Campaign Management Tools: Key to Success in the World of Influencer Marketing

Attend any marketing conference, and you’ll hear that influencer marketing campaigns are crucial to promote brand awareness.

Truth is, they are.

In fact, any marketing campaign that doesn’t include influencers is at risk of missing out on audience and program insights that are unique to influencer campaigns. Insights that will fuel every other marketing campaign and initiative your team is running. From social media to your brand’s search engine optimization efforts. Working with influencers can even have a direct impact on your brand’s R&D efforts, as well as talent acquisition and retention.

But…does your marketing strategy really need to include influencers, or can you explore all other marketing channels before going that route? Isn’t it enough to build targeted campaigns on social media, or design well-crafted email and content marketing assets, or omnichannel digital media ad buys? And even if you’re ready, how can you win buy-in from your executive team to start running campaigns if you’re not already including influencers in your digital marketing mix? It’s a catch-22.

These fears can leave you feeling better off staying away from influencer marketing campaigns altogether.

A word about your targeted audience (and their behavior)…

At any given moment, 95% of your target audience is likely not looking for or ready to buy your products and services. However, when they do have a need, they are likely to go into the buying cycle with only 3 brands in mind and will ultimately choose only 1 of those 3 brands when they purchase.

Which means, it’s more important than ever to focus your marketing efforts on out-of-market demand generation within that target audience. This is also known as “brand awareness” or “brand visibility.” By sharing personalized marketing messages through influencers and their social media channels, you prime your target audience to choose your brand when they move in market in their buying cycle.

When you reframe it that way, it’s easy to see how every influencer marketing campaign is critical to your brand’s bottom line. This is also why most of your marketing budget should be spent nurturing the out-of-market buyer, as they make up an overwhelming majority of all buyers.

…And a word about your competitors.

Not only that, but according to Statista, influencer marketing spend is estimated to be $21.1 billion in 2023. Making it likely that your competitors are investing heavily in influencer marketing to drive brand awareness right now.

This means every moment you sit on the sidelines of influencer marketing, your competitors are growing mindshare with your consumers. And syphoning that same consumer loyalty and preference (demand) away from your brand.

The sidelines are expensive.

Lost market share is actually a very expensive challenge.

Boston Consulting Group recently found that “Regaining lost market share requires a future investment of $1.85 for every $1.00 saved from near-term reductions in brand spending.”

Not only does the cost of recapturing your consumer go up when you reduce spend on brand marketing, but conversions go down. A successful marketing campaign–including marketing campaigns that leverage influencers–helps “soften” buyers and make them ready to buy when they are in market.

(Spoiler: influencers already have KLT factor with your target audience, otherwise known as know, like, trust. Making it much easier to create a marketing campaign that moves consumers to action, because your target audience is poised to listen to and trust the influencers you bring in.)

Are you ready to run your own influencer marketing campaign?

Influencer campaign management can often feel out of reach for brand teams for several reasons. Your internal brand team may consist of 1-2 marketers who are trying to spin multiple plates at the same time. Or, your team may not have experience with influencer marketing campaigns, making you weigh the risk and effort against the possible benefits.

When you look at all the marketing initiatives already on your plate, you may wonder how you can build a successful influencer marketing campaign without an extensive marketing team or investment in campaign management tools. Those campaign management tools can often be prohibitively costly while also requiring extensive training only to get underwhelming results.

We get it. It’s overwhelming. We’re here to take the stress out of running influencer marketing campaigns so you can successfully execute and deliver a campaign that delivers ROI (such as new sales, new customers, and new insights). Plus, we have solutions for brands at every budget level.

The secret? Our proprietary campaign management tools.

What does effective influencer marketing campaign management require?

Campaign management is the process and system an organization uses to plan, execute, and analyze marketing campaigns for success.

In influencer marketing specifically, it’s the process and system you use to manage your influencer marketing campaigns. There are many steps to successfully plan and implement a marketing campaign that leverages the KLT power of influencers:

• consumer and influencer avatar development
• key messaging creation
• influencer outreach, vetting, onboarding, and management
• campaign management
• content quality control
• accurate reporting and data analysis
• optimization planning

Each component above will impact consumers or influencers, or both. Ultimately, how each step is executed will affect your outcomes – for better or worse. It’s important to have a clear and careful plan for how you will manage your influencer campaign before you start.

Why is careful campaign management important to influencer marketing?

Each phase of an influencer marketing campaign includes hidden touch points that can deliver powerful insights and boost the performance of the program. To uncover those golden nuggets, the differentiating factor is campaign execution.

