Setting Up Your Influencer Marketing Program

We always recommend the same approach which is based on the Pareto Principle. Brands which have adopted this strategy have experienced significant growth by transforming into a Social First brand.

The Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto first developed the Pareto Principle in 1896. The Pareto principle states that 20% of the input results in 80% of the outputs. Mathematically, the 80/20 rule is roughly described by a power law distribution. In a business context, it states, for example, that 80% of the sales/income often come from 20% of clients/customers. The performance with influencers often follow this same 80/20 distribution.

What does this mean, and how can you build up your influencer marketing program based on this principle?

It means that 20% of the influencers you work with generate around 80% of the revenue. This 20% are the influencers you want to work with long term, build relationships with and invite to your campaigns. If you further analyse this 80/20 is increasingly becoming 90/10 or 99/1 – the principle itself is becoming more pronounced. To identify the top performing influencers you want to work with long term we recommend the following steps:

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1. Influencer Testing Campaigns: ‍

First-time collaborations to track the performance. In this stage, you mainly want to find out if the influencer can influence their audience to purchase. Don’t go overboard with large budgets. In this phase, you want to keep your cost low as you don’t know how the posts will perform.

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2. Analyse the Data of Each Influencer:

Welcome the top 20% to your brand ambassador program: long-term partnerships.

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3. Repeat & Scale:

Increasing your tribe of performing brand ambassadors should be your main objective. Influencer testing campaigns can be seen as the engine of growth for your influencer marketing program. The performing influencers can be invited to each of your seasonality campaigns.

Read more about Influencer Seasonality Campaigns and Affiliate Marketing here.

In summary, your IM program can be divided into two main operational aspects.

1. Influencer Testing Campaigns:

First-time collaborations to identify influencers who can influence their audience to take action and purchase.

2. Relationship Management & Affiliate marketing:

Work with top-performing influencers by inviting them to your seasonality campaigns. This is where you make most of your money and ROAS of 5-10X are common.

Read a step-by-step approach for creating a performance-driven influencer marketing program in our Ultimate Influencer Marketing Guide here.

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