How to Make a Successful Influencer Program

Want to create an influencer program for your business? Before you set up your influencer network, these are four steps you'll need to take to ensure you have a successful influencer program. For many brands, influencers provide valuable customer lead generation. It is a significant component of today’s marketing strategy. However, the system can go sour if the company lacks published policies, clear contracts, or meaningful mission statements in influencer network operations. Influencer networks can be big or small, simple or complex. You can run them internally or delegate them externally. Whichever approach you take, toy brands who want to work with influencers should ensure that these four elements are part of their action PLANs.

Have these P.L.A.N.s in place for a successful influencer program!

• Published Policies

• Legal Agreements

• Activated Networks

• Normalized Processes

Published Policies:

The first step is to create a mission statement for your influencer network. This statement ensures the company’s executives align with having an influencer network and the marketing strategy for the network. This statement should also communicate the type of content creator your brand wants and how you execute campaigns to attract suitable social media superstars. Companies should publish these policies on their website or within influencer group channels.

Legal Agreements:

Written agreements are essential to ensure clear communication and expectations for all parties. Some brands don’t want to scare influencers away by having a formal contract. However, you may scare investors and insurers away if you don’t! At a minimum, your agreement should set forth four requirements: the length of a blog post or quantity of social media posts, deadlines, payment structure, and what happens if they fail to execute their end of the bargain. An agreement ensures that you attract professional content creators and have a document to fall back on if a relationship becomes contentious or deteriorates.

Activated Networks:

Toy brands should email their influencers to keep them engaged and educated between campaigns. If you are in between campaigns, let the network know! By communicating consistently, you’re establishing loyalty and respect between your company and the content creator. Some email content examples include sharing behind-the-scenes activities, encouragement for those waiting for selection, and history or backstories about the company. As a result, influencers become brand ambassadors, and you have a loyal membership beyond a formulaic network.

Normalized Processes:

If you have an influencer network, you need to treat it like a client account. If you consider it an afterthought, it becomes burdensome and a drain on resources. Thus, creating systems and processes to attract influencers, execute the agreements, launch campaigns, and track results is essential for a triumphant return on investment. These internal processes can be as simple as making a Google spreadsheet! At a minimum, tracking should include the influencer's number of campaigns, content links, payment checklist, mailing address, shipment dates of samples, agreement dates, and social reach. You should delineate a team member to create and oversee this document and execute a master calendar to keep track of key deliverables such as campaigns, email content calendars, social media metrics updates, and performance deliverables.

Influencers can be a valuable extension of your company but before you embark on establishing one or if an existing one is not operating effectively, then make sure to make or review your PLAN for a successful influencer program! Need help setting up your influencer program or want a review of your existing one? I can help with that! Book a call with me to learn more!