Are you looking to grow your brand fast but not sure where to get started?

Instagram influencer marketing presents tremendous opportunities for businesses of every size to build and grow an audience.

A high buying intent of Insta users plays a huge role in making Instagram a prime choice for brands to market and grow on the platform.

This blog will lay out a 12-step process to guide you to launch a successful Instagram influencer marketing campaign.

Let’s get started.

Define your Target Audience

Do you know who is your target audience? Not yet? Spend some time researching them so that you know exactly who they are, what are their problems, what they are passionate about, and how you can connect with them as a brand.

Answering these simple yet important questions can be the difference between a successful campaign and a campaign that tanks.

You may want to build separate avatars based on different demographics. It will help you craft customized campaigns for different buckets of your audience and increase conversions.

Find the Influential Creators

Start with searching for a niche-relevant hashtag on Instagram. Type in the keyword in the search bar. 

Tap the hashtag you entered to visit the hashtag page. You will find a list of posts that have used this hashtag. Tap on the top post and visit the profile that posted it.

Here you can scroll through their other posts to see if their content aligns with your brand voice and aesthetics.

If you find a post that appeals to you, then you can tap the bookmark icon and save it for reviewing later.

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, then you may search for location hashtags.

Spy the Competition

Investigate what your competition is doing. The information like which type of content they are creating, how they are engaging their audience, and which influencers they are collaborating with can help you launch successful campaigns.

Also, types of creatives, captions, and call-t-actions are very important when it comes to engaging and influencing the audience on the app.

Check Mentions of your Business

You need to check also if any influencer has tagged your business in their posts. You can check your DM if you have any messages about posts tagging your business.

You can check your tagged tab on your Instagram profile. Tag any post to save that if this is from an influencer or that has shared positive feedback about your business.

You can tap the flag icon over any DM to track the potential partners for your campaign. After you have tagged a few creators, you can tap the ‘Filter’ link in the DMs section to see only flagged messages. Keep in mind that only active conversations over the last 30 days are available here.

Influencer Marketing Tools

In 2021, Instagram announced that it is building new tools to help research the right influencers for your brand.

Other paid tools can help streamline the process for you. You can use them to find influencers based on niches, locations, audience sizes, and keywords.

These tools display the engagement rates, which is a very vital metric, as well as the quality of their audiences to help you make better picks for your influencer campaigns.

Build Relationships

Building relationships is key to launching campaigns that deliver great results. You should not pitch them right away. Give them some time to evaluate your brand the same way you have researched them.

This will allow them to look into your brand and see if you are a good fit for their audience. 

Consume their content for some time to have a clear idea bout their messaging and the type of engagement tactics they use, and share your thoughts in the comments to build a connection.

Track Influencers in your Inbox

You can use paid tools to pitch the influencers, or you use native tools instead.

Creator Studio lets you flag messages from the creators you would like to partner with. You can also label the conversations to track people more efficiently. For example, you can add labels to the influencer that you think might be a great fit for specific campaigns.

To strike deals with popular influencers, you should have a reasonable following too. Buy Instagram followers to grow your audience and trigger the organic growth of your account. If you have built an engaged audience then there is a high chance creator with greater influence will be willing to work with you.

Create a Map for Influencer Campaigns

Once you have shortlisted some creators for your campaigns, it’s time to plan out your actual campaigns.

You should think about the type of content you might be doing to achieve your goals. Giveaways, discount codes, and exclusive pre-launch access work great on Instagram.

Also, the content format should be your top consideration. You might decide to go with image posts, reels, stories, or carousel posts for your campaigns. 

Additionally, seek permission from the creators to use the content for your ads campaign to reach more people.

Know your Goal

It is always a handy practice to be transparent with the creators regarding the goals of your marketing campaigns. You might want to hit a certain number of followers, and likes, and be looking for a certain amount of revenue.

Share with them openly so that if they already have experience with similar campaigns, they might tell you if your goals are realistic or not. Or maybe you should increase your budget for better results.

Smart marketers and brands also buy Instagram followers to attract a target audience interested in a certain topic or specific range of products. Adding this strategy to the Instagram influencer campaigns, you can maximize your results manifold. 

Pitch Them

After that you have done most of the homework, you can now pitch to them asking if they are interested in an influencer campaign.

You can simply send them a direct message and use Instagram’s native branded content tools. This will add a Paid Partnership label to the sponsored content.

You can also use paid tools like #paid to manage your pitches, agreements, and payments.

These tools also help you find the right influencers and complete the whole process using simple steps.

Set a Budget

Decide on the budget for your influencer campaigns based on your goals and the potential ROI that you could get.

As highlighted earlier, influencers can help you make an informed decision. If they are experienced, then they can tell you if your budget is enough or otherwise considering the amount of their following, the type of content they should produce, and the number of posts they have to create to achieve the desired results.

Measure the Results

This is the last and probably one of the most crucial parts of your influencer marketing campaigns. If you don’t measure how your campaigns are performing, then you can not decide to continue or make changes for better results.

Tools help track important metrics with ease and even give you an idea of cost per result so that you know how well the campaign is doing.

If you want to do this on your own, however, then it will be a lot of leg work that will most probably drain your energy. Especially, if you have to track metrics for a complete month and more.

What Are Different Apps You Can Use To See Your Instagram Profile