provides you with a platform that is as data-driven as it is authentic and that is what it takes to stand out from the crowd.