In an effective marketing campaign, campaign managers take the time to consider the desired end goal so that they can reverse engineer the campaign. Here are a few questions to consider with your marketing team:

• Is each phase carefully planned, with an eye toward best practices?
• Does the initial marketing strategy clearly guide each decision along the way, ensuring optimal results?
• Are the influencers nurtured in such a way that they feel inspired to overdeliver?

Not only does effective campaign management require these touch points, a program that overlooks them will face significant challenges. With our proprietary campaign management tools, we can help you sidestep the risk, while maximizing the value of your influencer marketing campaign.

What challenges do companies frequently face when it comes to marketing campaigns using influencers?

In addition to needing to understand the elements that go into a successful influencer marketing campaign, brands typically run into these common obstacles once they’ve decided to actually run one.

• lack of process
• lack of time to execute properly
• limited team bandwidth and experience
• wrong influencers (This would have been nipped in development stage, so the challenge would be finding the right influencers.)
• too many objectives
• losing momentum mid-campaign
• too much/not enough data
• data that doesn’t make sense
• lackluster ROI

Any one of these hurdles can sidetrack an influencer marketing campaign, while frustrating the teams who are actually managing campaigns.

The solution?

A campaign management tool.

Why do you need an influencer marketing campaign management tool?

Here are some of the ways using an influencer campaign management tool can help you effectively run an influencer marketing campaign:

1. Stay on budget.
2. Stay on timeline (or be able to make informed decisions about how changes will affect the end results).
3. Give influencers clear guidance for better outcomes.
4. Protect brand safety.
5. Maintain and grow internal your influence.
6. Save money.
7. Support team morale and protect momentum.
8. Avoid false starts and missteps.
9. Make decisions easily.

What are your options?

There are a variety of options when it comes to choosing a campaign management tool.

• Create your own campaign management system.
• Buy pre-packaged campaign management tools (templates, checklists, etc.).
• Use an influencer marketing platform.
• Hire an influencer marketing agency.

What are the right campaign management tools for your marketing team? Let’s look at these options more in depth so you can choose the right fit for your team.

Should you create your own campaign management process and system?

You absolutely can create your own process and system for managing your influencer marketing campaign. However, creating that process and system takes an immense amount of time as well as learning from trial and error.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you know where the gaps are in your knowledge of and experience with running influencer campaigns?
2. Do you have a dedicated team member who excels at designing processes and can focus on creating and maintaining this campaign management system?
3. Do you have an organizational commitment to ongoing support for this role on your team? For instance, if the person who “owns” this process leaves the company, will you hire for this position or will your hard work to build your campaign management system walk out the door?
4. Can you afford the risk that comes with the trial and error process of building the plane as you fly it while running an influencer campaign?

If your answer to any of these questions is “no,” you’ll want to look for outside support. Reach out to learn about our custom solutions at hello@maverickmindshare.com or (484) 240-5880.

Buy pre-packaged campaign management tools.

Here’s something you may not have considered. You can buy pre-packaged campaign management tools that give you varying levels of support and guidance as you develop and launch your influencer marketing campaigns. This can be especially beneficial if you have a limited budget.

Use Already-Limited Bandwidth

The trade off is that you’ll rely more heavily on your internal team to run and report on your campaigns, and it will be a “test and learn” experience at first, but you’ll have more flexibility in running your campaigns in terms of timeline and cost.

Require Research

These types of packages are extremely rare and require significant research to find, which takes time. You will need to cut through a lot of “noise” in your research, including search results that are not what you’re looking for from companies that are not experts in influencer marketing. Plan to devote a significant chunk of time to making sure you are investing in a reliable and effective tool from legitimate sources.

Deliver Lackluster Options

When you do find these pre-packaged campaign management tools, they are often incomplete. They offer solutions in the form of algorithms, platforms, and dashboards which lack real-world nuance that influencer marketing requires. The “experts” behind them often sell their technology rather than solutions that specifically help a brand successfully fill the critical gaps in their influencer programming.

Maverick Mindshare Campaign Toolkits

We have several packages that we’ve developed from our 13+ years experience in running hundreds of influencer marketing campaigns for national and global brands of all sizes across a variety of industries.

Not only do our packages come infused with our expertise and proven processes, but we have designed each toolkit to be easy to implement and deliver success quickly. This saves you time and cuts down on the drag of an extensive and painful learning curve. You can jump right into implementation and know that your efforts will be successful out of the gate!

Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit (DIY)

The Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit includes the organizational system, checklists, and templates that enable you to easily discover, vet, and onboard the perfect influencers for your next successful in-house influencer marketing campaign.

