Goal
In order to launch the influencer campaign, there should be done several preparatory steps. First of all, the research regarding the usage of influencer marketing for e-commerce business, based on the existing competitors’ campaigns. It’s quite hard to find a suitable influencer, who would satisfy all the demands of the company. There should be identified as a suitable niche (category) for your business type, where you can search for the influencer. There are more chances to find suitable influencers for CROWDYHOUSE in such categories as beauty, fashion, and lifestyle rather than gaming or entertainment.
Methods
In order to have a better impression on how to launch the influencer campaign, it is a good idea to have a look already existing influencer platforms with their own database of different influencers and internal analytics tools. Most of the influencer marketing agencies upload some of their successful campaign results, which are summarised in case studies. The case study gives you good insight regarding the steps, which have to be taken to launch the influencer campaign. In order to get the access to such case studies, it is required to create a free account at one of those platforms or try a free version for a limited period of time. A good example of the platform for advertisers/brands and influencers to get connected is http://www.influicity.com/. Influicity gives you access to the influencer database, analytics tool, and campaign execution tools, with agency-specific training, support and resources.
Influicity is used for business purposes to empower their performance level, impress clients, and increase revenues. You can access it as an influencer or a brand/advertiser, in each case the usage of the platform will be different. As a brand, you might be willing to start a campaign from the list of pre-selected influencers. There is access to an overview of the influencer’s channel data analytics. You can see a number of their followers, fair market value, effective cost per view, subscriber’s change and so on.
Another useful platform, which connects brands and the influencers, is http://thecirqle.com. As a brand company, you can start the campaign with the influencers of your choice. First, you set up campaign objectives, such as preferred social media channels, so that the influencers can apply for promoting your brand. Once you created a campaign, then the process of influencer selection is started. It’s easy to keep track of the posts, created by the influencers, everything is available on cirqle.com dashboard.
A similar platform for brand and influencer cooperation is https://www.rewardstyle.com/. Nevertheless, the process of account registration as a brand or an influencer starts from submitting the application, which has to approved first by Rewardstyle.com. Unfortunately, after some time the application from CROWDYHOUSE was still pending.
One of the CROWDYHOUSE’s competitors – http://www.made.com/ already used the service of cirqle.com. Made.com is an e-commerce brand, based in London, which is specialized on sales of designer furniture. They offer the original furniture design at affordable prices. Likewise CROWDYHOUSE, Made.com sells the furniture directly from the designers without the middleman and the option of tracking the ordered product.
The results of made.com campaign with the influencers is quite impressive. By using the possibilities to connect with the influencers via cirqle.com, they reached the number of 942,952 impressions of posts from 8 influencers in 1 month. The posts were made with different social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. The case study is available here (Poelhekke, 2017).
If you searching for a specific type of influencers, https://mychannels.com/ is a good option as well. This platform is a database of different types of influencers, they are divided into categories, which is really convenient for brands. Once you found a suitable influencer, then you can reach him out directly and ask for cooperation. Another option is looking for similar influencers on social media channels of mychannels.com based influencers. You might lookout for the similar influencers who participated in your competitors’ campaigns. For instance, Made.com, Westwing.nl, Vtwonen.nl, and other e-commerce brands, specialized in sales of designer furniture and homewares.
How to find the right influencer for your brand?
In order to approach the most relevant influencer for your brand, you need to know your audience and then target the influencer with a similar audience. CROWDYHOUSE already gathered a certain type of customer. In order to have a clear view of the CROWDYHOUSE target audience, Google analytics data should be used.
We are going to analyze such fields as:
- Visitors demographics interest overview
- Visitors demographics interest branding
- Visitors demographics interest in-market
- Visitors demographics gender
- Visitors demographics age
Visitors demographics interest overview
Existing CROWDYHOUSE audience is divided into several major categories, based on their interest. On the (Pic. 1.1.) you can see that Home Decor Enthusiasts (10965) is the leading group in reach. Then follow Movie Lovers (9899) and Top 3 closes The Shoppers/Shopaholics group (9512). The in-market segment is represented mainly by Home & Garden/Home Furnishings (6314), Home & Garden/Home Decor (5716), Travel/Hotels & Accommodations (5440) lovers (Pic. 1.2.). Another primary interest of CROWDYHOUSE audience is Arts & Entertainment/Celebrities & Entertainment News (4410), Arts & Entertainment/TV & Video/Online Video (3251) and Home & Garden/Home & Interior Decor (2709) (Pic. 1.3.) (Analytics.google.com, 2017).
