Influencer marketing can be a fantastic way to spread the word about your product, service, or brand far and wide, essentially by tapping into someone else’s engaged audience! When an influencer puts his or her weight behind you, the benefits can be massive. Sometimes, influencer marketing efforts translate into a bunch of sales right away, and other times they facilitate an introduction between your brand and some new potential clients or customers, and the payoff comes farther down the line. Either way, when done right, an influencer marketing campaign can result in more eyeballs, which can result in more sales. But what do you do when it just isn’t working?

It’s extremely disheartening when any effort you make in business doesn’t pan out. That’s a time and money investment gone forever … ugh, the worst! While there’s no silver bullet to guarantee your influencer marketing campaign will work out, let’s cover some reasons it might be failing + some tips to turn things around.

Top 2 Reasons Influencer Marketing Campaigns Fail

In our experience, there are two main reasons why influencer marketing campaigns fail. Let’s look at both of them.

Fail #1: We tried influencer marketing. The influencers tried our products but didn’t post about them.

Ouch, this one hurts! You strike up a relationship with an influencer and things seem to be going well, you get them set up to share about whatever awesome thing you’re doing, and then nothing … you’re ghosted!

While there’s always a chance your influencer simply got busy and forgot or never received your product in the first place, you can rule these out with a simple follow-up email. If you get no response, it’s probably something else. But don’t let it get to you; we believe you should look at failures as lessons.

Here are the real reasons influencers aren’t posting:

• The product didn’t live up to the influncer’s expectations
• The influencer doesn’t know how to talk about you/your product/your service
• The product or service wasn’t a good fit 

The best way to deal with these problems is by never getting yourself into this awkward situation in the first place! Try vetting your influencers more carefully. Don’t pair up with an influencer unless your ideals align, your personalities jive, and you understand (and are on board with) the influencer’s communication style.

If you send the influencer customized talking points, thoroughly vet the person and his/her interest in your brand beforehand, it’s a lot less likely you’ll run into issues.

Fail #2: Our influencers posted about our brand, but it didn’t translate into sales.

It bears repeating, marketing ISN’T sales. That said, marketing done right (when all the other pieces of the puzzle are also in place), should translate into conversions—including sales. If your influencer marketing efforts are just not converting at all, it’s time to revisit how you’re tracking conversions. Walk through the process and make sure it’s all in tip-top shape. Is your sales page built to convert? Is your cart optimized for conversions? Also, make sure you sent an affiliate link and that the influencer used it!

If everything looks good on your end, it’s possible this influencer isn’t really influencing her audience. It’s also possible that you chose the wrong influencer to talk about your brand. Go back to the drawing board and try again! 

Top 2 Tips to Maximize Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Tip #1: Give influencers customized content.

Many influencers don’t ask for content, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want it, need it, or appreciate it! Make it EASY for influencers to talk about your brand or product. Give them some talking points customized to their audience and it’s way more likely they’ll actually post.

Tip #2: Leverage influencers for market research.

Influencers are great people to ask for product feedback. They’ve got a line on what their audience wants, and they’ve often got experience using lots of products as part of the whole influencer gig. Leverage that! ALSO, once you have a relationship with a group of influencers, you can ask them to test new products as you roll them out! 

What tweaks will you make to your next influencer marketing campaign to make sure it doesn’t flop? You got this!
If you’re ready to take action in your next level of business, book a call with us!