Something John Andrews and I learned early on, him while at Walmart and me at e.l.f. Cosmetics is that when it comes to content marketing, influencing someone means you are speaking to their personal interests and specific needs and engaging that person enough that it creates a change either in their thinking or their actions, or even both. It answers a need, expands their knowledge, provides interest, or opens their thinking – all things that can lead to a purchase or desired action.

In the world of coordinated creation of Influencer content and stories, there’s typically two kinds of success, or ROI, on Influencer campaigns (something you are trying to bring attention to here in this post)… Cost Mitigation, and Sales Increase. And I believe there is an additional boost from such content, a Return on Relationship (ROR) fostered by all brand-relevant content and communication… simply put the value that is accrued by a person or brand due to nurturing a relationship. ROI is simple $’s and cents, ROR is the value (both perceived and real) that will accrue over time through loyalty, recommendations, and sharing.

With Cost Mitigation, it is important to look at success as generating more impressions than other forms of media, for the same spend, or generating the same impressions for significantly less money. It’s purely a CPM play. This is great for consumer packaged goods brands who have a large marketing budget, and view Influencer Marketing as simply one part of their media plan… and can work for any other brands who see the importance of brand awareness, and/or simply as a measure of the cost of one form of media vs another (as you discuss in your post).

A valuable method of defining the ROI of Influencer Marketing is around annualized customer value. Typically a consumer who regularly absorbs content that references a brand in one manner or another is a more valuable customer than one who does not. They may spend more (average order value, AOV) and visit more often and make more purchases (frequency of purchase), remain a loyal customer for a longer period of time (lifetime value of a customer) and very often all three. Very similar to legacy Loyalty Program metrics. Finding that average value isn’t all that difficult, and can give you a KPI for tracking when starting Influencer Marketing when ramping it up, or pulling it back.

Typically a consumer who regularly absorbs content that references a brand in one manner or another is a more valuable customer than one who does not.

When combining consumer (remember… everyone influences someone, and often the most valuable influencers are those in a consumers circle of friends/family/colleagues) and influencer-generated content, engagement and amplified online syndication, correctly structured and maintained Social involvement, engagement and connection will produce significant results including Search Engine Optimization results that last, an increase in online Share of Voice (SOV) compared to competitors (very important and easily measurable), and engaged impressions and reach that drive brand awareness, loyalty and ultimately sales conversion.

#RetailRelevancy #FollowThePath #RonR… #NoLetUp!

Discover more about Ted’s experience and what motivates him as a marketer in RockstarCMO’s backstage interview.

Originally posted at RockstarCMO.com