Pic. 1.1. “Sessions vs. Affinity Category (reach)” Pic. 1.2. “Sessions vs. In-Market Segment”
Pic. 1.3. “Sessions vs. Other category”
Nevertheless that Home Decor Enthusiasts are leading in the engagement level, on the (Pic. 1.4) you can see that Shutterbugs group is taking over the leading position in the level of Revenue vs. Affinity. On the other hand, Home Decor Enthusiasts are the leaders (€3771.07) in the level of Revenue vs In-Market Segment. Arts & Entertainment/TV & Video/Online Video group is the leader in Revenue vs. Other category fields (€2785.79) (Analytics.google.com, 2017).
Pic. 1.4. “Revenue vs. Affinity Category (reach)” Pic. 1.5. “Revenue vs. Other Category”
The most frequent visitors of CROWDYHOUSE are females (64,8%) comparing to the male group (35,2%). The average age of the most engaged part of the target group is 25-34, though the group 35-44 is the leader in the Revenue level (Analytics.google.com, 2017).
According to the Google analytics data and existing description of CROWDYHOUSE target group, the potential customer belongs to the New World group of the Euro-Socio Styles system. There are 11% of people who belong to this group, so it’s clear that the products of CROWDYHOUSE are not mass-market oriented. This group of people belong to the specific geographical region, they are cosmopolitans, world citizens. They are characterized as hedonistic, easy-going intellectuals with more than average level of income. They seek the balance in life, harmony and are open to social commitments. As a consumer, they put the quality and ambiance above the price of the product (Moriarty, & Franzen, 2015).
Applying the VALS target segmentation system, it is clear that CROWDYHOUSE target group belongs to Innovators. They are successful, pro-active, interested in growth, self-development, and exploration of new things. They like to express themselves in various ways. The image is more appealing for innovators than the status or power. They are enthusiastic to try out new products, new forms of distribution and new technologies (Moriarty, & Franzen, 2015).
Persona
Marleen Rusman
Country: Dutch, but she positions herself as a world citizen.
Age: 35-44
Marital status: in a partnership
Income: above average
Education: Bachelor degree in marketing (Vrij University Amsterdam)
Lifestyle:
- she is seeking harmony in life and at the same time, she likes to explore new things.
- she sets the self-development as a priority for her life in perspective
- she is quite a cultural amateur, she likes attending new art exhibition or creative workshops
- she is keeping up with the latest trends in fashion and design interior, though she has her own unique style
- she keeps the balance between the social life and her own interests
Hobby:
- yoga
- keeping the blog about interior design, decorations
- reading Elle Decoration, Vtwonen, Libelle
Conclusion
In order to get a good insight into the influencer campaign planning, it is important to check already existing campaigns of the direct and indirect competitors. The needed case studies you can access from the influencer marketing platforms and check the used strategy planning and the database of the influencers involved in the campaign. It will help to avoid similar mistakes while launching the influencer campaign for your own brand.
One of the important steps to take is carrying out research regarding the current target audience of the brand. It is possible to identify the active target group by using internal and external analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook insight. The analyzed data should include such fields as the demographic’s interest overview, interest in-market, gender, age, and the geographical location. Once the details regarding those fields are identified then it is possible to visualize the persona which represents the brand target group. It is important to have a clear vision of the target group that your brand is aiming to reach out for.
References
Analytics.google.com,. (2017). CROWDYHOUSE All Web Site Data. Analytics.google.com. Retrieved 25 March 2017, from https://analytics.google.com/
Moriarty, S., & Franzen, G. (2015). The Science and Art of Branding (1st ed., pp. 149-152). Routledge. Retrieved from https://books.google.nl/books?id=XrcqlxhzdHQC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=euro+socio+styles&source=bl&ots=FGEKsEIm3_&sig=3w5jN_jgpPt0yfSEswxUWv0HFVI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip_J2T2ffSAhUJXBQKHRuJBAQQ6AEIYDAN#v=onepage&q=euro%20socio%20styles&f=false
Poelhekke, D. (2017). Made.com “The showroom campaign” (1st ed.). Cirqle.com. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54f8c691e4b049e2ccf23e8f/t/57028cfd01dbae8fc9bfd212/1459784964269/Made.com+-+Case+study.pdf