Halloween – a celebration of all things scary. What better ocassion to talk about frightening away your influencers than this especially spooky day? That's why we've put together a list of 10 things that could terrify influencers so you can prevent failed campaigns or other potential disasters.
10 Potential Causes of Failed Campaigns with Influencers
1. Focusing on yourself from the start
When initiating contact with an influencer you wish to collaborate with, make sure to keep their needs and expertise in mind. Point out what you like about their content before you explain your ideas and needs. Then ask for their opinion or thoughts on the potential collaboration. This allows for two-way communication and sets you on the right path for a long-term relationship resulting in successful influencer campaigns.
2. Sending mass emails
Each influencer represents a particular niche or expertise, and wants to be treated specially as any client would. We're all bombarded with mass mailings every day so we're used to spotting the difference between a personalized email, or an automated mass one. Proper segmentation and a personalized "to" subject line with their names can help for general communications – made possible through digital platforms that are tailored for this.
However, when it comes to collaborating on content creation, take the time to reach out personally to each influencer, and ask for their ideas (remember, they're the experts in content creation!). By only focusing on your needs, the collaboration could result in failed campaigns, with the content looking unnatural on the influencer's social channels.
What we always stress: communication has to be one-on-one. This will also help you stay tuned for the monitoring of their publications to track your campaigns.
3. Making last minute changes
In our recently published step-by-step guide, Influencer Marketing 101, we discussed the importance of being clear about deliverables and expectations from the beginning. It takes a lot of time and effort for your influencers to create content, so make sure you specify all details of what you expect from the collaboration from the very start. If you'd prefer your product to be featured in a beach picture, say so at the beginning. Last minute changes are guaranteed to scare your influencers away.
4. Inviting them to events where you only talk about yourself
Nothing will scare off an influencer more than attending your event as a special guest, only to encounter a purely self-promotional affair with zero focus on them.
Allow your influencers to be at the center of your events, and to serve as an opportunity to create great content! Your products and brand will be naturally integrated and seem much more genuine this way. In our era of full transparency, a little humility goes a long way.
5. Calling insistently
This is the one of biggest scares for your influencers. If you insist on calling them, ask them for a time slot and treat it as an opportunity to further build your relationship with that influencer; don't just talk business. If you're looking to build successful campaigns, nurturing long term relationships with your influencers is key. Check out a recent post we published on how 3 German brands are succeeding at building relationships with influencers.
6. Purely talking about product communication and never about product testing
If you launch a product and want your influencers to talk about the value and usefulness, offer them a trial first. Invite them to your office to show them how it works or send them the product to test it out before beginning the content creation process.
This is another great way of reinforcing your influencer relationships. You'll build trust, and get honest feedback. Once your influencer has tested the product, they'll also feel much more confident about communicating the benefits to their followers, and consequently result in genuine content. Remember: authenticity is key.
7. Offering them zero digital resources
The old paper press pack, which weighed half a ton and took up half a drawer, may have been somewhat useful during the Paper Age. Now, your influencers are looking for interactive content, high quality pictures, videos and information in real time. In our recent post we covered 7 ways to make your press releases visually stunning, digitally, of course! By sharing highly visual content with them, you're also making their lives easier when it comes to creating those blog posts or Instagram Stories.
8. Taking shortcuts
Cutting corners and bypassing collaboration agreements could lead to major influencer marketing fails, and potential fines. Remember to stay FTC compliant and play by the rules. Not only should you include clauses in your agreement about clearly stating that the content is an #ad, but you should also specify deliverables and payment or reward methods. This will clear any uncertainties on both ends, and prevent failed campaigns due to lack of commitment or compliance with the law.
9. Expecting immediate results
Successful influencer collaborations require time, effort and long term commitment. Don't expect to see results overnight. Depending on the objectives you had, whether building brand awareness, or seeing a hike in sales, it usually takes time to see the fruit of your efforts. If you get impatient and demand more from your influencers, you may discourage them, and consequently run away from future projects for fear of resulting in failed campaigns.
Conversely, do make sure to track the data behind your collabs via digital monitoring tools so you can get true insights into the success or failure of your campaigns.
10. Ignoring them once the campaign is launched
Maintain contact with your influencers throughout and after your campaigns. You may need to collaborate with them again for an event or campaign in the future, so don't be a stranger to them and continue interacting. Also, be transparent about the results of the campaigns. They're sure to appreciate the feedback as they'll want to improve performance for other campaigns. And if the results were as magnificent as you hoped for, celebrate with them!
If you'd like to hear more directly from the experts in influencer marketing, than be sure to sign up for our All About Influencer webinar! Click on the image below, and reserve your spot.
By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
