We can say that YouTube Influencer Marketing is one of the best ways to increase the reach of a brand. But, if and only if we do it the right way.
In 2016, as many as 75% of marketers are now investing in influencer marketing, 60% of brands will increase the amount they spend on influencer marketing. However, recent research shows that YouTube has the best ROI of any other social media platform knowing that YouTube is the second largest search engine and has a monthly user base of over 1 billion users. Impressive, right? It’s no surprise that YouTube sponsorships are one of today’s top-ranked customer acquisition tools.
YouTube Marketing could bring you great rewards. However, the road to success from your uncharted territory can be bumpy. Here are the top marketing mistakes that are often encountered and strategies 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 number of views and interactions, specifically likes, comments, and shares per video they take across multiple channels.
A YouTube Influencer campaign with a positive ROI requires a well thought out strategy. In addition to numerical campaign goals, a marketer should consider defining KPIs or key metrics that indicate whether a campaign’s performance can meet stated goals. In this case, this will allow better decisions and strategies to be made not only to meet the final goals, but to reach the goal higher than expected.
Discovery. This is a crucial stage that will define the success of the campaign. At this stage, marketers often fall into a very common trap which is to choose a talent based on the number of channel subscribers and latest video views.
YouTube hosts a much larger amount of data about video viewing. The rise of big data analytics could provide online tools to help marketers dig deeper to find the highest quality talent for their brand. Several key data-driven aspects should be looked at when choosing a talent. These are:
- Relevance. It is determined by keywords and audience overlap. That also identifies if the audiences of a channel will be really interested in your service or product.
- attain. The average views per video. It is calculated as the average number of views over a given period of time.
- Commitment. It is usually calculated using total views and interactions. It measures how actively the audience interacts with the content of the channel.
- Influence. It is calculated based on how content is shared on the channel and whether viewers convert to subscribers. It also indicated whether a channel stimulates action and audience growth.
- Consistency. It is measured by averaging various video-to-video channel performance metrics. Analyze how often the channel delivers meaningful content.
If a marketer fails to analyze any of these crucial parameters, the campaign can result in a mis-targeted audience, poor conversion rates, and washed-up budgets.
Popularity. Any industry has its most popular YouTube celebrities with millions of subscribers. It seems like the quickest and easiest solution for a brand, but remember, they only make up 1-5% of all influencers.
Hundreds of new channels are created and published every day and marketers are playing it safe, activating the biggest channels to ensure the best results and still ignoring the smaller channels. This can lead to disappointment, there are more opportunities from smaller channels. This strategy provides only mediocre results. Why?
- Lack of genuine admiration. There is a lot going on for the most popular influencer. They cover a variety of topics, experimenting with different video ideas, in fact they often treat brand associations like just another business, right? They also spend a great deal of time marketing. The result is: those brands don’t get any special interest or genuine excitement about your product or service. Smaller, niche channels are sincerely interested in the particular topic and products, which could lead to higher-quality sponsorships.
- Lack of focus. For example, when a channel has a large dispersed audience, it is difficult to predict what part of the subscribers would be really interested in the particular brand or topic. This can result in subscribers seeing videos that are irrelevant to their interests, which could hurt both the influencer and the brand. However, small and medium dedicated channels attract a homogeneous audience of highly engaged followers.
Marketers should explore small and medium niche channels, which can become the most loyal and dedicated brand ambassadors opening doors to a highly targeted and engaged audience. More or less amount of marketing dollars, brands can reach a wider variety of audiences and produce multiple pieces of content.
Losing control. Marketers still fall into the trap of treating an influencer like an actor and editorial content like video ads. The Brands underestimates how enthusiastic their users are, how fragile their trusts are, and how short-sighted they are in faking authenticity.
Case studies show that the more authentic the content, the better the users react. This leads to increased reach, better engagement, and ultimately stronger campaign results.
Agency. As the number of influencers on YouTube increases, so do agencies to help brands with campaigns. Marketers can completely outsource efforts and simply reap the rewards. But there are many hidden pitfalls in this strategy.
- Limited access. The agency only has access to talent in their network, those channels may not always be the best fit for the needs of the brand. Marketers should not fail to assess the value of the channel and not limit their reach to a single ideal partner.
- Connection. The lack of connection is what marketers often underestimate, especially the level of personal connection that is required for a brand and an influencer. Influencers look for strong relationships and connections with a brand so they can truly understand its values and speak on its behalf.
- Niche understanding. Most agencies serve brands within multiple industries and don’t fully understand the subtle differences of particular spaces. The brand manager needs to step in and make sure that both the talent and the video content options take into account the specifics of the industry.
When working with agencies, managers must carefully assess emerging costs versus delivered value, differences between overhead associated with launching the campaign internally and agency fees, key competencies, and missing resources. the equipment and if they are provided. by partner. Managers need to find 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 overspending. Not realizing the trading space in the market.
- Payment models. Different channels and agencies work on different payment models such as pay-per-view, pay-per-action, and/or pay-per-activation. Most agencies or talents work solely on the pay-per-activation model and often do not tie their fees to guaranteed campaign results.
- Market. 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 between $0.02 and $0.20 per view, so there is a lot of room for negotiation.
- Secret transactions. Agencies rarely share their pricing structures, causing partners to offer different rates for the same talent or campaign. Marketers are required to compare prices throughout the space and aggressively negotiate for the best deal, this will ensure a positive ROI campaign.
