A successful way to bypass the self-promotional and mediocre content featured on most social platforms is by collaborating with an influencer who is relevant to your niche. An influencer marketing strategy offers several lucrative advantages for today’s marketers and brands.
It can strengthen your brand’s reputation and connect you with a broad audience without being overly promotional.
However, before you can assign a budget for your influencer marketing strategy, you need to know that executing a successful campaign requires meticulous research and planning.
So, how can you successfully run influencer marketing strategies that drive awareness, sales, and revenue?
We list out powerful tactics you can implement below.
However, before we outline the steps to create a successful influencer marketing strategy, let’s take a closer look at what the whole strategy entails.
Influencers are social media personalities with a huge number of engaged followers. These followers are extremely devoted to their favorite influencers and remain loyal to their recommendations.
Unlike mainstream celebrities, influencers don’t hide their personal lives under a veil of secrecy. Instead, they leverage social media platforms to forge connections with their followers.
This gives influencers the power to win their followers’ trust. The influencer marketing industry was valued at $25 billion in 2024, highlighting just how essential influencers have become to businesses' strategies.
While they are not meant to be put on a pedestal and worshipped, influencers hold significant influence over their followers.
They often share a friendly rapport with their followers and are capable of shaping their opinions and purchase decisions. Most are even perceived as experts or authority figures in their niches.
So, what do influencer marketing campaigns involve?
Influencer marketing involves collaborating or partnering with social media influencers to promote your brand. You can build your influencer marketing strategy to strengthen your brand reputation, increase brand awareness, and drive conversions.
Depending on the influencer marketing strategy objectives, you can collaborate with these influencers to write high-quality content or announce giveaways and contests. You can also invite influencers to write on your blog or be a part of your weekly podcast series.
For instance, Ralph Lauren collaborated on a TikTok campaign with Diana Silvers, an influencer, model, and actress. They then tied their campaign to the US Open Tennis Championship and consolidated the #USOpen hashtag to their own hashtag #WinningRL.
This means they married Diana Silver’s interests and audience to tennis and US Open fans. Currently, the videos featuring Diana on the Ralph Lauren page have over 200k views.
Image via TikTok
However, an influencer strategy is more than just getting your brand featured on an influencer’s social media profiles. Before developing your influencer marketing strategy, it is crucial to figure out why it is important for your brand.
Due to their high reach, influencers can help start online conversations about your products and increase brand awareness. They help you get more visibility and enable you to reach a new audience that would have remained inaccessible otherwise.
A recent report revealed that 85% of marketers are planning to use influencers in 2025, up from 82% in 2024.
Image via Statista
Having an influencer marketing strategy can, therefore, help you bypass any ad blockers that might be used by your target audience.
What’s more?
Consumers perceive influencers as trusted sources of valuable information. Thus, when influencers recommend your offers, their followers treat it as honest feedback from an actual consumer. This is often more effective than a brand tooting its own horn.
When a product recommended by an influencer is right, consumers purchase it directly from the influencer’s account.
Why is this?
A recommendation from an influencer is often treated as a vote of confidence in favor of your brand. Having it encourages their followers to give your products a try.
An effective influencer marketing strategy, therefore, helps you build a large number of loyal brand advocates.
It also adds a fresh perspective to your content strategy. They create high-quality content to engage their followers.
Running an influencer marketing strategy breathes new life into your content and helps make it more engaging. In addition, when an influencer lends their unique voice to your content, it makes it more authentic.
Best of all?
Incorporating influencers can have a positive impact on your website’s search engine rankings. When an influencer shares your content, it is likely to get shared even further, thus driving more traffic to your website.
In addition, it also helps you earn several genuine and high-quality backlinks. All of these factors tell search engines that your website is popular and deserves a prominent position in search engine results.
A well-planned influencer marketing strategy offers some advantages. The strategy is also far more effective than conventional forms of marketing such as print ads, television commercials, etc.
Now, let’s discuss the steps to create a workable influencer marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing entails more than just a simple shout-out from any random influencer. It is not just about getting featured on an influencer’s social media page.
If you want to increase brand exposure, generate leads, and increase sales, it is crucial to outline an influencer marketing strategy. It requires a deep understanding of your goals and target market to develop an actionable plan.
Here are 11 steps to create an effective influencer marketing strategy:
The ultimate objective of your influencer marketing strategy has a tremendous impact on the type of influencer you collaborate with.
