For many brands, influencer marketing has since become the foundation of their overall digital strategy. It harnesses the influence of key persons to appeal to and communicate with a potential audience in an arrives from more genuine and feasible fashion. But to get a big bang from influencer marketing campaigns, you should know when the best times for running these are. In this post, I will help you understand the best times to use influencer marketing for different business intentions through a comprehensive guide.
1. Introducing a New Offer
Why it works: Introducing a new product or service with influencer marketing can generate much sought-after buzz and get people excited. Seeing the product online through people who can take pictures and videos of them using it, gives consumers firsthand experiences from a source with credibility in their eyes.
Best Practices
Pick The Appropriate Influencers: You should be selecting influencers with the same following as the market of your app to get maximum promotion out there.
Launch Teaser Campaign: Excite readers with a big bang, pre-launch teaser campaign by partnering up with an influencer to talk about the product even before it hits the shelves hence making everyone curious and anticipative.
Unboxing & Reviews: Influencers making unboxings or going in-depth on a review and showing its features.
Case Study:
Samsung Galaxy launch: Samsung leveraged influencer marketing for the launch of its Galaxy smartphones and signed deals with tech influencers to unboxer/videos, which helped increase coverage and interest.
2. Entering a New Market
How It Works: Influencer marketing is the way to do it when you are entering a new region or demographic market. By partnering with local influencers, your brand will be introduced to new consumers who trust and believe in the influencer as a form of word-of-mouth.
Best Practices
Work with Local Influencers: In markets outside the US, the company can collaborate & Partner with local influencers who have a strong presence in the new market.
Cultural Alignment: The campaign is culturally aligned and thus resonates with different regions.
Tailored Content: Develop content that talks about the unique requirements, and choices of people in a new market.\
Case Study
H&M in India: H&M tied up with India’s Fashion Influencers to launch their brand. Influencers then posted content about H&M clothing along with how it fits into the fashion scene (both on a global and local scale), which resulted in a large amount of engagement, buzz, etc.
3. Promoting Seasonal Campaigns
for those willing to test: Billboard ( ) Seasonal promotions are also one of the key advantages of influencer marketing because they provide content that is current, relevant, and aligns with seasonal themes and trends. This can be a big engagement and even a sales booster during important shopping seasons.
Best Practices:
Holiday Promos: Get holiday sales, gift guides, and going to special offers out there with the help of an influencer.
Seasonal Trends – Partner with influencers to show how your products fit into the current and upcoming seasonal trends and lifestyles.
Engagement at the Right Time: Plan your campaigns well before to ensure they sync with the seasonal calendar and influencer availability.
Case Study:
Coca-Cola —Holiday Campaign Coca-Cola has a great influencer-based “Share a Coke” campaign featuring influencers who made posts and stories about sharing Coke this Christmas season thereby amplifying engagement in winter vibes.
4. Boosting Brand Awareness
Key Takeaway: When it comes to driving brand awareness, influencer marketing is a tremendous channel – particularly for new or less established brands. Influencers help introduce your brand to a new audience and create interest in the online community with their real-life, engaging content.
Best Practices:
Long-term collaboration: Work with influencers over a long period to keep your brand in the audience’s sights.
Encourage original, creative contentCreate them to produce fresh and innovative content that represents the brand in terms of personality and values.
Cross-Platform Approach: Use your influencers on numerous social media channels and get more followers.
Case Study
Daniel Wellington: Affordable watch brand, Daniel Wellington used the help of thousands of micro-influencers to post a pic and notify their followers which boosted sales for this relatively new watch brand.
5. Targeting Niche Markets
Why It Works: Influencer marketing works well for the simple fact that it is effective in addressing niche markets. It is the perfect platform for niche audience targeting with highly engaged and loyal followers in specific interests or industries that many influencers specialize in.
Best Practices
Influencers in your niche: Collaborate with influencers who are knowledgeable and influential within the specific market segment you’re targeting.
Customized Media: Develop media that addresses the distinct concerns and interests of this niche audience
Organic Interaction: Make the collaboration look organic to keep good faith with the niche audience
Case Study:
GoPro Action Sports Campaign GoPro partners with influencers in the action sports industry (e.g. extreme athletes, adventure seekers) and features their products being used out in the field— perfect for capturing target market attention as well as interest going from browsing to shopping mode.