This includes:

• Step-by step playbook for influencer outreach
• Influencer outreach email series (templates)
• Influencer discovery and vetting system (rubric)
• Influencer outreach tracking report (checklist)
• Influencer onboarding process (checklist)
• Turn-key process

Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit + Strategic Advisory (DWY)

Enhance your The Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit with strategic advisory to have us in your back pocket along the way. We provide just-in-time consulting calls, expert guidance, and customized feedback to support you during key phases of your in-house influencer campaign.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you feel pressure to incorporate influencers in your marketing strategy, but you don’t know where to start?
2. Do you need to get started ASAP but have a limited resources (time, energy, team, budget)?
3. Do you have a team you can lean on to roll out an influencer campaign the right way, given the proper tools and structure?
4. Do you want a safety net in place as you work with an external influencer platform to run your programs (to make sure you’re getting the full value of your investment in that platform)?
5. Do you want quality assurance to make sure you’re getting the best result from your current influencer marketing agency?
6. Do you want to capture your learnings and best practices to be able to repeat your success with influencer marketing over and over?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” one of our Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkits is a great solution for you. Reach out to us at hello@maverickmindshare.com or (484) 240-5880 to learn more.

Are Influencer Marketing Platforms Your Campaign Management Solution?

Investing in an influencer marketing platform might seem like a good idea, especially when those platforms tout their time-savings and efficiency. You’ll be enticed by the prospect of streamlining the campaign development process and minimizing your time spent finding influencers. You’ll anticipate the ease of a real-time dashboard for monitoring programs and keeping them on track.

However, once you unpack these tools, you’ll likely find that there’s a lot missing:

• First, setting up a platform takes time. You (or a dedicated team member) will need to spend significant time setting up platform software in order to run your programs with any success. You’ll have to learn the ins and outs of the platform you choose to invest in – how to navigate it, where to add things, the gaps it has. They can be tricky to set up correctly, which can cause frustration and delays, making them difficult to actually use. This can feel like a waste of money, but one that you’re compelled to keep using to recoup that investment.
• Second, even if set up goes well, no one platform delivers all that you’ll need throughout the lifecycle of a campaign. A platform cannot read the nuanced differences between influencers and their audiences, nor can it effectively negotiate contracts with influencers or motivate them to meet deadlines. It can’t detect if an influencer has an affinity for specific retailers or is a brand loyalist to your competitor. A platform cannot tell you which KPIs to measure or give you a qualitative analysis of your campaign results. Often, using a platform adds an impersonal “middle man”, a barrier if you will, that can delay communication (including urgent updates) between your marketing team and the influencer.
• Lastly, an influencer platform removes much of the human touch that is key to building strong relationships with influencers. This is another place that the algorithmic barrier can be detrimental. Influencers are people first and have quirks just like all of us. Real life doesn’t look like a textbook. Influencer platform software and dashboards can’t navigate the intricacies of life (illness, pregnancy, death, technology snafus, or fresh ideas) with the same thought and care as a person managing the campaign is able to.

For these reasons, we strongly believe using an influencer marketing platform has the potential to be harmful to your brand, your marketing team, the influencers, and the overall ROI of your influencer campaign.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you know exactly the outcome you desire by investing in an influencer marketing platform or dashboard?
2. Does your team have the bandwidth to research and figure out how to set up the platform?
3. Do you feel confident that you do, in fact, have the right pieces in place to run a successful campaign (e.g. the right message to reach the right consumer)?
4. Do you have a team member (or team members) who can find and fill the gaps in what the influencer platform delivers?
5. Does your team have the bandwidth to go beyond what the platform offers and conduct additional influencer research and vetting to get the right influencers?
6. Does your campaign have flexibility if/when the platform incurs delays?
7. Can you afford the risk of potential lackluster results in your campaign (even if you saved time) from using a platform?

If your answer to any of these questions is “no,” we have a variety of solutions to offer, from full-service campaign management to influencer marketing toolkits to help with specific “hot spots”. Reach out to us at hello@maverickmindshare.com or (484) 240-5880.

Hire a marketing agency to manage your influencer campaign.

We’ve recently seem an explosion of “influencer marketing agencies” as well as full-service agencies who have developed influencer capabilities. Just like all influencer marketing platforms are not created equal, not all influencer marketing agencies are created equal. Secret: some actually manage and run influencer campaigns using the same influencer marketing platforms described above! Not only does this add another middle man between you and your influencers but it adds one more layer of complication and one more step to your process of getting anything done.

Additionally, most agencies aren’t experts in influencer marketing, but have simply “added on” influencer marketing as a branch of their business to answer demand from clients. They don’t have tried-and-true processes in place for maximizing influencer marketing campaign investments, which can often lead to brands feeling like influencer marketing lacks impact. (Spoiler: it’s not influencer marketing as a tactic, but rather the technicians managing the campaigns that are missing the mark.)

