Guide for Scaling Enterprise Influencer Marketing
Building an influencer marketing strategy at the enterprise level requires careful planning, strategy and dedicated resources. But after you’ve launched a campaign or two and begun to reap the rewards of your hard work, you and your team may be ready to expand your enterprise influencer marketing campaign.
But how do you scale an influencer marketing program? Believe it or not, it’s not as simple as connecting with more influencers and launching more campaigns. As you grow your influencer marketing strategy, you’ll need to develop additional processes and standard operating procedures to go with it. Otherwise, you may run into bottlenecks, unnecessary expenses and other roadblocks.
Read on to learn how to scale influencer marketing campaigns, plus common mistakes made when launching influencer marketing at scale.
Why Scaling Influencer Marketing Matters for Enterprises
Scaling your enterprise influencer marketing strategy offers numerous benefits, ranging from increased brand awareness with new audiences to measurable conversions and higher ROIs without a substantial increase in spending. However, it’s critical to understand the difference between expanding your influencer marketing strategy by simply adding more influencer partners and the mindset and processes behind scaling it.
The words may be used interchangeably more often than not. However, when considering scaling, think about boosting your impact without a correlating increase in time, effort and resources required to manage your influencer campaign.
Scaling an influencer marketing program involves implementing processes, automation and workflows that streamline your team’s work. At the same time, a scalable strategy increases the number of influencers you partner with—and the amount of traffic and conversions your marketing campaign drives.
Common Challenges to Scaling Influencer Campaigns for Enterprise Organizations
When you consider the key elements of a scalable influencer marketing campaign, like increasing efficiency through automation, technology and standard operating procedures, it may seem like an obvious choice. However, many enterprises struggle to scale their influencer programs for numerous reasons:
- Limited time and resources: A well-planned, scalable influencer program can reduce the resources and time needed to manage your marketing strategy. However, it takes time and experience to develop and implement scalable processes.
- No standardized processes: A new influencer marketing campaign team may not have developed standardized processes for selecting, vetting, onboarding and collaborating with influencers, which can impact your ability to scale.
- Lack of governance and clear ownership: Adaptable ownership plays a key role in scalability. Without clear governance and ownership plans, your team may not know who is accountable for each part of your influencer marketing program.
- Inactive or inefficient reporting and monitoring: You can’t scale what you can’t track, and you can’t invest your money in high-performing channels if you don’t know which strategies are driving conversions.
- No network of vetted influencers: Finding the right partners is a critical element of any scaled influencer marketing campaign. Without a network of vetted partners, you may spend an unnecessary amount of time searching for influencers who align with your brand and values.
New to influencer marketing? Check out our ultimate Influencer Partnership Marketing Guide.
How to Scale Influencer Marketing Campaigns: 3 Steps to Develop a Scalable Strategy
Ready to enhance your partnership marketing strategies and experience the benefits of influencer marketing at scale? Here are three steps to help your team launch a sustainable, scaled influencer marketing strategy.
1. Use Technology to Streamline Influencer Management
Technology is a cornerstone of a scaled influencer marketing strategy. Without it, you and your team will waste hours doing manual work—or risk missing valuable data that can help streamline and direct your efforts.
Consider investing in technology and software platforms to simplify or automate elements like the influencer selection and onboarding processes. Choose a simple, straightforward platform to make content reviews and approvals simple, too, along with payments for conversions.
2. Track Performance Metrics for Scaled Campaigns
Next, ensure you have a way to track and monitor performance metrics. Influencer partnerships have evolved beyond just brand awareness– they’re now performance-focused partnerships that can be a direct revenue driver. As we mentioned above, you can’t drive revenue and scale if you can’t track. What’s more, clear data showing your program’s successes and opportunities for improvement can provide valuable insights that guide your efforts.
Before investing more into your influencer marketing strategy, define standardized goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for each influencer partner. You can adapt goals down the road based on your needs, but give yourself a starting point. In addition, create a single performance hub for influencer campaigns so you can easily sort, filter, slice and dice information.
3. Implement Processes to Effectively Manage Multiple Influencers
Lastly, develop and implement new, efficient processes to help you and your team manage multiple influencers. A large portion of effective management begins with the onboarding processes and technology you use. You’ll also need to consider the procedures you use to manage active campaigns and kick off exciting new ones.
This may look different depending on your brand, the size of your program and your goals. Consider tactics like:
- Establishing a clear ownership plan for internal stakeholders
- Developing cross-functional, multi-discipline teams internally that help with planning, strategy alignment and governance—and getting buy-in from relevant stakeholders
- Creating an influencer resource system, you can share with new partners, featuring information like your brand standards, templates, calendars, approval criteria and over-universal documentation
- Building relationships with current and potential partners that you can leverage as needed depending on brand goals
- Considering exploring expert influencer management services to streamline campaign launch and monitoring processes even further, like those offered at Acceleration Partners
Take Your Influencer Marketing to the Next Level — Start Scaling Now!
Our team of expert affiliate marketing strategists at Acceleration Partners understands the challenges that come with scaling an enterprise influencer marketing program. We also understand the power that comes with having the right partner.
That’s where we come in. We bring decades of combined experience in scaled influencer marketing campaigns across numerous verticals. We know how to launch from scratch or build on your existing success to open new doors to client conversions and increase return on investment.
Contact us today to learn more about our proven, scalable influencer services.