6 Steps to Build an Ultimate Influencer Marketing Strategy for Your Startup

“While many brands have seen the potential of influencer marketing, only a few of them are able to leverage it for their brand’s growth.”

That’s the problem Starbuzz had identified and built a SaaS platform that eases the influencer marketing process for brands and saves them 50% of their time and efforts.

We came on board as a Mentor in this firm to help them in their branding endeavors.

Our team gained more insights into the intricate details of influencer marketing, building a stronger foothold in the field. 

We would love to share how one can build a robust influencer marketing strategy for your startup in this blog.

6 Steps to Build a Powerful Influencer Marketing Strategy for Startups

1. Prepare your Brand and Campaign Overview

The first step in building an influencer marketing strategy for your startup is to know your brand well to begin the search for the right-fit influencers.

Here, you have to know these things –

• For Brand – What’s your niche, audience (size, location, interests etc.), offering, positioning, and personality?

• For Campaign – What are your goals, content type, channel mix, target audience, and budget for the same?

When you have the answers to all of these, the next step is to search for various types of influencers to achieve all your defined goals.

2. Evaluate your chosen Influencers to Build a Mix

From the last step, you have found a list of potential influencers to work with.

It’s time for the next stage of your startup’s influencer marketing strategy – evaluating their profiles.

You have to look into these 6 metrics to evaluate them –

• Channel Mix – What are the platforms they’re on?

What’s their performance and depth of presence on each of them?

• Content Insights – What content type, topics, tones, and formats they’ve used so far?

• Campaign History – How many organic and paid campaigns have they launched and how?

• Past Collaborations – Who (brands and influencers) have they collaborated with till now, and how?

• Their personal brand image and how they engage with their audience.

• The goals they’ve achieved.

You’ll get a final list of influencers at the end of this step, with which you can build a mix for your campaign to ensure you achieve all your goals.

3. Connect with the Influencers to Discuss, Negotiate, and Sign a Deal

You have now accomplished a vital phase of an influencer marketing strategy for your startup.

The next step is to connect with your chosen influencers to move things further with them.

This step has 4 phases to it. They are –

1. Personalized Outreach: You reach out to influencers with genuine intent and talk about and appreciate their work.

Then, share about your campaign and the scope of collaboration in growth and value terms.

2. Negotiation: You both discuss your thoughts on the campaign and share your expectations from the collaboration.

3. Contract: When you both arrive at a win-win situation, you can sign a contract to seal the deal.

It should specify all the things discussed in the negotiation stage.

4. Influencer Brief: You share brand guidelines, campaign ideas, themes, and brand messages to help the influencer get started with their work.

4. Plan and Launch the Campaign

You have taken the first step to launch your first influencer campaign by bringing the influencer on board and giving them a tour of your brand.

The next step in an influencer marketing strategy for your startup is to plan your campaign with the influencers.

While planning, you have to find answers to these things –

• Content – What will be the intent, topics, types, formats, and overall content theme?

• Distribution – How will you distribute the content to the channels in your mix? 

Which content will go on what channels?

• Promotion – How will you promote the content on channels to ensure it reaches your target audience?

• Engagement – How will you engage with the content and the audience for better results?

Your plan is in place now.

You’re all set to launch your first influencer campaign.

5. Track the Campaign and Optimize it when needed

You’re now in a critical phase of your startup’s influencer marketing strategy 

You have launched your campaign, now it’s time for you to ensure that it sees through to the end and brings you the results you want.

Here are the steps for you to follow in this phase –

1. First, you track your campaign on the goals you’ve set for it with the help of tools such as social listening and monitoring tools.

2. When you find any deviation, you discuss it with your influencers and react to it. 

There can be two types of deviations –

• The target audience finds faults and raises questions.

You’ll have to promptly get in touch and address the issues to win their trust and maintain your brand’s image.

• The target audience shows interest in your offering.

You engage with them, have conversations, and help them move forward in their buyer’s journey.

Remember, you don’t have to react to every single change, only the ones that’ll boost your campaign’s growth.

6. Prepare a Campaign Report to Measure the Results

You have finally arrived at the last step of the influencer marketing strategy for your startup.

After your campaign ends, you have to prepare a report that evaluates the following things in it –

• The campaign details to see if it went how you initially planned it and the deviations that occurred.

• The goals and KPIs you were able to achieve? To what extent?

• What was the impact of each channel, content piece, and influencer?

• The insights you’ve learned.

This step will help you revisit and rebuild your strategies and better prepare for future campaigns.

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That’s how you build an ultimate influencer marketing strategy for your startup in 6 easy steps.

If you want to discuss how your firm can leverage this marketing form for growth, you can book a FREE 20-minute session with Mili Kataria.