Let the creative do the talking

Digital marketing has always been driven by data. this is especially true for paid media campaigns. With the rise of paid media, brands should focus on the look and quality of the creator and their content, and let paid media look after the performance of the post.

In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at why creativity is just as important as data in paid media campaigns.

Creativity is key:

When selecting creators for a campaign, brands can get caught up in looking for the perfect statistics and insights, which usually include engagement rate, audience location, and age. Because of this, a creator’s creativity, style, and quality is often overlooked.

Here at Blackpaper, we take an in-depth look into a creator’s profile, analysing both the account and the content. Whilst it’s important for us to make sure that the creator will target the right audience, it’s also important that we match their content style and quality to what the brand is visioning for their campaign. In doing so, we spend time on both the creative, making sure that the content looks and feels just right, as well as the creator’s data and insights.

Creators are the creative masters:

Once the creators are selected, we encourage brands to hand the reins to the creators themselves. Creators are experts in content creation – they know their audience’s interests inside and out and can create killer content that they know will perform.

Because of this, when putting together a campaign brief we make sure to keep the creative relatively broad so we can give the creator the much-needed control over their content, meaning they can produce something that will achieve the campaign objectives.

When the creator produces high-quality, creative content, a brand can then reuse this content elsewhere. This is where paid media comes into play, and where the performance of the post can be managed.

The power of paid media:

Paid media is booming. A couple of years ago we would see paid media being used very sparingly, but now, we see most digital marketing campaigns include an element of paid media.

Paid media is an incredibly valuable and powerful part of influencer marketing. Brands can invest into having their content shared with targeted audiences who are likely to be interested in the brand or product, either through ‘boosting’ their organic content on the creator’s profile, or designing unique advertisements reusing the content the creator has produced.

Hitting the perfect target audience is key for marketing and advertising, and paid media allows us to have increased control of this. And that is why brands should focus on the look and quality of the creator and their content, and let this paid strategy look after the performance of the post.

At Blackpaper, we are committed to securing our clients a maximum return-on-ad spend by offering clients guaranteed business results – including guaranteed sales and guaranteed acquisitions.

But, how do we achieve this? Through our creator partnerships, we are granted access to a wealth of invaluable audience data – not just the audience who follow a creator, but also those who engage with campaign content

As a result, we can retarget an already interested audience, which helps keep your brand at the forefront of the consumer’s mind. This joined-up approach allows us to target the audience you want to reach and boost the overall impact that your influencer marketing campaign delivers

How Content Creators Can Help Brands Share Their Values

Now more than ever, consumers want to use products and services that align with their values, causes and beliefs. In fact, 87% of consumers buy from organisations that share their own set of values. Because of this, it is essential that brands take notice of what their consumers have to say.

Displaying brand values is no longer about writing them down and simply saying you support a cause or viewpoint. The modern consumer wants to see brand values in practice, whether that be making big value-led decisions, or collaborating with content creators to display and share their core values.

Below, we are taking a deep dive into why it is crucial for brands to share consumer values, and how content creators can help relay a brand’s values, causes and beliefs to a target consumer.

Why is it crucial that brands share consumer values?

More and more research is proving the importance of shared consumer and brand values. Showcasing shared values can open brands up to new, socially conscious audiences and increases the longevity of consumer relationships.

With values underpinning the brand-consumer relationship, it is more likely they will stand the test of time, as 64% of consumers believe that shared values help to create a trusted relationship with a brand, and for Millennials, that percentage is even higher, rising to 83%.

It is also important to consider that consumers will shun brands that present values that they don’t agree with. In this sense, it is crucial that brands are authentic and honest about their message, and nail down who they are and what they stand for.

How can brands relay their values to the consumer?

Sharing brand values is more important than ever, and content creators can help ensure this process is authentic.

It’s important that brands steer clear of virtue signaling. That is, the process whereby a brand or person publicly demonstrates ‘one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue’. This kind of approach can seem inauthentic or like a tick box exercise. Instead, what consumers really want to see is brands living and breathing their values.

For the modern consumer, sharing values is something that should be demonstrated day in day out, and creators can assist in forming that association between brands and values. With so many amazing content creators out there, brands should lean on this community to share their message and their values far and wide.

