Launch an Influencer Campaign on a budget

“Are you eager to make a big impact with your brand without overspending on Influencer Campaigns?

In this step-by-step guide, I’ll walk you through the art of Launching a successful Influencer Campaign on a budget.”

In today’s competitive marketing landscape where AI is a leading force, making your brand stand out can be tough, especially on a limited budget. But by the time you finish reading this, you’ll have all the tools and insights needed to launch a budget-friendly influencer campaign successfully.

Step 1 – Creating the Plan

The first thing I did was create a Google Sheet and wrote down all the necessary campaign details. I took help from ChatGPT to help me understand the basics. Creating the Plan even when the campaign is at the idea stage is a great strategy, it makes the next steps align with clarity which lessened my work. Some of the basic things to cover in Creating the Plan are

1. Idea – The entire concept of the campaign
2. Type of Influencers – Categorization based on your needs, demographics and target market
3. Deliverables – The final expected output from each influencer
4. Timeline – Scheduling Shoots and getting the Final Video in a designated Google Drive Folder
5. Budget – Type of deal (barter or financial or both) by mapping it to the budget allocated for the campaign
6. Goals – Desired outcomes from the campaign such as attracting audiences, getting leads/inquiries, converting to sales, etc.

This helped me create a base for the campaign and be clear about my requirements well in advance.

Step 2 – Finding & Shortlisting Influencers

This is one of the most important aspects of any Influencer Campaign as these are the people who are actually going to create content for you, so finding influencers beforehand is a must.

I created an “Ideal Influencer Profile” (IIP) and found influencers within my network, as well as tapped Other People’s Networks by browsing their Instagram with the IIP in mind. 

By creating the IIP, I was able to find more influencers than the required number and then shortlisted based on who matched the requirements closely and were available on a short notice period.

You can also use opa.marketing to find and manage your influencer campaigns at scale with more budget.

Speaking of an Ideal Influencer Profile (IIP) should typically include –

1. Number of influencers required
2. Mapping your budget spend to their followers
3. Region/Territory you want the reels to be present
4. Area of influence (Fashion, Dance, Travel, etc.)
5. Type and Style of Content required

Step 3 – Crafting Compelling Content

Once you’ve found the right influencers the next step is crafting a narrative that resonates with your brand as well as the style of influencers you have shortlisted. This campaign was focused on Navratri so I took basic help from ChatGPT and finalized the content that revolved around the 9 Avatars of Goddess Durga, Color of the Day, and How everything resonates with the brand (in this case a jewelry business).

You can also craft content by working closely with your Influencers and co-creating it. It’s all about how much time and resources you have at your disposal.

Some important things to remember to share with your influencers after writing the reel content are

• writing the captions copy for posting
• sharing relevant hashtags
• adding paid partnership labels
• tagging & mentioning the brand
• scheduling the reels using Instagram’s Native Scheduler.

Step 4 – Tracking & Measuring Success

Once you are done with the Influencer Campaign it is important to track & measure success.

Since, this was the very first campaign done with my client, I decided to track the overall success of the campaign with metrics such as –

1. Number of Views 
2. Number of Accounts Reached
3. Overall Engagement/Interactions – Likes, Comments, Shares, Saves, etc.

With each Influencer having sub 1-2K followers we were able to gather a whopping ~17K+ total views, a reach to roughly 14K accounts, and overall engagement/interactions from more than 1,400 people in a week’s time from the campaign’s start date.

Step 5 – Tools Stack used for the Campaign

I used a very generic yet effective tools stack which is as follows –

1. Instagram for finding Influencers
2. WhatsApp for creating a group and interacting with Influencers
3. Google Sheets for Categorization, Shoot Scheduling, Requirements handling, and Deliverables
4. Google Docs for Writing Reel copies, Caption copies, hashtags
5. ChatGPT for ideas and brainstorming the entire campaign
6. ClickUp to create tasks and stay on schedule with everything
7. Google Drive to get the final video output before posting on Instagram

Step 6 – Building Long Term Relationships with Influencers

This is a bonus step after you have launched the influencer campaign and let the algorithms do the trick for you. 

Building Long Term Relationships with Influencers sounds boring and a tedious task but not in my case. I have created a community of influencers on WhatsApp and share work within the community up for grabs.

So, as promised now you have a pitch perfect plan to bring an Influencer Campaign to life in a very budget-friendly manner.

Still have questions OR Need help with Influencer Campaigns?

Book a Call with Me and I would be happy to help you with your Influencer Campaigns.