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Influencer Marketing can be found on every social media platform today in various shapes and forms. Novelty has come along with creating TikTok and Instagram campaigns but YouTube influencer marketing should not be forgotten about when it comes to brands breaking into the influencer marketing space.
According to research conducted by Omnicore, 2 billion people around the world are active on YouTube monthly, and 30 million use the platform daily. YouTube Influencer Marketing is a great way to reach people globally since 89% of YouTube users reside outside of the United States. Additionally, YouTube Influencer Marketing would put you on the same level as competitors and other businesses as 62% of businesses use the platform.
62% of businesses on the platform fall into hundreds of different industries. According to our Q3 Social Intelligence Insights report, 19 industries are responsible for the highest spend on the platform. The top five industries (tech, gaming, food and drink, beauty, and fashion) spent more than $148 million collectively on YouTube sponsored videos in quarter three of 2020.
Notable brands such as Honey, NordVPN, Reese’s, Bang Energy, and SkillShare implement YouTube Influencer Marketing into their marketing strategy and so can you. Today we are going to unpack everything you need to know about YouTube Influencer Marketing. Let’s jump in.
Campaign Objectives
You should ask yourself why you want to implement influencer marketing into your marketing strategy. What do you want to achieve during the campaign? Do you want to drive sales or increase general knowledge about your brand? There are four main objectives to choose from while building your influencer campaign.
- Branding Awareness
Building general knowledge about your brand, products, and or services. Branding awareness can be used to introduce new products or maintain a presence on the platform.
- Contest/Giveaway
Giving away your products or services to build your social media presence and brand awareness.
- Download or Install
Encouraging audiences to download or install your product or software.
- Limited Time Offer
Offering a discount code or site-wide sale for a limited time to drive sales.
Your campaign objective may vary and depend on changing factors such as time of the year, products or services being offered at the time, or just on what industry you are in. For example, the gaming industry dominated in the download or install campaign objective category. On the other hand, the beauty industry took a larger percentage of the limited time offer campaign objective category than the gaming industry during quarter three.
With that being said, aside from the download or install category, the top five industries utilized branding awareness, content and giveaway, and limited time offer campaign objectives at large. Any industry can implement any campaign objective, you just have to strategically choose the right one to achieve your goals.
Campaign Strategy
Once you understand your campaign objective, you can begin strategizing. Influencer selection plays a major role in campaign strategy, but we are going to go into detail about it later. Right now we are going to cover the different content types for YouTube ads and different types of calls to action that are utilized in YouTube influencer marketing campaigns.
There are five different content types of YouTube ads and you can guide which type of content you would like your ad appearing in.
1. Dedicated Videos
Dedicated videos dedicate the entire video to your brand, product, or service. The three industries that utilized this approach the most in quarter three were gaming, tech, and fashion. Dedicated videos are great if you want to showcase your product(s) or services in depth.
2. Intro Card and End Card
Intro cards and end cards are two different approaches; however, their explanations are nearly identical. Intro cards place the ad at the very beginning of the video while end cards place the ad at the very end of the video. Be wary of these approaches, audiences may skip through the ads.
3. Integrated
Integrated advertisements place the ad near the middle of the video and dominate in content type, accounting for 48.08% of sponsored content videos in quarter three. Integrating your ad into the video makes it feel more organic, leaving a better impression on the audience. They are also more unlikely to skip through the ad.
4. Description Only
Rather than verbally advertising your brand, product, or service in the video, influencers can leave the advertisement in the description of the video.
You should base your content type choice on your target audience, campaign objective, and the influencer(s) you are utilizing. How long do you want your product, brand, or service to be talked about and showcased? Does one influencer have more success with end card ads and another has more success with ad integration? These are all things to consider when choosing content type. Integrating your ad into a video is always a safe bet.
You also must decide what call to action you are going to use during the campaign. The two most popular calls to action are click link in bio and direct purchase page because companies can track and measure the performance of an influencer and the return on investment. Customized influencer URLs and influencer codes audiences can use are examples of common calls to action that are trackable and measurable.
Other options include entering a giveaway or filling out contact information. These are less common but still provide great value if they help you meet your campaign goals. For example, having your audience fill out contact information may help your branding awareness or limited time offer deals through email marketing efforts at the conclusion of the campaign.
Looking to run an epic influencer marketing campaign on YouTube? NeoReach has the best experience in creating viral campaigns that convert on social media. Sign up here!
Influencer Selection
There’s no influencer marketing without influencers, right? Selecting the right influencers for your campaign is crucial to its success. You should select influencers based on your target audience, the type of content the influencer creates, and your budget.
You would not want to activate an influencer that does not normally promote values and products or services similar to your company’s. Doing so could cause your brand and the influencer a lot of trouble because the content may feel off-brand for the influencer and inauthentic. Luckily, influencer marketing tools such as NeoReach’s influencer search tool exist and help move data-driven influencer selection decisions.
Utilizing influencer selection tools like NeoReach’s takes the guesswork out of influencer selection and helps you narrow down influencers based on geographical location, audience size, audience gender, audience interests, audience brand affinity, and more.
Looking for top-rated influencers for your next campaign? Check out some of our top influencer lists in leading industries for a starting point.
Budget also plays a large role and different costs are associated with different sized influencers. Influencers are broken down into tiers based on follower count.
Nano Influencers: 1,000-10,000 followers
Micro Influencers: 10,000-50,000 followers
Mid-Tier Influencers: 50,000-500,000 followers
Macro Influencers: 500,000-1,000,000 followers
Mega Influencers: 1 million+ followers
Celebrity Influencers: Several million followers
The lowest price starts with nano influencers and progressively gets more expensive as you climb influencer tiers. Smaller and rising influencers may not seem as appealing at first because of their audience size but campaigns with nano to mid-tier influencers are showing time and time again they give you more bang for your buck. With that being said, if you are a brand just getting started, you do not need to stress over spending thousands of dollars on mega and celebrity influencers. Nano to mid-tier influencers may give you a greater return on investment.
Curious about the most sought after YouTubers? Check out this blog on the highest-paid YouTube influencers to see who you might like to work with next.
Content Guidelines and Content Approval
Once you select your influencers and set campaign objectives, have a conversation with the influencers being activated covering guidelines such as do’s and don’ts, talking points, campaign goals, any links or codes specific to them, and whatever else you feel is important. Be sure to give your influencers space and creative freedom while they shoot their content. The creators know their audience best.
Pro Tip: Sit down and pre-screen all creator content to ensure no edits need to be made prior to going live. It’s much easier to go back and edit content before posting than dealing with messy, negative feedback after.
We hope this article has served as a helpful guide to learn how to implement YouTube Influencer Marketing into your marketing strategy. It is not as scary as it seems, especially if you are equipped with the right tools and team. Take it one step at a time and remember, if large brands can do it, everyone else can too.
