Six tips for brands that want to increase their brand value through influencer marketing

"Brands have recognized that influencer marketing works for both performance and branding goals," says Björn Wenzel, founder and managing director of the influencer marketing agency Lucky Shareman. Influencer marketing is also becoming more important for brand communication today because many target groups are becoming increasingly difficult to reach via traditional media such as TV or newspapers and magazines. Opinion leaders on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter, on the other hand, are popular with their followers and can become genuine brand ambassadors.

Many brands are therefore relying more heavily on influencer marketing in order to sustainably increase brand sympathy and willingness to recommend their customers, especially as influencer marketing has become highly professionalized in recent years. Björn Wenzel, gives brands six tips for the effective use of influencer marketing:

1) Include influencer marketing in media planning and integrate it into the campaign

The media market is more fragmented than ever due to the digital transformation. Many target groups can hardly be reached through traditional media. Influencer marketing is an effective way of targeting mobile and digital-savvy users. It should therefore definitely be included in the media mix and firmly integrated into campaigns so that the individual campaign components reinforce each other. Influencer marketing often has a positive knock-on effect on other online marketing measures within a campaign. For example, page views to the campaign landing pages increase or users search more for the brand. Brands also use influencer texts, images, videos and other content for their own social media channels, homepage, online display advertising or poster campaigns.

2) Use media budgets specifically for influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is no longer mainly used in the fashion and beauty industry. Across all industries, brands are now shifting parts of their media budgets to influencer marketing. The proportion of influencer marketing budgets is already between five and 15 percent in some cases, depending on the industry. Studies show: Over 60 percent of global marketers want to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the future. Goldmedia estimates the market volume for influencer marketing in the DACH region at 990 million euros in 2020. In order to remain competitive, brands should specifically integrate influencers into their communication.

3) Focus on branding instead of just reach

Brand equity is made up not only of tangible but also intangible values such as brand sympathy and customers' willingness to recommend the brand to others. Influencers can increase a brand's brand equity by acting as credible brand ambassadors. Many brands are therefore placing greater emphasis on soft factors in influencer marketing campaigns rather than just reach and sales: these include interaction rates and brand popularity. Long-term collaborations and brand staging should definitely flank product placements and advertising campaigns by influencers.

4) Select influencers carefully and ensure quality

Influencers can only boost a company's brand value if they align with the brand's values, their followers fit the brand and their content contributes to the brand. For the campaign to be successful, it is crucial to select influencers specifically and brief them precisely - including on overarching campaign goals and the brand essence. Companies should also regularly review the content during the campaign to ensure quality. But be careful: as part of the briefing and brand fit, influencers need the greatest possible freedom to make the most of their creative skills.

5) Combine hero and micro-influencers

Influencer marketing is more than just reach. Hero influencers have over 250,000 followers, micro influencers up to 25,000 followers. Both categories should be combined to increase brand value. The stars primarily stand for reach and branding, while micro-influencers can often communicate even more directly with their fans because their numbers are more manageable.

6) Increase planning reliability through market research

Influencer campaigns can increase branding and sales. However, in order to increase planning security, companies should accompany the campaigns with market research that not only examines reach. Ideally, key advertising performance indicators such as brand and advertising awareness are collected by surveying followers. This allows brands and agencies to check and optimize the performance of their campaigns. Market research determines, for example, whether the appropriate target groups were reached, how the campaign contributed to the branding and how strongly the followers were activated by the campaign.

Björn Wenzel from Lucky Shareman is convinced: "Branding goals must be specifically reviewed using market research in order to increase planning security and standardization in influencer marketing." The agency presents its latest white paper "How brands can increase their value with influencer marketing" here available for download. Lucky Shareman explains the importance of media planning and market research in this new marketing discipline.