In addition, it dictates the kind of content you are going to create with the influencers. A clear idea of your marketing goals also helps you assess the overall performance of your campaign.
Therefore, the first step of your influencer marketing strategy is to outline the specific goals that you want to achieve.
Do you want to start a conversation about your brand? Or do you want to attract more potential customers and generate leads?
Your answers to these questions will determine the final objective of your influencer marketing strategy.
Typically, you can define one or more of the following goals:
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that you use to evaluate the performance of your influencer marketing strategy.
And if you want to analyze whether your influencer marketing campaign helped you achieve the desired results, it is crucial to designate appropriate KPIs. This will also help you determine the ROI of your influencer campaigns and help you understand if they were successful.
Based on your final objective, you can assign KPIs such as:
This is a crucial step in your influencer marketing strategy.
Assigning proper KPIs helps you monitor the performance of your influencer campaign and track any deviations. It enables you to apply necessary corrective measures to help you achieve your desired influencer marketing strategy results.
Every marketing campaign is built on a solid understanding of the target audience.
But why?
If you fail to identify your ideal audience, you will not be able to connect with them through your campaign.
And guess what?
This unsaid rule also applies to your influencer marketing strategy.
To run an effective influencer marketing campaign, you must have a deep understanding of your potential customers.
But how do you define them?
Outline different parameters such as age group, gender, geographic location, profession, academic background, etc. In addition, you should have a clear idea about their preferences and pain points.
It also helps to delve deeper, study their online behavior, and identify the devices and social media platforms they are most likely to use.
Therefore, identifying your target audience is one of the critical stages of your influencer marketing strategy. It has an impact on the type of influencers and social media platforms you select.
In addition, it also helps you develop more user-centric content that will appeal to your potential customers.
Choosing the right influencer marketing channel is crucial for the success of your campaign. You don’t want to waste time or money on an influencer marketing platform where your audience isn’t active.
Every social media platform has its style, features, and audience. Some are ideal for short videos, while others excel with long-form content. A successful influencer marketing strategy focuses on where people engage the most.
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube dominate the influencer marketing space. Instagram is great for product showcases, stories, and short reels, while TikTok is perfect for trends and bite-sized, highly engaging videos—especially if you're targeting younger audiences.
YouTube, on the other hand, works well for in-depth reviews, tutorials, and vlogs. A smart influencer marketing strategy takes into account where your audience spends their time and what type of content captures their attention.
There are various risks of choosing the wrong platform, including low engagement. To avoid this, experiment with different platforms to find the one that helps you connect with potential customers.
This is perhaps the most crucial part of your influencer marketing strategy. And it can decide the fate of your campaign.
However, finding the right influencer for your campaign can be extremely challenging.
For example, Instagram influencers are around or little less than 65 million influencers. This leaves brands and marketers spoiled for choice when looking for influencers to collaborate with.
However, picking any random influencer can do more harm than good.
Therefore, it is crucial to identify the most suitable influencer for your influencer marketing strategy based on the following criteria:
Once you have defined your ideal influencer, it is time to search far and wide on the internet and find them.
But what’s the best way to find those who would drive results for your influencer marketing strategy?
You can run a simple Google search to get a list of the most relevant influencers in your niche. Key in the command “influencer type* the number of followers*site” to identify key influencers you can consider.
Image via Google
Also, considering the ever-changing nature of social media marketing, indicate the time range so you don’t get outdated recommendations.
For this, head to Tools, and input either a custom range or choose from the past year.
Image via Google
Now, Google shows you results from your location, but if you need to find potential influencers from a different region, you can head to Settings and change it from there.
Alternatively, you can use other tactics, including:
You can also check online options for influencer marketing hubs or contact an influencer marketing agency near you. Once you have found the influencer you want to collaborate with, it is time to connect with them.
And your best strategy?
Direct influencer outreach.
Many influencers provide their official contact details in their social media profiles. You can write to them outlining a detailed proposal for collaboration.
Alternatively, you can actively engage with an influencer’s content and develop a rapport before you approach them for a partnership.
You have now reached the stage of your influencer marketing strategy where you will decide on the type of content you will publish.
And your best tactic?
Give sufficient creative control to your influencers. They create user-centric content regularly and have a fair idea of what their audience wants.
In addition, you should also set aside a specific budget for the content creation process.
