MARKETING

Influencer Marketing Strategy Checklist & Template

Published

2 years ago

August 25, 2022

Influencer Marketing Strategy Checklist & Template

If you’re a marketer looking to reach new audiences, partnering with influencers can be a great way to do that.

Influencer marketing is an incredibly effective strategy. Nearly 3.96 million of the world’s population is using social media, and researchers say that number might reach 4.41 million by 2025.

As a result, influencer marketing has naturally become one of the most popular marketing methods. As target markets become younger and more digitally connected, influencers can help organizations connect with consumers where they are – online.

What is Influencer Marketing Strategy?

Influencer marketing is a strategy where businesses rely on an influential leader to recommend their product to their target audience. These leaders usually have a large social following or captivate a market segment.

By building influencer relationships, brands can leverage an influencer’s reach to achieve their marketing goals.

But if you’re considering hiring an influencer for your brand, where do you even begin? It can be tricky to narrow down your goals, what type of influencer you want, and what goals you hope to meet with an influencer strategy.

To help you narrow your search and ensure your influencer marketing strategy is as effective as possible, we’ve created a template and guidelines to help get you started.

Follow Along With Our Free Influencer Guide + Templates

Influencer Collaboration

Influencer collaboration is a marketing strategy that involves paying individuals with a large social media following to advertise your brand to their followers. The influencer can demand compensation in monetary value or complimentary products and services in exchange for their recommendation. Influencer Marketing Collaboration

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, 90% of marketers will allocate a budget to influencer marketing, with 62% increasing their existing budget. The same study also cites that most brands that have worked with influencers are pleased with their results based on conversion rates and sales they received as part of the collaboration.

The good news is even companies that hired micro-influencers (that is, influencers with 15K followers and fewer) still got impressive results.

According to Convince and Convert, the top 13% of marketers are getting great returns from influencer collaboration regarding quantifiable results.

In fact, for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, they’re getting $20 or more. This explains why marketers are increasing their influencer marketing budgets.

Influencer Marketing Strategy Checklist

Define your goals.
Identify and define your audience.
Define your budget.
Choose a type of campaign.
Decide on the social media platform you want to use.
Create content for your campaign.
Find your brand influencers.
Promote your campaign.
Track your success.

Here are six steps to help you create and implement an influencer marketing strategy:

1. Define your goals.

By clearly defining the end goal of your strategy, you can work your way backward to determine the steps needed to get there. Using your goals as guiding lights will also define your strategy’s metrics for success. These will help keep your campaign on track.

Are you trying to increase brand awareness or drive engagement? Do you want to spruce up your lead generation method, or do you want to build on the loyalty and goodwill of your existing audience?

Dunkin Donuts is an excellent example of how defining your goals can influence your results. They hired Charli D’amelio to advertise their products to increase their app downloads.

After her video went viral, they launched a drink named after her, “The Charli,” and her 143 million Tiktok followers were more than willing to join in the trend. As a result, the app’s download increased by 57% when Dunkin Donuts released the drink.

2. Identify and define your audience.

Properly segmenting and identifying your audience can determine the effectiveness and success of your influencer campaign. It’ll be easier to identify which audiences would best help your marketing goals once you define them.

Depending on your organization’s target personas or ideal buyer, you should group consumers by demographics, psychographics, buyer lifecycle stage, or preferred channel.

Tinder is an excellent example of how your target audience can influence your campaign. Most of their app users are 18-25 years old, so they hired influencers in this age bracket to promote their app.

Tayler Holder was one of the influencers who participated in the campaign, and one of his posts has over 500k likes. It’s just a photo of him wearing a Tinder-branded shirt and a short caption, “Swipe right and come find us on @tinder.”

3. Define your budget.

Defining your budget is essential s because it guides your content creation and distribution options.For example, if you’re on a limited budget, you may opt to use an independent influencer instead of an agency.

This is also a good time to decide how you compensate your influencers. Some influencers are okay with being paid using free products and services.

Every influencer marketing campaign is different depending on the means of payment and the resources required for the campaign. Here is an example of how you can break down your marketing campaign budget:

a pie chart break down of how to budget for your influencer marketing campaign

Source

4. Choose a type of campaign.

The way you promote your brand through an influencer depends on your goals and the target audience’s preferences.

Guest posting, sponsored content, re-targeting, co-creation, competitions, mentions on social, discount codes, and more are terrific examples of influencer marketing campaigns.