6. Driving Event Attendance
How It Works: Influencer marketing can help drive attendance for events such as product launches, brand activations, and trade shows. Influencers tease the event and ask their followers to come visit.
Best Practices:
Event Teasers: The best way to ensure some buzz around your event is to have influencers tease the content before it goes live.
Influencer Live Coverage: Use influencers to cover the event live via social media posts, stories, and videos.
Be granted exclusive access: By providing influencers with content that they can show or display nowhere else, you are more likely to get a more interesting and engaging post.
Case Study:
InfluencerInvasion — Brands tap into influencers at the Coachella music festival to drive high engagement and traffic, on-site.
7. Improving Content Marketing
This is why it works: Influencer marketing extends your content strategy to influencers who can produce and spread top-level funnel (TOF) material that places perfectly with what you desire. This will allow your content to reach more people and make a bigger impact.
Best Practices
Share created content with influencers: work together to create in-brand value-additive and co-branded assets.
Content Distribution: Leverage influencers to distribute your content across wider audiences, increasing visibility and engagement.
Variation of Contents: Add variety to your types by having various forms (video, blog post, social media, and the like with).
Case Study:
Airbnb and Their Local Experiences Video Series: Airbnb partners with travel influencers to produce unique content that highlights local experiences broader extension of their influencer marketing strategy.
8. Reputation Management and Crisis Communication
Why This Works: Influencers can be the extra arm of your brand to help maintain and control its presence in times of crisis. This will allow them to alleviate negative press and repair your relationship with consumers.
Best Practices:
Crisis Response – Work with top influencers to promote a positive message and combat fear in times of crisis.
Brand reputation: Enlist influencers to show the better side of your brand — and undo the damage.
Open Communication: Ensure open communication with influencers and align on the messaging strategy as well.
Case Study
United Airlines during Its PR crisis, United Airlines responded by hiring travel influencers to spread the message of positive experiences flying with them and how amazing they were, Changing the negative outlook on their brand.
9. Sustaining of Social causes and CSR Activities
How This Benefits You: Partnering with influencers is a smart way to publicize your brand’s social activism efforts and corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. Influencers – To help amplify your message and encourage their followers to rally around the organization.
Best Practices
Align Cause: When possible, recruit influencers who care about the cause to ensure authenticity.
Narrative: Build compelling stories through influencers that showcase the impact of your programs
Ways to engage: Activation opportunities for influencers and their followers
Case Study:
Environment Campaigns by Patagonia: They work with environmental influencers to spread the word on their sustainability challenges which provides them amazing customer engagement for all those customers who are socially responsible.
10. Improvement of your social media profile
Why It Works: Influencer Marketing works wonders if you want to boost your social presence using the influence of influencers. This can help you create a massive social media following that engages with the content.
Best Practices
Social Media Platform: Customize your influencer marketing strategy according to the social media platform you choose and who/how on this platform.
Engagement Focus: Partner with savvy influencers who not only have a high reach but also engagement rates, ensuring their audiences actively communicate when it counts.
Long-Term Collaboration: Ultimately, Ongoing relationships with influencers will lead to continued social media presence and development.
Case Study:
Fenty Beauty —Instagram Growth Hacks: Fenty Beauty partners with beauty influencers to create quality Instagram content, in turn increasing followers and engagement on its profile.
Conclusion
When influencer marketing is done correctly, it can produce big results so long as you follow the right steps and do things with the proper timing. From launching brand new products to entering a new market, seasonal campaigns (or managing crises), all of them can be achieved efficiently with the help of Influencer Marketing. By knowing when is the right time to use an influencer campaign and adhering to best practices, you can ensure your brand utilizes key individuals as drivers of visibility, engagement, and overall success.
To increase the ROI of your influencer marketing campaigns, you need to find relevant influencers and create content that is relatable as well as aligned with business goals. The digital world is consistently changing, so keeping up with the newest trends and know-how of influencer marketing will help to keep your company afloat. Take the right approach to influencer marketing at the perfect time and start developing a better relationship with your audience, get higher engagement rates while creating growth and enduring success for your brand.