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We can say, YouTube Influencer Marketing is one of the best ways to increase a Brand’s reach. But, if and only if we do it the right way.
In 2016, there are up to 75% of marketers are now investing in influencer marketing, 60% of brands will increase the amount they spend on influencer marketing. However, the recent research shows that YouTube has the best ROI than any other social media platform, knowing that YouTube is the second largest search engine and it has the monthly user base of more than 1 Billion users. Impressive, right? It’s no surprise that YouTube sponsorships are one of the present’s top-ranked customer acquisition tool.
YouTube Marketing could offer you huge rewards. However, the way to reach the success from its uncharted territory can be bumpy. Here are top marketing mistakes that are often encountered and strategies on how to avoid them:
Goals Without Strategy. This is one of the common mistakes a marketer makes when launching YouTube Influencer Campaigns. They only focus on their goals and objectives. Some marketers focus on achieving a goal of a certain amount of views and interactions, specifically likes, comments and shares per video they conduct across several channels.
An ROI positive YouTube Influencer campaign requires a well-analyzed strategy. Aside from numeric campaign goals, a marketer should consider defining KPIs or key metrics which indicates whether a campaign’s performance can achieve the set goals. In this case, this will allow for better decisions and strategies not just to meet the ultimate objectives, but to reach the goal higher than the expected.
Discovery. This is a crucial stage that will define the campaign’s success. In this stage, marketers often fell into a very common trap which is choosing a talent based on the channel’s number of subscribers and latest video views.
YouTube hosts much larger amount of data on video watching. The increase of Big Data analytics could provide online tools to help the marketers dig deeper to find the highest-quality talent for their brand. Several key data-driven aspects should analyze when choosing a talent. These are:
- Relevance. Is determined by keywords and audience overlap. Which also identifies whether a channel’s audiences will be authentically interested in your service or product.
- Reach. The average number of view per video. It is calculated as the average number of views during a set period of time.
- Engagement. It is usually computed using total views and interactions. It measures how actively the audience interacts with the channel’s content.
- Influence. It is calculated based on how content is shared on the channel and if viewers are turned into subscribers. It also indicated whether a channel stimulates action and audience growth.
- Consistency. It is measured by averaging various channel performance metrics from video to video. It analyzes how often the channel is delivering meaningful content.
If a marketer fails to analyze any of these crucial parameters, the campaign may result in a poorly targeted audience, low conversion rates, and washed budgets.
Popularity. Any industry has its most popular YouTube celebrities with millions of subscribers. It seems like the fastest and easiest solution for a brand, but remember, they only represent 1-5% of all influencers.
Hundreds of new channels are created and published every day and marketers are playing it safe, they activate the largest channels to secure the best results and keep on ignoring smaller channels. This may lead to disappointment, there are more opportunities from smaller channels. This strategy provides only mediocre outcomes. Why?
- Lack of Authentic Admiration. There is a lot of things going on for the most popular influencer. They cover a variety of topics, experimenting with different video ideas, in fact, they often treat brand partnerships as just another business, Isn’t it true? They also spend a big amount of time on marketing. The result it: Those brands do not get any special interest or authentic excitement about their product or service. Smaller and niche channels are sincerely interested in the particular topic and products, which could lead to higher quality endorsements.
- Lack of Targeting. For example, when a channel has a large scattered audience, it’s difficult to predict which portion of subscribers would actually be interested in the particular brand and/or topic. This may result in subscribers can see videos that are irrelevant to their interests, which could hurt both the influencer and the brand. However, small and mid-sized dedicated channels attract a homogenous audience of highly engaged followers.?
Marketers must explore the small and middle-sized niche channels, which can become the most loyal and dedicated brand ambassadors that open doors to a highly targeted and engaged audience. More or less amount of marketing dollars, brands can reach a greater variety of audiences and produces multiple pieces of content.
Losing Control. Marketers still fall into the trap of treating an influence as an actor and editorial content as video ads. The Brands underestimates how keen their users are, how fragile their trusts are and how shortsighted it is to fake authenticity.
Case Studies prove that the more authentic the content is, the better users react to it. This leads to higher reach, better engagement and ultimately, stronger campaign results.
Agency. As the number of YouTube influencers arise, agencies also rise to help brands with campaigns. Marketers can fully outsource the efforts and simply reap the rewards. But there are a lot of pitfalls hidden in this strategy.
- Limited Access. The agency only has the access to talent in its network, those channels may not always be the best fit for the brand’s needs. Marketers should not fail to assess channel’s value and not to limit their reach to only one ideal partner.
- Connection. Lack of connection is what marketers often underestimate, especially the level of personal connection which is required for a brand and an influencer. Influencers do seek strong relationships and connection with a brand so they could truly understand its values and speak on its behalf.
- Niche Understanding. The majority of agencies cater to brands within multiple industries and don’t fully understand the subtle differences of particular spaces. The brand manager should step in and make sure that both talent and video content choices are taken to consideration industry specific aspects.?
In working with agencies, managers need to carefully evaluate the emerging costs compared to the delivered value, the differences between the overhead associated with launching campaign in-house and the agency fees, the key competencies and resources the team is missing and if they are provided for by the partner. Managers need to find out answers to these variables before hiring an agency.
Lack of Transparency and Standardization in Pricing Models. This is one of the biggest challenges for marketers in YouTube Influencer marketing. Marketers end up getting unreasonably high quotes and overspend. Not realizing the room for negotiation in the market.
- Payment Models. Different channels and agencies work on different payment models like pay per view, pay per action and/or pay per activation. Most of agencies or talents work solely on pay per activation model and often do not tie their fees to guaranteed campaign results.
- Marketplace. YouTube influencer marketing is still in its infancy, with a lack of benchmarks, the market has not determined average rates. Influencers and agencies currently charge anywhere from $0.02 to $0.20 per view so there is a lot of room for negotiation.
- Secret Transactions. Agencies share their pricing structures rarely which lead to partners offering different fees for the same talent or campaign. Marketers are required to compare prices across space and negotiate aggressively to get the best deal, this will secure an ROI positive campaign.
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