The key is to create high-quality social media content that does not come across as an overly promotional pitch. If the influencer mentions your brand in their content, it shouldn’t look like a sponsored endorsement.
That is why it is such an important component of your influencer marketing strategy. Your marketing objectives will also have a significant impact on the content creation process.
But what types of content can you use?
The following are content types you can leverage to make your influencer marketing strategy a success:
Product Reviews and Testimonials
Your potential customers are often wary of brands that indulge in self-promotional tactics. They’d rather find out what others think about your brand.
And this is one of the reasons running an influencer marketing strategy is crucial.
When influencers offer honest feedback about your product or service, they give credibility to your brand. This, in turn, helps generate a plethora of leads and convert them into paying customers.
When Choice Hotels wanted to promote their new brands, Cambria and Comfort Inn, they collaborated with lifestyle bloggers and influencers.
They invited lifestyle blogger, Chelsea Foy, to stay at one of their properties and share real-time updates of her experience. This influencer campaign helped the international hotel chain reach more than 40 million potential customers.
Image via Lovely Indeed
This involves relinquishing control of one or more of your social media profiles to an influencer for a specific time period. The influencer has the freedom to create and share content on your behalf.
This influencer marketing strategy gives your audience a break from promotional content. In addition, it enhances the engagement levels and credibility of your content.
For instance, the UK-based Sheffield Hallam University invited their students to take over their official Instagram account. The idea behind this seven-day campaign was to increase their social engagement and reach. Today, Sheffield has more than 48K Instagram followers.
Image via Instagram
Another clever influencer marketing strategy is to collaborate with an influencer and host a giveaway of your products.
Typically, the influencer announces the giveaway on their social media profiles. Then, their followers are required to like the post, follow your social media profile, and tag their friends in the post.
You can then reward the winners with a gift basket of your products, a discount coupon, or a free trial.
On the other hand, a contest may also require them to participate in a poll or even a selfie competition.
And the good news?
Both contests and giveaways are incredibly useful for boosting brand awareness, social media presence, and engagement.
But how?
They expose you to social media users who may have remained inaccessible otherwise to your brand and your products. In addition, if the winner likes using your product, they might consider purchasing it, recommending it, and becoming your brand ambassadors.
Image via Instagram
If you already host a weekly podcast series, it might be a good idea to invite relevant influencers and content creators to be a part of it.
This influencer marketing strategy positions your brand as one that cares about the growth of your audience by sharing valuable information with them.
One of the most crucial yet often neglected aspects of an influencer marketing strategy is the legal contract. Keeping things legal in your influencer marketing strategy isn’t optional—it’s a must.
You need clear agreements if you're paying someone to promote your brand. For safety purposes and to protect your brand, sign a formal contract with the influencer outlining details such as timelines and deliverables.
Various platforms require influencers to disclose paid partnerships. The brand and the influencer need to be honest with the marketing—no fake claims, no misleading info, and no tricking customers.
Transparency is everything. If you don’t follow the rules, you risk fines, bad press, and losing customer trust.
What’s more?
Mutually decide on a suitable compensation for the influencer and ensure that all your influencer-backed content adheres to FTC guidelines.
To be on the safe side, here are some legal must-haves for a solid influencer marketing strategy:
For example, here’s a section of TikTok’s policy on advertising alcohol.
Image via TikTok
Your influencer marketing strategy doesn’t end right after the influencer publishes content or announces the giveaway.
It is an ongoing process that demands regular monitoring, but what does that involve?
Monitoring an influencer campaign means keeping track of its performance. It involves checking engagement, audience response, and conversions.
As a business owner overseeing a marketing campaign, you need to see if influencers are sticking to brand guidelines. You also need to confirm if the content connects with the right audience.
You should also engage with the audience when possible. You can do so by replying to and liking comments and questions from consumers on the influencer’s posts.
Without monitoring, an influencer marketing strategy can waste money. Campaigns may fail to reach the right audience, the content might not align with the brand’s voice, and issues like fake followers and low engagement can undermine the effort.
Some key metrics that every influencer marketing strategy should keep track of include the following:
Fortunately, there are countless tracking tools available, like Upfluence, that you can use to track your influencer marketing campaigns.
After monitoring your influencer marketing campaign and gathering valuable insights, the next step is to review the data and use it to refine your future strategy. This means making informed adjustments based on what worked and what didn’t.
