What Your CEO Needs to Know About Your Influencer Marketing Efforts

Influencer marketing, and many other digital media channels, might feel a little intimidating for a CEO who's more experienced in running a business than the nuances of a single marketing tactic, especially those in a complicated space like social media. That said, the questions a CEO should pose to their team aren't much different than those he/she should ask of any team investing company funds. But, without a detailed understanding of the space, how does one react intelligently to the answers he/she gets back? Below, we're breaking down the key questions every CEO should ask their influencer marketing team or influencer marketing agency and summarizing the answers we'd expect to hear from a program that is truly focused on and capable of driving the business's bottom line. 

1. PEOPLE - Who Are You Planning to Reach?

1. Target audience: The first question every marketing strategy should answer is providing a clear definition of the target audience. Not just demographics like age, location and household income, but in influencer marketing it's important to understand the interests and passions of the people we're targeting. Your influencer marketing team must be able to answer this of any strategy.

2. But is this the right audience? Understanding the interests and passions of the defined audience are how you'll know if the audience is the right audience. Do their interests align with your brand benefit? In other words, can the brand and product(s) actually deliver on the checklist of things most important to this target?

2. OBJECTIVE - What Should This Effort Return to the Company?

1. Clear definition of success: This should come in statement form and paint a picture of the benefits of the influencer marketing program. Is it designed to drive brand awareness among new audiences? Drive conversions among existing customers? A clear definition is key to knowing if the program is delivering for the business in the way it was originally intended to do so. 

2. Measurement plan: Once you have a clear vision of success, you need to ensure the program is designed to capture data points that will let us know whether the program was successful in delivering on that vision for the business. Of course, I don't expect a CEO to be in the weeds of devising the plan to ensure that data is captured, but it is important that the numbers the team intends to show you are one's you both understand and agree will inform you as to whether the program was successful or not. 

READ ON: 9 Influencer Marketing Metrics for Your C-Suite

3. PERFORMANCE - Is This Driving My Bottom Line?

At the end of the day, that is the only real question a CEO should care about, right? Don't make the mistake, though, of killing a influencer marketing program just because your team can't show you how X dollars invested resulted in Y dollars of revenue. Honestly, that's most marketing. The difference is, traditional marketing has been around so long there are accepted models with baked in assumptions we all seem to be okay with. Influencer marketing should be treated the same, you just have to align with your team and be comfortable with the assumptions.

Consider This -- The entire point of influencer marketing is to leverage 3rd party platforms to reach audiences the brand couldn't otherwise reach or influence via owned platforms, which means your team doesn't have control over the end to end experience or ability to capture data in a closed loop. It's unreasonable to expect them to give you a direct ROI report like you might get from a search advertising firm or even on your own social ads, for example. However, your team should absolutely be able to answer how their program is delivering a return on your investment in terms of direct and/or estimated revenue (or acquisition value) plus other value metrics that will help you compare this form of marketing to other marketing investments your company is making. 

READ ON: How to Measure the ROI of Your Influencer Campaign 

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