For example, Audible partnered with best-selling author Tim Ferriss on his podcast, where his listeners could use his custom link to get a discount on Audible content. This partnership delivered a relevant offer to the target audience, benefitting Audible, Tim Ferriss, and his podcast listeners.

5. Decide on the social media platform you want to use.

One good thing that happened during the pandemic is that the usage of all social media platforms went on the rise. Marketers’ most used social media platform as of last year is Facebook, and the least used is Snapchat.

That being said, the best platform is based on your target market and the kind of content you’re promoting.

For example, if you’re promoting something for teens, Snapchat would still be your best platform. This chart from WordStream will give you more clarity.

6. Create content for your campaign.

Once you’ve decided on the medium and campaign type, it’s time to create compelling content. Even if you have the most exciting campaign or best product-market fit, consumers will lose interest if your messaging or content doesn’t captivate them.

Make it as easy as possible for your influencer to share your message. The better your messaging fits with their audience, the easier it is for your influencer to push your brand out to their audience.

For example, Fitplan targets people working out from home who might need professional training to reach their body goals. To increase their app sign-up, they work with influencers already sharing fitness content with their audience, like Michele Win.

In return, when their followers sign up for the app, the influencers get to train them and earn money from the app. This strategy works because the content aligns with the users’ needs, and they can see what to expect. It’s also easy for the influencers to push this message because they simply share the same message with their followers.

7. Find your brand influencers.

The right influencer should understand and connect with your audience, your brand, and the content you’re promoting. For example, if you’re promoting supplements, you have a better chance with influencers who are into health and fitness than influencers who are mainly interested in new fashion trends.

You can get influencers in your niche by using hashtags on social media platforms. For example, by simply searching #fitness on IG, you get over 1 million posts from different fitness influencers.

Sometimes, you don’t have to work with an influencer in your niche but rather someone who is trending. Your marketing team can help identify the best influencers for your brand by staying on top of their social media game.

8. Promote your campaign.

Once you’ve successfully identified your target market, found your ideal influencer, and created compelling content, all that’s left is promoting your new partnership!

Go to your favorite social channels or draft a blog post to generate some buzz.

For example, Fitplan shares short workout advice videos by their influencers on their IG page. This is a good way to encourage viewers to sign up by giving them a glimpse of what happens in their program. Sharing the content on their page also helps reach the people who might not be following their influencers.

9. Track your success.

It’s critical to track the performance of your partnership to ensure all expectations are met and determine the success of the campaign.

Track website traffic, engagement, conversions, or other metrics you decided on when you determined your marketing goals. You can agree to check the data weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the nature of your campaign. Check in with your original goals to analyze your success and how to repeat them.

There’s a lot of potential for high return on investment (ROI) from influencer partnerships. Therefore, tracking if and how your influencer content performs better than your non-influencer content is essential.

Influencer marketing Strategy Checklist

The Influencer Contract Checklist

An influencer contract is a document that contains the details of the agreement between the influencer and a business. For example, the contract includes the terms of content creation, legal protection for both parties, and compensation received, among other details.

It’s important to have a contract to keep the influencers you’re working with accountable, and it’s always a brilliant idea to have a legal document where money is involved.

1. The Basics

This includes the date your contract begins and both parties’ official names. It’s important to ensure the names that appear in the contract are official and acceptable in a court of law.

Use simple language to describe everything in this section to avoid any kind of misinterpretation in the future.

2. The Expiry Date

How long will you be working with the influencer for this particular campaign? However short or long it may be, stating the dates is essential.

This section should state whether it’s a one-time campaign and, if not, the terms of renewing the contract. For example, you can set your influencer’s contract to one year, with the option of renewing it based on the parties’ agreement.

3. The Mode of Compensation

What will you be offering the influencer in exchange for their services? It could be monetary or a free product or service.

Regardless of what you’ll offer, ensure you state it clearly. How much will you be offering if it’s money and after how long?

For example, your terms could state that you’ll pay the contractor 30 days after sending their invoice.

The payment structure will vary from one agreement to another. For example, if it’s a one-time campaign, you could agree on paying half the money before the campaign and the rest after the influencer hits their key performance indicator (KPI).

4. Your Inclusion in the Campaign

Content distribution is just one of the main parts of an influencer marketing campaign. There are other vital parts, like creating content and deciding on the best tone for the campaign.

