How to Build a Successful Influence Marketing Campaign

February 26, 2021 3 min read

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The following is an excerpt from Jason Falls‘ Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, which will be released Feb. 23 via Entrepreneur Press. Pre-order your copy now via Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop.

It’s time to move from strategy to action, but there still remains a world of preparation. Planning influence marketing campaigns is far more than just deciding we want to use influence partners and here’s the goal we’re going to shoot for. People who skim the surface of preparation aren’t Winfluencing. Remember that online influence partners care about their goals, so building offers and opportunities for them need to integrate what they want with what you want.

As clichéd as it may seem in our link-bait world, I still find lists and mnemonic devices to remember step-by-step processes useful. So yes, I’m guilty of the occasional listicle or silly alliteration to remember things. But they work, so sue me. Building influence marketing campaigns, in my experience and practice, boils down to six steps. So, if you’ll excuse the repetition, I present you with the six steps to building influence marketing campaigns! (Try to hear a dramatic, Monty Python-esque trumpet blast in your mind each time you read that, and the mnemonic will stick better.) I went the extra mile to make them alliterative, for those who prefer the dork factor turned up to 11. 

Related: Get to Know the 3 Types of Influencers

1. Decide goals

With Winfluence, as opposed to influencer marketing, you must begin with the end in mind. What do you really want to accomplish with your influence marketing program, and how will that ladder up to your overall marketing and business goals?

2. Define audiences

Then you need to think deeply about who you want the marketing program to persuade, convince or have an effect upon. Knowing who you’re going after makes the next step far more effective.

3. Delineate influential people

Next, you’ll zero in on those who can truly impact the audience you’re trying to reach. This prevents wasting time or resources on “look at me” online influencers who won’t help your business.

4. Develop assets

Now you have to give those people with influence the content they need to successfully spread your message. This means you’ll need to plan, write, design and produce content for their accounts.

5. Deliver messages

The rubber meets the road as you craft messages to your chosen influence partners to recruit them to help you achieve the goal. And as you manage the execution of the program where the influence partners deliver your messages to their audiences.

Related: HBO‘s ‘Fake Famous’ Documentary Gets Influencer Marketing All Wrong

6. Determine successes

Finally, you’ll look at the influence marketing program’s analytics to determine whether it is succeeding or something more needs to be done. And don’t forget: You don’t wait until the end to measure. You’re going to plan that up front.

On the surface, these “Six Ds” make sense, right? But just taking those brief descriptions and running with them is like reading “add salt” to a recipe and thinking you know how to cook. You need to know how much salt to add, how the salt affects the taste and what other spices should be added to make it taste great.