With influencer marketing spend set to close at $24 Billion USD in 2024, gone are the days of debating whether influencer marketing is an effective touchpoint. The question is: Are brands really getting a return on investment for their influencer marketing spend?

The short answer is ‘yes’, however, marketers have one common challenge when it comes to influencer marketing; selecting the right influencers for their brands and influencers who achieve their marketing objective. 

Having worked on influencer marketing campaigns ranging from $10,000 USD to $500,000 USD and everything in between, we happen to know a thing or two about choosing the right influencers for your brand and the magic that occurs when a brand and its influencers work in perfect unison.

Selecting the right influencer for your brand comes down to 4 key factors.

1. Demographics: Oftentimes, we get too caught up in influencers themselves and forget about what's important; who follows these influencers? The first key starting point for any successful influencer marketing campaign is understanding an influencers audience and if they match your target audience. To do so, you’d need to utilize Influencer Marketing Tech that helps you analyze an influencers profile to see their follower base. Tools such as HypeAuditor, Intellect and Modash to name a few can help with this.

   
   

2. Reach & Results: What is the expected return on investment from working with a particular influencer? How do you judge success? What are the benchmarks to gauge if your collaboration with an influencer is successful or not? These are all questions you should have answers to early on prior to even engaging with an influencer. This will vary depending on your overall campaign objective.

   
   

3. Authenticity: Influence isn’t just about follower count or engagement rate. The only way for an influencer campaign to be successful is if the influencers you’ve chosen have a true and authentic bond with your brand. Do they or would they actually use the product or service you are asking them to promote? Is it a natural fit or would the content they create seem off to their followers? Assessing these questions by putting yourself in the shoes of an influencers follower will help you come to a decision.

   
   

4. Content Quality & Style: We’ve seen it day in and day out where a brand hires an influencer to create content for them yet dictates how the content should be created when it comes to production style, quality and output. We get it! You want the content to be similar to what you’d usually post. The problem? Followers can tell if the content an influencer is creating doesn’t fall within the usual realm of their always-on content leading to inauthentic content, which then leads to poor influencer marketing results so before you hire an influencer, go through their profiles and assess if the content they create is similar to the content you are looking for.