An influencer better understands the kind of content that resonates with their audience and creative ways to present it.

Therefore, it’s good to include the influencer in the creative briefing sessions. In this case, you’ll need to state how many meetings they’ll be expected to attend and for how long.

5. The Type of Content

What kind of content are you expecting from the influencer? Is it a guest post, a vlog, or a reel? State the expectations clearly.

If you’re expecting multiple content formats, mention exactly how they should be delivered. For example, you could state you need four reels and four social media posts twice a week.

7. The Approval Process

As we mentioned, a marketing influencer campaign works best when the influencer collaborates with the marketing team. This helps with quality control by ensuring the influencer adheres to company values.

In some instances, the marketing team may have some suggestions for or edits to the content before posting. Ensure you mention how many revision rounds the influencer should expect to make and if revisions guarantee extra pay.

8. The Promotion Requirements

How much do you want the influencer to be involved in the marketing process? For example, do you want them to share the content on their personal pages? If yes, what platforms and how often?

State these expectations, including how much they should engage with the audience to avoid any conflicts in the future.

9. The Content Copyright

If you want the right to edit or modify the influencer’s content, it’s important to include content copyright in the contract. Your copyright terms should also allow you to use their images or logo when posting related content.

On the other hand, the influencer might want access to the content they edit. If this is the case, be sure to mention how long they’re allowed to access the content. When can they access the content and do they retain the copyright forever?

10. The Publication Agreement

A publication agreement details when the influencer will publish the content. Do you publish once, twice a week, or several times a day?

Ensure you capture all these details on your contract and include any penalties the influencer will face if they don’t comply.

Include other additions the influencer must make to the content when uploading it. These may consist of promo codes, hashtags, or tracking links.

11. A Restrictive Covenant

A restrictive covenant is an agreement on the length of time an influencer isn’t allowed to work with a competitor after the campaign. So first, define your competitors and include them in the contract.

Additionally, ask the influencer to confirm that they have no written contracts with your competitors.

12. A Sunset Clause

A sunset clause dictates the length of time your sponsored content should appear on the influencer’s pages. Without a definite period, many influencers can delete the sponsored content once they’ve been paid or after a short period.

Be clear on how long the content should stay on the influencer’s page before they can delete it.

13. A Cancellation Clause

What happens if the influencer feels you’re no longer a good fit for their audience? Or they break the agreement, and you can no longer continue working with them?

Prepare for these scenarios by having a cancellation clause in place. It should cover any penalties or repayment.

14. Image Authenticity

Image manipulation isn’t a new concept– especially with the editing apps and filters available on the market. Ensure you have a clause that protects you from image manipulation.

While you want your products to appear appealing, you also want to ensure customers don’t feel cheated when they receive your product.

Image manipulation may also trigger publishers to flag your ad for false advertising. Publishers could then remove your content or your ad campaign from their platform.

15. A Morality Clause

You can’t control what an influencer does, but you can protect yourself with a morality clause. Remember, how they conduct themselves during the campaign can damage your brand’s reputation by association.

Therefore, some guidelines can protect you, like discontinuing the contract when they conduct themselves in any way that puts your brand at risk.

Once you have an influencer marketing strategy and a contract, you’ll need to create an influencer proposal to send to potential collaborators.

Here’s a short influencer proposal checklist:

The Influencer Proposal Checklist

State your goals.
Show visual examples.
Simplify the numbers.
State the responsibilities of the influencers.
Give examples of influencers you’d like to work with.
Don’t be too detailed.

1. State your goals.

What do you want to achieve with this influencer marketing campaign? It could be better brand awareness, increased subscription rates, high traffic, or high engagement.

Whatever your goal is, it should be stated clearly in your presentation.

2. Show visual examples.

Influencer marketing is mainly about visuals. So, before you meet with an influencer, research and take screenshots of the campaigns you like.

These resources will give your influencer an idea of what kind of content you’re looking for.

3. Simplify the numbers.

If you love data, chances are your proposal will be full of figures. This is boring, and most influencers will not pay attention to this presentation. Provide only the necessary data based on the influencer’s preference to avoid overcomplicating the proposal. The metrics you share will depend on the media platform you’re working on. For example, if you’re promoting IG content, your influencer will need to see the content interactions, profile activity, and the accounts your posts are reaching. This information is important when setting future goals and negotiating prices.

