Influencer marketing - how to get marketing reach by customisation

If you play your cards right and pick the right influencer, that is. Depending on your approach and wider marketing strategy, influencer marketing has the potential to generate laser-focused leads for your brand in incredibly affordable ways.

Data suggests that, this year, 19% of marketers planned to spend between $1,000 – $10,000 on influencer marketing, while 18% had a budget for 2019 between $100,000 – $500,000.

That alone shows how versatile influencer marketing can be for brands of all shapes and sizes. It all depends on your research and the wider creative approach; influencer marketing is all about quality.

if you manage to strike a deal with an up-and-coming personality with a strong, core following on a specific platform, you could build a strong relationship with them and their followers before anybody else at a low cost.

That approach can get far better results than spending a huge chunk of your marketing budget on a famous face to post your product on Instagram, only for the message to disappear almost instantly in amongst their other posts.

HubSpot has some great examples of influencer marketing campaigns on its site, showing how brands have partnered with specific social media influencers to generate interest in their products and wider brand messaging (we particularly like Sperry’s approach to micro-influencers).

We leveraged the power of influencers ourselves was when we activated and managed the Mortal Kombat 11 reveal at KOKO, London. A large part of building hype for the event and attracting the right audience was by building relationships with celebrity gamers and influencers with the right audience. Doing so helped us cultivate an estimated social reach of over 175 million impressions.

It wasn’t just a case of having those influencers promote the event, though. It was essential they were as engaged as the fans we wanted to reach out to; to do that we organised a head-to-head livestream, with more than 2 million people (aged 18 – 35) tuning in on Twitch to watch their favourite celebrities battle each other. (In-game, of course.) 

If you really want to build strong relationships with influencers and their followers, though, and cause a social stir, it’s always worth starting with some customisation to really attract attention.

According to Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer report, 58% of consumers said they had bought a product in the last six months because of an influencer’s recommendation. 63% also said they trusted what influencers said about brands as opposed to what brands said about themselves.

They’re astonishing numbers and highlight why Influencer marketing – when done right – can be so effective.

Going that step further to put a bit of customisation into your approach, though, can make your campaign go even further. It can dazzle, excite, and bring a whole new emotional level to your messaging that could really pique their followers’ interest.

Take XSplit, for example. SplitmediaLabs has been working hard over the past decade to make high-quality live streaming more accessible to gamers through XSplit, and we worked with them to create a buzz kit to send out to the influencers who helped them get to where they are today.