For example, if an influencer isn’t generating enough engagement or their content doesn’t align with your brand, it’s a clear sign that adjustments are needed. Not every campaign will perform the same, so staying flexible is key to finding what works.
Ignoring these could lead to repeating the same mistakes, wasting time, and money.
Adjustments include changing influencers, experimenting with new content formats, refining your messaging, or shifting your posting schedule. Sometimes, it’s about targeting a new audience or focusing on a different platform. These changes can lead to stronger results in future campaigns.
Some tips to revamp your influencer marketing strategy include the following.
Remember, like every other form of marketing, influencer marketing requires time and patience. It’s all about experimenting with different things until you find an influencer marketing strategy that works.
It’s more cost-effective to continue working with influencers who deliver strong results. Constantly searching for new partners adds unnecessary workload and disrupts the consistency needed for a cohesive marketing strategy.
The solution? Long-term influencer partnerships.
Long-term influencer partnerships are different from one-off collaborations. Instead of a single sponsored post, brands work with influencers over time. This builds trust with the audience and makes the promotion feel natural.
A short-term deal might get quick engagement, but ongoing partnerships help create brand loyalty. When influencers repeatedly share a product, their followers start to see it as reliable.
Additionally, sticking with influencers who deliver results makes everything smoother. The influencer already knows the brand, which means less back-and-forth. Their audience also expects their recommendations, which makes conversions easier.
An example of a successful long-term partnership is between Adidas and Messi. Adidas first partnered with Messi in 2004 and has been renewing this relationship ever since.
Image via Adidas
While Lionel Messi is undoubtedly one of the most well-known figures in the world, small businesses and startups don't have to spend a fortune to secure high-profile partnerships.
A strong influencer marketing strategy is about working with people who connect with the right audience repeatedly.
Q1. How do you develop an influencer marketing strategy?
A. Use these steps to build a perfect influencer marketing strategy:
Check out the post above for details on how to effectively apply these steps in your influencer marketing strategy.
Q2. What is an influencer marketing strategy?
A. With an influencer marketing strategy, brands leverage the influential status of individuals online to boost their profiles and promote their products or services.
Q3. How successful is influencer marketing?
A. Marketers who run influencer marketing strategies say it's effective, with 89% saying its ROI is better or comparable to what they get from working with other marketing channels.
Q4. How much does it cost for influencer marketing?
A. Different factors determine how much an influencer will charge. They include:
Depending on these, the influencer can then charge between $5 to over $25,000 per post.
Q5. What makes a good content strategy?
A. A good content strategy has a specific goal, a defined audience, and channels of promotion. It also caters to different stages of the sales funnel and helps your brand turn prospects into loyal customers.
Q6. How do you plan and build a successful content marketing strategy?
A. Use these steps to design your content marketing strategy:
Q7. Does influencer marketing actually work?
A. Yes, running an influencer marketing strategy works, and here's why:
Q8. How many followers do you need to be an influencer?
A. It depends:
For nano influencers, you need around 500 to 10,000 followers
Micro-influencers from 10,000 to 50,000 followers
Mid-tier influencers from 50,000 to 100,000 followers
Macro-influencers 100,000 to 500,000 followers
Mega influencer 500,000+
Q9. What companies use influencer marketing?
A. You can run an influencer marketing strategy irrespective of whether you are a small or large enterprise.
The secret is to collaborate with influencers who mirror your brand values and deliver tangible results. Ensure they have high engagement, reach, and the ability to convince audiences to take action.
Q10. Who is the most famous influencer?
A. Overall, the most famous influencers are Cristiano Ronaldo with over 650M followers, Lionel Messi with over 500M followers, and Selena Gomez with over 420M followers.
However, besides celebrities, we have other personalities who dominate specific social media platforms. For example, Charli D'Amelio on TikTok and Felix PewDiePie on YouTube.
An effective influencer marketing strategy is crucial for increasing brand exposure, credibility, and sales conversion rates. It attracts the right people to your brand and helps convert them into paying customers.
In addition, influencer-backed content breathes new life to your social media profiles and improves engagement.
However, in order to develop your influencer marketing strategy, you must have a clear understanding of your end goals and target audience.
It is also equally important to define and select the right influencers who will help you achieve your goals. And you need to choose a communication channel and type of content that will resonate best with your target audience.
These factors are crucial for the success of your influencer marketing strategy.
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