Also, try to replace the data and tables with graphics that appeal to them based on their interests and the nature of their career. Keep in mind that successful influencers are heavily booked and you also need to wow them to work with you.

4. State the responsibilities of the influencers.

State all of the influencer’s responsibilities. How should the influencers participate in the marketing campaign?

Responsibilities can include creating content, developing hashtags, editing images, or sharing content on their page.

5. Give examples of influencers you’d like to work with.

If you don’t have specific names in mind, you can create a buyer’s persona to represent the kind of people you want to collaborate with. You can boost this persona with success metrics like followers, engagement, and likes.

Coming up with this persona will help your potential influencers know your priorities in this campaign.

6. Don’t be too detailed.

Although you want to ensure your collaborators understand your expectations , you don’t want to micromanage them.

Instead, include a brief. This allows the influencer to share ideas on how to reach your goals.

Download the Influencer Strategy Template

Are you ready to try these influencer marketing strategies with your organization? Download our free influencer strategy template and achieve your marketing goals today.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Related Topics:checklist Influencer Marketing strategy Template

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MARKETING

How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

It’s the age of AI, and our job as marketers is to keep up.

My team at Foundation Marketing recently conducted an AI Marketing study surveying hundreds of marketers, and more than 84% of all leaders, managers, SEO experts, and specialists confirmed that they used AI in the workplace.

If you can overlook the fear-inducing headlines, this technology is making social media marketers more efficient and effective than ever. Translation: AI is good news for social media marketers.

In fact, I predict that the marketers not using AI in their workplace will be using it before the end of this year, and that number will move closer and closer to 100%.

Social media and AI are two of the most revolutionizing technologies of the last few decades. Social media has changed the way we live, and AI is changing the way we work.

So, I’m going to condense and share the data, research, tools, and strategies that the Foundation Marketing Team and I have been working on over the last year to help you better wield the collective power of AI and social media.

Let’s jump into it.

What’s the role of AI in social marketing strategy?

In a recent episode of my podcast, Create Like The Greats, we dove into some fascinating findings about the impact of AI on marketers and social media professionals. Take a listen here:

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the benefits of this technology:

Benefits of AI in Social Media Strategy

AI is to social media what a conductor is to an orchestra — it brings everything together with precision and purpose. The applications of AI in a social media strategy are vast, but the virtuosos are few who can wield its potential to its fullest.

AI to Conduct Customer Research

Imagine you’re a modern-day Indiana Jones, not dodging boulders or battling snakes, but rather navigating the vast, wild terrain of consumer preferences, trends, and feedback.

This is where AI thrives.

Using social media data, from posts on X to comments and shares, AI can take this information and turn it into insights surrounding your business and industry. Let’s say for example you’re a business that has 2,000 customer reviews on Google, Yelp, or a software review site like Capterra.

Leveraging AI you can now have all 2,000 of these customer reviews analyzed and summarized into an insightful report in a matter of minutes. You simply need to download all of them into a doc and then upload them to your favorite Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) to get the insights and data you need.

But that’s not all.

You can become a Prompt Engineer and write ChatGPT asking it to help you better understand your audience. For example, if you’re trying to come up with a persona for people who enjoy marathons but also love kombucha you could write a prompt like this to ChatGPT:

The response that ChatGPT provided back is quite good:

Below this it went even deeper by including a lot of valuable customer research data:

Demographics
Psychographics
Consumer behaviors
Needs and preferences

And best of all…

It also included marketing recommendations.

The power of AI is unbelievable.

Social Media Content Using AI

AI’s helping hand can be unburdening for the creative spirit.

Instead of marketers having to come up with new copy every single month for posts, AI Social Caption generators are making it easier than ever to craft catchy status updates in the matter of seconds.

Tools like HubSpot make it as easy as clicking a button and telling the AI tool what you’re looking to create a post about:

The best part of these AI tools is that they’re not limited to one channel.

Your AI social media content assistant can help you with LinkedIn content, X content, Facebook content, and even the captions that support your post on Instagram.

It can also help you navigate hashtags:

With AI social media tools that generate content ideas or even write posts, it’s not about robots replacing humans. It’s about making sure that the human creators on your team are focused on what really matters — adding that irreplaceable human touch.

Enhanced Personalization

You know that feeling when a brand gets you, like, really gets you?

AI makes that possible through targeted content that’s tailored with a level of personalization you’d think was fortune-telling if the data didn’t paint a starker, more rational picture.