Look for a marketing agency that specializes in influencer marketing and has deep experience in the industry along with solid influencer relationships.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Are you interested in maximizing your results by bringing in expert support?
2. Do you have the budget and approval to bring in outside support for your influencer marketing goals?
3. Is it urgent that you run an influencer marketing campaign, but you don’t currently have the bandwidth to do so?
4. Are you looking for a partner that can powerfully augment the work your team is already doing by understanding your overall marketing strategy and goals?
5. Is it important to reduce workload from your team so that they can focus on other areas of importance?
6. Are you worried about sitting on the sidelines because you’ll lose ground to competitors who are investing in influencer marketing?

If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” reach out to us at hello@maverickmindshare.com or (484) 240-5880 to see if our solutions are a fit.

Maverick Mindshare assists CMOs and their marketing teams to successfully manage marketing campaigns using influencers.

We’ve specialized in influencer marketing campaign management from the moment we launched over 13 years ago. We started when influencers were called “bloggers”, and we’ve tapped the evolution of the industry over that time to deliver programs featuring influencers who leverage all the platforms channels and drive results through leading-edge best practices.

In that time, we’ve:

• built rich connections with influencers (developing equity that benefits our clients).
• created a proprietary campaign management system and process that protects your brand investment from start to finish.
• perfected our process to remove most of the work off your plate while maximizing your outcomes.

We protect you.

Based on our years of expertise, we’ve created several solutions that solve your needs and fit your budget when it comes to executing an influencer marketing campaign. They range from full-service campaign management to do-it-yourself toolkits.

Discover the influencer campaign management solution that fits your needs.

Full-Service Influencer Campaign Management

• Leverage influencers’ “Know-Like-Trust” factor to accelerate your consumer’s journey from “Awareness” to “Advocacy.”
• Benefit from our hands-on management of ideal influencers, including discovery, vetting, and onboarding.
• Ensure quality control of content campaign while maximizing consumer engagement.
• Win stakeholder buy-in all marketing initiatives by leveraging our comprehensive campaign data reporting and analysis.

Why is hiring us to manage your influencer strategy and campaign needs from end-to-end your best option?

• We free you up to focus on your other brand marketing needs.
• We take a 360 approach to your team, making sure we support your people while we overdeliver influencer marketing results.
• We ensure your programs stay on track while your internal team tends to the other fires burning on their desks.
• We have a proprietary, tried-and-true campaign management system that protects you and your investment – no trial and error.
• We never hand off your campaign to a junior account executive.
• You benefit from our deep equity with influencers.
• You can sleep at night knowing we are protecting you every step on the way to delivering outsized ROI

Our full-service influencer campaign management includes the elements below. We also offer each element as a stand alone package.

Digital Landscape Assessment

• Protect your creative briefs and ideas from naysayers and tire-kickers in your organization with just-in-time data.
• Leverage the unseen gap between how your industry is behaving and how your consumers are behaving so you can stay ahead of your industry’s curve.
• Identify new motivated consumers to expand your consumer base.

Strategic Analysis

• Strengthen your consumer’s emotional connection by dialing in your brand messaging.
• Pinpoint and eliminate barriers in consumer perception that negatively impact consumer behavior.
• Differentiate your brand though our competitor analysis so that you can easily stand out in an oversaturated marketplace.

In addition to our full-service campaign management options described above, we offer several Influencer Marketing Toolkits that you can use to run a successful influencer campaign internally: our comprehensive Influencer Outreach Toolkit  option, and the Done-With-You package which includes our expert strategic advisory as you launch your campaign.

Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit (DIY)

The Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit includes the turn-key process, checklists, and templates that enable you to easily discover, vet, and onboard the perfect influencers for your next launch so that you can execute a successful in-house influencer marketing campaign.

This includes:

• Step-by step playbook for influencer outreach
• Influencer outreach email series (templates)
• Influencer discovery and vetting system (rubric)
• Influencer outreach tracking report (checklist)
• Influencer onboarding process (checklist)
• Turn-key process

Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit + Strategic Advisory (DWY)

Enhance your The Maverick Influencer Outreach Toolkit with strategic advisory to have us in your back pocket along the way. We provide just-in-time consulting calls, expert guidance, and customized feedback to support you during the influencer outreach phase of your in-house influencer campaign.

Ready to Take the Next Step and Rock Your Influencer Marketing Campaign?

Reach out to us: hello@maverickmindshare.com | (484) 240-5880‬