Influencer marketing has fast become one of the most effective strategies for marketing professionals to expand the reach of their thriving brands. Statistics – from a recent article in AdWeek, stake the claim that more than 90% of marketers who rely on the strategy would confirm it to be effective.

Further studies have shown that audiences prefer influencer-hosted features over traditional advertising and otherwise “mainstream” celebrity endorsements. The practice, at its core, relies on the age old fact that people act more decisively from word-of-mouth recommendations; influencers are just locally, nationally, and globally dominating “trusted sources.” Diving even further into the research, this study, says audiences of YouTube find their popular personalities to be 17 times more engaging than other celebrity figures.

With all of that research in mind, it’s no wonder that marketers are turning their focus to the new-age approach. Unfortunately, yet commonly seen throughout the marketing industry, the gold rush to master the craft has left some people fighting an even harder battle towards implementation. The fun thing about mistakes though? If you know better, you do better. (Classic situation.)

Thankfully, I’m here with the Top 5 mistakes most commonly made in the implementation process — and yes, how to avoid them:

Failing to understand the audience.

Like everything else in the marketing industry, if you don’t truly know your audience you’re just setting yourself up for failure. The long-term influencer-lead marketing strategy starts with the traditional marketing persona. Know who your customer is; only then can you truly engage. If you’re not familiar, Hubspot has excellent tutorials and information on how to build and implement personas into your efforts.

Understand and select the appropriate channels.

It’s important that your channel selection talk to the appropriate audience; bearing in mind that B2B and B2C audiences direct their attention to different channels, for sure. For example, and most obviously, a campaign aimed at the Generation Z consumer would be far less effective via Facebook and Twitter; rather — lean on Instagram. That’s because Gen Z prefers the Instagram platform over all others, overwhelmingly. Looking to target Gen X? Facebook and LinkedIn are your vessels. This knowledge truly is power, allowing you to home your focus more pointedly – as opposed to micro-managing a handful of platforms via trial-and-error.

Dropping the ball on the call-to-action.

The question is: What should the audience do to engage with the influencer campaign? Is it as easy as liking the photo? Should they drop a comment? Share? Follow the profile? All of the above? If the goal is to forward traffic to your website, make sure there’s a dedicated page already in place to service the prospect. Google says that more than 40% of shoppers will automatically choose a competitor if the originally marketed brand doesn’t offer a fully-optimized website. That same study found that 57% of shoppers will not recommend a company that doesn’t offer a mobile-friendly site. Yikes!

Misunderstanding or misleading the influencer campaigns.

It’s crucial that whomever is at the helm of your influencer campaigns have a clear understanding. Consulting with a mastercraftsman in the field can save you hours of time and thousands (and thousands!) of dollars in the trial-and-error process. One great way to get the education you need is to attend an event that focuses on influencer marketing for a crash course understanding.

On the flip side, as influencer marketing becomes so prevalent — before it eventually burns out and we’re onto the next thing — marketing agencies are scrambling to offer the service to clients. Sadly, many large scale agencies don’t have the real world experience in implementing these campaigns. Or, they’ve ignored the practice for so long that they’re entirely out of the game. This ignorance proves to only underserved the client as contemporary campaign efforts need to have an integrated approach, on one level or another. If you’re in the market for an agency’s assistance, make sure you select one that has the experience working with influencer marketing strategy or is lead by an influencer itself. (Hello!)

Finally, don’t expect results overnight.

Sure, some cases — the best of them — can yield measurable results from a singular collaboration. Though, this is usually not the case and especially if your brand is not in the ecommerce arena. Influencer marketing can really take time because one of the root objectives is to amplify brand awareness; even after that awareness is achieved, the prospective client still needs to trickle down the marketing funnel to consideration and decision making stages before making that purchase.

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