What do I mean?

Brands can engage more quickly with AI than ever before. In the early 2000s, a lot of brands spent millions of dollars to create social media listening rooms where they would hire social media managers to find and engage with any conversation happening online.

Thanks to AI, brands now have the ability to do this at scale with much fewer people all while still delivering quality engagement with the recipient.

Analytics and Insights

Tapping into AI to dissect the data gives you a CSI-like precision to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what makes your audience tick. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing.

The best part about AI is that it can give you almost any expert at your fingertips.

If you run a report surrounding the results of your social media content strategy directly from a site like LinkedIn, AI can review the top posts you’ve shared and give you clear feedback on what type of content is performing, why you should create more of it, and what days of the week your content is performing best.

This type of insight that would typically take hours to understand.

Now …

Thanks to the power of AI you can upload a spreadsheet filled with rows and columns of data just to be met with a handful of valuable insights a few minutes later.

Improved Customer Service

Want 24/7 support for your customers?

It’s now possible without human touch.

Chatbots powered by AI are taking the lead on direct messaging experiences for brands on Facebook and other Meta properties to offer round-the-clock assistance.

The fact that AI can be trained on past customer queries and data to inform future queries and problems is a powerful development for social media managers.

Advertising on Social Media with AI

The majority of ad networks have used some variation of AI to manage their bidding system for years. Now, thanks to AI and its ability to be incorporated in more tools, brands are now able to use AI to create better and more interesting ad campaigns than ever before.

Brands can use AI to create images using tools like Midjourney and DALL-E in seconds.

Brands can use AI to create better copy for their social media ads.

Brands can use AI tools to support their bidding strategies.

The power of AI and social media is continuing to evolve daily and it’s not exclusively found in the organic side of the coin. Paid media on social media is being shaken up due to AI just the same.

How to Implement AI into Your Social Media Strategy

Ready to hit “Go” on your AI-powered social media revolution?

Don’t just start the engine and hope for the best. Remember the importance of building a strategy first. In this video, you can learn some of the most important factors ranging from (but not limited to) SMART goals and leveraging influencers in your day-to-day work:

The following seven steps are crucial to building a social media strategy:

Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals
Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions
Conduct Persona and Audience Research
Select the Right Social Channels
Identify Key Metrics and KPIs
Choose the Right AI Tools
Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

Keep reading, roll up your sleeves, and follow this roadmap:

1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals

If you’re just dipping your toes into the AI sea, start by defining clear objectives.

Is it to boost engagement? Streamline your content creation? Or simply understand your audience better? It’s important that you spend time understanding what you want to achieve.

For example, say you’re a content marketing agency like Foundation and you’re trying to increase your presence on LinkedIn. The specificity of this goal will help you understand the initiatives you want to achieve and determine which AI tools could help you make that happen.

Are there AI tools that will help you create content more efficiently? Are there AI tools that will help you optimize LinkedIn Ads? Are there AI tools that can help with content repurposing? All of these things are possible and having a goal clearly identified will help maximize the impact. Learn more in this Foundation Marketing piece on incorporating AI into your content workflow.

Once you have identified your goals, it’s time to get your team on board and assess what tools are available in the market.

Recommended Resources:

2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions

Assumptions are dangerous — especially when it comes to implementing new tech.

Don’t assume AI is going to fix all your problems.

Instead, start with small experiments and track their progress carefully.

3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research

Social media isn’t something that you can just jump into.

You need to understand your audience and ideal customers. AI can help with this, but you’ll need to be familiar with best practices. If you need a primer, this will help:

Once you understand the basics, consider ways in which AI can augment your approach.

4. Select the Right Social Channels

Not every social media channel is the same.

It’s important that you understand what channel is right for you and embrace it.

The way you use AI for X is going to be different from the way you use AI for LinkedIn. On X, you might use AI to help you develop a long-form thread that is filled with facts and figures. On LinkedIn however, you might use AI to repurpose a blog post and turn it into a carousel PDF. The content that works on X and that AI can facilitate creating is different from the content that you can create and use on LinkedIn.

The audiences are different.

The content formats are different.

So operate and create a plan accordingly.

Recommended Tools and Resources:

5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs

What metrics are you trying to influence the most?

Spend time understanding the social media metrics that matter to your business and make sure that they’re prioritized as you think about the ways in which you use AI.

