How to set goals for influencer marketing campaigns

Influencer marketing campaigns are a fantastic way to elevate your brand and help your message reach wider audiences. Whether you’re launching a new product, drumming up interest for a service offering, or looking to reach a new audience – influencer marketing is quickly becoming a must-have for any digital marketing strategy.

As with any digital marketing activity, to get the most out of your campaigns and make sure they are working how you want them to, you need to set goals and expectations. 

Setting the right influencer marketing goals

There are two types of goals to consider:

1. Action
2. Awareness

Which you choose will depend on what you’re looking to achieve with your campaign. If the objective of the campaign is to have end-consumers complete an action, such as a purchase or signing up to a newsletter, then Action goals should be in place to measure the success of the campaign. If you’re looking to generate extra buzz around your brand, either with your existing audience or by reaching out to a new audience, then Awareness goals are your best bet. 

The difference between Action and Awareness goals

Action goals focus on tangible results, and should be in place if you are trying to:

1. Generate revenue
2. Increase downloads 
3. Encourage signups 

Awareness goals focus on less tangible results, and should be in place if you are trying to:

1. Reach new audiences
2. Increase your follower count
3. Drive traffic to your website

Both types will need a robust measurement approach in place to be able to see the effectiveness of each of the campaigns.

How to set the right goals

When you’re setting goals, you need to tie them back to your objectives and overall strategy. For example, you might have:

• Objective: Increase revenue by 40% vs. last year for the current financial year
• Strategy: Utilise new revenue streams 
• Goal: Drive additional £100,000 through new revenue streams over the next 6 months
• Tactic: Influencer marketing across Instagram, Facebook

The objective is your end goal – you want to make sure this is always front and centre in your plans so you can work backwards from it; what is it you need to do to achieve that? 

The strategy is then the road to how you make that happen, in this example it’s through new revenue streams to add an additional layer of revenue to the business. Your goal is then a step of that journey – you need to hit this amount to make it successful – and then your tactics are how you will achieve that, in this case through influencer marketing across Facebook and Instagram. 

Goals should always link back to the overall strategy and the overall objective, and once you’ve defined those it is easier to determine what steps you need to take to make that happen. Other goals you could set for influencer marketing include:

1. Brand awareness – increase the number of followers across social media, increase the level of conversation happening around your brand
2. Brand identity – effectively associate the brand outputs with the brand messaging, build an intrinsic link between message and identity, e.g. through mission statements and branded hashtags, ToV or social aesthetic
3. Lead generation – increase the number of signups through social media channels
4. Sales – increase the transactions and/or transaction value through social media channels
5. Engagement driving – increase engagement across social media channels through comments, conversations, shares etc.

Remember, goals tend to split into either Action or Awareness-led measurement so once you’ve set your goals against your strategy and objectives, you’ll need to be able to effectively measure the performance.

For more information on how you can make influencer marketing work for you, download our latest eBook on Proving the ROI of Influencer Marketing which includes information on how you can define goals and how you measure them to prove the return on your investment.
Want to take your influencer marketing campaigns to the next level? Get in touch with our team today to discuss your requirements.