Marketers that partner with influencers could benefit from taking a longer-term approach and using more nuanced forms of measurement, according to an online travel expert that has worked with numerous big-name brands.
Oneika Raymond, host of two digital series from the Travel Channel – “Big City, Little Budget” and “One Bag and You’re Out” – and a well-known blogger discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2019 Influencer Marketing Conference.
Having worked with marketers like financial services provider American Express, beverage giant Coca-Cola, electronics firm Sony and carmaker Toyota on assignments in over 115 countries, Raymond knows what a good tie-up looks like.
And moving beyond short-term affiliations is generally a beneficial approach, she asserted: “It doesn't serve me as an influencer to do a one-off campaign,” Raymond said. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: An influencer’s six tips for building meaningful brand partnerships.)
For marketers, she further ventured, “If you employ an influencer on a six-month on 12-month term, you can better ensure the brand messaging stays alive over that duration.”
Logistics and logic support this model: “It makes way more sense to employ ten influencers for six to 12 months, rather than employing 50 people for two weeks. Yes, you may get that spike, that burst. But the cycle moves along really quickly.
“If you want your brand to be on the lips and on the minds of consumers, the influencer engagement needs to be enduring; it needs to be something that occurs at various times, as opposed to just one major push,” said Raymond.
Analysis of influencer marketing, Raymond continued, too often is grounded on quantitative indices instead of qualitative impact: “They focus almost singularly on numbers, not on engagement,” she said.
The problem with that approach? “We are in the time of the micro-influencer. Kim Kardashian is cute, but we're kind of over her. We may like her photos, but we know that she's not going to engage with us.”
But send a message to an influencer who pays more attention to her audience, and there is a strong possibility that they are “going to give you the time of day.”
Sourced from WARC