These are a few that matter most:

Reach: Post reach signifies the count of unique users who viewed your post. How much of your content truly makes its way to users’ feeds?
Clicks: This refers to the number of clicks on your content or account. Monitoring clicks per campaign is crucial for grasping what sparks curiosity or motivates people to make a purchase.
Engagement: The total social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This metric reveals how effectively your audience perceives you and their readiness to engage.

Of course, it’s going to depend greatly on your business.

But with this information, you can ensure that your AI social media strategy is rooted in goals.

6. Choose the Right AI Tools

The AI landscape is filled with trash and treasure.

Pick AI tools that are most likely to align with your needs and your level of tech-savviness.

For example, if you’re a blogger creating content about pizza recipes, you can use HubSpot’s AI social caption generator to write the message on your behalf:

The benefit of an AI tool like HubSpot and the caption generator is that what at one point took 30-40 minutes to come up with — you can now have it at your fingertips in seconds. The HubSpot AI caption generator is trained on tons of data around social media content and makes it easy for you to get inspiration or final drafts on what can be used to create great content.

Consider your budget, the learning curve, and what kind of support the tool offers.

7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

AI isn’t a magic wand; it’s a set of complex tools and technology.

You need to be willing to pivot as things come to fruition.

If you notice that a certain activity is falling flat, consider how AI can support that process.

Did you notice that your engagement isn’t where you want it to be? Consider using an AI tool to assist with crafting more engaging social media posts.

Make AI Work for You — Now and in the Future

AI has the power to revolutionize your social media strategy in ways you may have never thought possible. With its ability to conduct customer research, create personalized content, and so much more, thinking about the future of social media is fascinating.

We’re going through one of the most interesting times in history.

Stay equipped to ride the way of AI and ensure that you’re embracing the best practices outlined in this piece to get the most out of the technology.

MARKETING

Advertising in local markets: A playbook for success

Published

2 days ago

April 21, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Advertising in local markets: A playbook for success

Many brands, such as those in the home services industry or a local grocery chain, market to specific locations, cities or regions. There are also national brands that want to expand in specific local markets.

Regardless of the company or purpose, advertising on a local scale has different tactics than on a national scale. Brands need to connect their messaging directly with the specific communities they serve and media to their target demo. Here’s a playbook to help your company succeed when marketing on a local scale.

1. Understand local vs. national campaigns

Local advertising differs from national campaigns in several ways:

Audience specificity: By zooming in on precise geographic areas, brands can tailor messaging to align with local communities’ customs, preferences and nuances. This precision targeting ensures that your message resonates with the right target audience.
Budget friendliness: Local advertising is often more accessible for small businesses. Local campaign costs are lower, enabling brands to invest strategically within targeted locales. This budget-friendly nature does not diminish the need for strategic planning; instead, it emphasizes allocating resources wisely to maximize returns. As a result, testing budgets can be allocated across multiple markets to maximize learnings for further market expansion.
Channel selection: Selecting the correct channels is vital for effective local advertising. Local newspapers, radio stations, digital platforms and community events each offer advantages. The key lies in understanding where your target audience spends time and focusing efforts to ensure optimal engagement.
Flexibility and agility: Local campaigns can be adjusted more swiftly in response to market feedback or changes, allowing brands to stay relevant and responsive.

Maintaining brand consistency across local touchpoints reinforces brand identity and builds a strong, recognizable brand across markets.

2. Leverage customized audience segmentation

Customized audience segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups based on specific demographic criteria. This marketing segmentation supports the development of targeted messaging and media plans for local markets.

For example, a coffee chain might cater to two distinct segments: young professionals and retirees. After identifying these segments, the chain can craft messages, offers and media strategies relating to each group’s preferences and lifestyle.

To reach young professionals in downtown areas, the chain might focus on convenience, quality coffee and a vibrant atmosphere that is conducive to work and socializing. Targeted advertising on Facebook, Instagram or Connected TV, along with digital signage near office complexes, could capture the attention of this demographic, emphasizing quick service and premium blends.

Conversely, for retirees in residential areas, the chain could highlight a cozy ambiance, friendly service and promotions such as senior discounts. Advertisements in local print publications, community newsletters, radio stations and events like senior coffee mornings would foster a sense of community and belonging.

Dig deeper: Niche advertising: 7 actionable tactics for targeted marketing

3. Adapt to local market dynamics

Various factors influence local market dynamics. Brands that navigate changes effectively maintain a strong audience connection and stay ahead in the market. Here’s how consumer sentiment and behavior may evolve within a local market and the corresponding adjustments brands can make.

Cultural shifts, such as changes in demographics or societal norms, can alter consumer preferences within a local community. For example, a neighborhood experiencing gentrification may see demand rise for specific products or services.
- Respond by updating your messaging to reflect the evolving cultural landscape, ensuring it resonates with the new demographic profile.
Economic conditions are crucial. For example, during downturns, consumers often prioritize value and practicality.
- Highlight affordable options or emphasize the practical benefits of your offerings to ensure messaging aligns with consumers’ financial priorities. The impact is unique to each market and the marketing message must also be dynamic.
Seasonal trends impact consumer behavior.
- Align your promotions and creative content with changing seasons or local events to make your offerings timely and relevant.
New competitors. The competitive landscape demands vigilance because new entrants or innovative competitor campaigns can shift consumer preferences.
- Differentiate by focusing on your unique selling propositions, such as quality, customer service or community involvement, to retain consumer interest and loyalty.

4. Apply data and predictive analytics

Data and predictive analytics are indispensable tools for successfully reaching local target markets. These technologies provide consumer behavior insights, enabling you to anticipate market trends and adjust strategies proactively.

Price optimization: By analyzing consumer demand, competitor pricing and market conditions, data analytics enables you to set prices that attract customers while ensuring profitability.
Competitor analysis: Through analysis, brands can understand their positioning within the local market landscape and identify opportunities and threats. Predictive analytics offer foresight into competitors’ potential moves, allowing you to strategize effectively to maintain a competitive edge.
Consumer behavior: Forecasting consumer behavior allows your brand to tailor offerings and marketing messages to meet evolving consumer needs and enhance engagement.
Marketing effectiveness: Analytics track the success of advertising campaigns, providing insights into which strategies drive conversions and sales. This feedback loop enables continuous optimization of marketing efforts for maximum impact.
Inventory management: In supply chain management, data analytics predict demand fluctuations, ensuring inventory levels align with market needs. This efficiency prevents stockouts or excess inventory, optimizing operational costs and meeting consumer expectations.

Dig deeper: Why you should add predictive modeling to your marketing mix

5. Counter external market influences

Consider a clothing retailer preparing for a spring collection launch. By analyzing historical weather data and using predictive analytics, the brand forecasts an unseasonably cool start to spring. Anticipating this, the retailer adjusts its campaign to highlight transitional pieces suitable for cooler weather, ensuring relevance despite an unexpected chill.

Simultaneously, predictive models signal an upcoming spike in local media advertising rates due to increased market demand. Retailers respond by reallocating a portion of advertising budgets to digital channels, which offer more flexibility and lower costs than traditional media. This shift enables brands to maintain visibility and engagement without exceeding budget, mitigating the impact of external forces on advertising.

6. Build consumer confidence with messaging

Localized messaging and tailored customer service enhance consumer confidence by demonstrating your brand’s understanding of the community. For instance, a grocery store that curates cooking classes featuring local cuisine or sponsors community events shows commitment to local culture and consumer interests.

Similarly, a bookstore highlighting local authors or topics relevant to the community resonates with local customers. Additionally, providing service that addresses local needs — such as bilingual service and local event support — reinforces the brand’s values and response to the community.

Through these localized approaches, brands can build trust and loyalty, bridging the gap between corporate presence and local relevance.

7. Dominate with local advertising

To dominate local markets, brands must:

Harness hyper-targeted segmentation and geo-targeted advertising to reach and engage precise audiences.
Create localized content that reflects community values, engage in community events, optimize campaigns for mobile and track results.
Fine-tune strategies, outperform competitors and foster lasting relationships with customers.

These strategies will enable your message to resonate with local consumers, differentiate you in competitive markets and ensure you become a major player in your specific area.

Dig deeper: The 5 critical elements for local marketing success

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.

MARKETING

Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

Published

3 days ago

April 20, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy

As we march closer to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, CMOs and marketing leaders need to prepare for a significant shift in the digital advertising landscape. Election years have always posed unique challenges for advertisers, but the growing dominance of digital media has made the impact more profound than ever before.

In this article, we’ll explore the key factors that will shape the advertising environment in the coming months and provide actionable insights to help you navigate these turbulent waters.

The Digital Battleground

The rise of cord-cutting and the shift towards digital media consumption have fundamentally altered the advertising landscape in recent years. As traditional TV viewership declines, political campaigns have had to adapt their strategies to reach voters where they are spending their time: on digital platforms.

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According to a recent report by eMarketer, the number of cord-cutters in the U.S. is expected to reach 65.1 million by the end of 2023, representing a 6.9% increase from 2022. This trend is projected to continue, with the number of cord-cutters reaching 72.2 million by 2025.

Moreover, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2023 found that 62% of U.S. adults do not have a cable or satellite TV subscription, up from 61% in 2022 and 50% in 2019. This data further underscores the accelerating shift away from traditional TV and towards streaming and digital media platforms.

As these trends continue, political advertisers will have no choice but to follow their audiences to digital channels. In the 2022 midterm elections, digital ad spending by political campaigns reached $1.2 billion, a 50% increase from the 2018 midterms. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, this figure is expected to grow exponentially, as campaigns compete for the attention of an increasingly digital-first electorate.

For brands and advertisers, this means that the competition for digital ad space will be fiercer than ever before. As political ad spending continues to migrate to platforms like Meta, YouTube, and connected TV, the cost of advertising will likely surge, making it more challenging for non-political advertisers to reach their target audiences.

To navigate this complex and constantly evolving landscape, CMOs and their teams will need to be proactive, data-driven, and willing to experiment with new strategies and channels. By staying ahead of the curve and adapting to the changing media consumption habits of their audiences, brands can position themselves for success in the face of the electoral advertising onslaught.

Rising Costs and Limited Inventory

As political advertisers flood the digital market, the cost of advertising is expected to skyrocket. CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) will likely experience a steady climb throughout the year, with significant spikes anticipated in May, as college students come home from school and become more engaged in political conversations, and around major campaign events like presidential debates.

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For media buyers and their teams, this means that the tried-and-true strategies of years past may no longer be sufficient. Brands will need to be nimble, adaptable, and willing to explore new tactics to stay ahead of the game.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: A Perfect Storm

The challenges of election year advertising will be particularly acute during the critical holiday shopping season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which have historically been goldmines for advertisers, will be more expensive and competitive than ever in 2024, as they coincide with the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

To avoid being drowned out by the political noise, brands will need to start planning their holiday campaigns earlier than usual. Building up audiences and crafting compelling creative assets well in advance will be essential to success, as will a willingness to explore alternative channels and tactics. Relying on cold audiences come Q4 will lead to exceptionally high costs that may be detrimental to many businesses.

Navigating the Chaos

While the challenges of election year advertising can seem daunting, there are steps that media buyers and their teams can take to mitigate the impact and even thrive in this environment. Here are a few key strategies to keep in mind:

Start early and plan for contingencies: Begin planning your Q3 and Q4 campaigns as early as possible, with a focus on building up your target audiences and developing a robust library of creative assets.

Be sure to build in contingency budgets to account for potential cost increases, and be prepared to pivot your strategy as the landscape evolves.

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Embrace alternative channels: Consider diversifying your media mix to include channels that may be less impacted by political ad spending, such as influencer marketing, podcast advertising, or sponsored content. Investing in owned media channels, like email marketing and mobile apps, can also provide a direct line to your customers without the need to compete for ad space.

Owned channels will be more important than ever. Use cheaper months leading up to the election to build your email lists and existing customer base so that your BF/CM can leverage your owned channels and warm audiences.

Craft compelling, shareable content: In a crowded and noisy advertising environment, creating content that resonates with your target audience will be more important than ever. Focus on developing authentic, engaging content that aligns with your brand values and speaks directly to your customers’ needs and desires.

By tapping into the power of emotional triggers and social proof, you can create content that not only cuts through the clutter but also inspires organic sharing and amplification.

Reflections

The 2024 election year will undoubtedly bring new challenges and complexities to the world of digital advertising. But by staying informed, adaptable, and strategic in your approach, you can navigate this landscape successfully and even find new opportunities for growth and engagement.

As a media buyer or agnecy, your role in steering your brand through these uncharted waters will be critical. By starting your planning early, embracing alternative channels and tactics, and focusing on creating authentic, resonant content, you can not only survive but thrive in the face of election year disruptions.

So while the road ahead may be uncertain, one thing is clear: the brands that approach this challenge with creativity, agility, and a steadfast commitment to their customers will be the ones that emerge stronger on the other side.