How Creators Can Take Your Brand To New Markets

This rise in e-commerce spending means that brands are able to open themselves up to a global audience. Influencer marketing has proven itself to be one of the most effective ways to branch out into these new markets, and introduce products and services to the eyes of many.

Why? Because content creators allow brands to introduce their offering to a new audience in a genuine way. By making use of a creator’s voice that an audience already knows and trusts, brands can enter new markets both seamlessly and effectively.

How to collaborate with creators and create campaigns that will help your brand break into new markets

Viral campaigns

Viral campaigns can offer an incredible opportunity to reach a completely new audience. When creators are introduced, brands should give them the lead to come up with a highly creative angle, one that will take the brand’s offering to the next level.

One way of doing so is to align the creative to current social media trends – 61% of TikTokers like brands better when they create or participate in a trend online. In doing so, content creators can associate the content and the campaign to popular moments and themes that are circulating on the social landscape. This will offer a brand an authentic and highly successful way to connect with a new audience and showcase their offering to a completely new market.

Viral campaigns tend to have common features:

– They’re highly creative, with a unexpected twist or surprise

– They can have an emotional appeal

– They’re shareable

– They can have a positive social impact

World-wide campaigns

As the global marketplace is opening up in front of brands’ eyes, collaborating with content creators in different locations is a great strategy for success. By using known and trusted creator voices across different territories, brands can be sure that they are positioning themselves in various new markets.

Content creators can assist with world-wide campaigns by also:

– Breaking down cultural barriers and providing culturally appropriate content

– Breaking down language barriers and speaking to the audience authentically

– Avoiding any social and cultural taboos

Local campaigns

While new global audiences can often be a target for brands, so can local and regional markets. Some products and services might be targeted towards a location-specific audience, e.g. those living in a city, by the sea, or in rural areas.

In this case, working with micro creators who can activate content quickly, can leverage regional messaging to drive greater brand rapport and have huge sway over their local audience, is hugely beneficial. For this reason, working with this creator type can help give brands their big break.

The importance of selecting the right creators

Ultimately, collaborating with creators is a super effective way for your brand to venture into new markets. However, it’s important to note the importance of selecting the right creators. This is especially true when wanting to access an entirely new market.

Working with creators who resonate with your target audience is an essential part of the puzzle, and without the relevant information to hand, this can be a challenge. That’s where we come in. Our new technology platform, Waves, has a creator approval process that is based on client key success metrics, as well as creators’ historic campaign performance and previous content.

This ensures that our clients work with creators who don’t have a track record of providing fraudulent or manipulated data. As a result, brands are able to fully understand the creators they are working with and can form those all-important long-term partnerships.

With a technology platform, like innerblack, behind you, you can cut the guesswork and ensure that the creators you’re collaborating with will be effective in helping your brand move into new and unexplored territory.

Influencer Marketing: When To Use It?

Influencer marketing can be an amazing way to boost sales, build a community and enhance the perception of your brand amongst your target audience. However, knowing when you should use influencer marketing is of utmost importance, as it’s especially useful when targeting specific goals. Here, we take a look at when influencer marketing will benefit your brand…

When your ads aren’t getting the results they deserve

You may have found that your organic content isn’t performing well, so decided to opt for paid ads instead. However, in doing that you may have realised that you’ve been spending lots of money and not really seeing results.

The reason for this could be ad blockers – blockers that literally block your ad content so they never even reach your target audience. Secondly, some consumers are experiencing ad fatigue, becoming tired of ads due to the large quantity they are being delivered, and when they see paid social ads on their feed it can be a huge turn-off.

Influencer marketing sidesteps this issue, by working with authentic creators to advertise products and services in a genuine way that doesn’t feel so much like an ad. As the people who then view the ad will usually have chosen to follow that creator, the ad is not being forced under their noses. Creators are able to engage an audience and avoid ad blockers, the result being that the creators are able to reach the right people with content that is authentic.

When you want to build a community

There’s no better way to build a community for your brand than by working with creators to reach your target audience. When you find the right creators who connect with your audience, it can be a great way to reach out to people who are genuinely interested in what you’re offering.

These creators already have an engaged niche audience who are interested in their content and trusts their recommendations. By having a creator introduce your brand to that community, the brand is able to piggyback off the creator’s success.

The reason that creators are so great at creating communities is that they bring together groups of people who have a shared interest. When these interests are aligned with what your brand does, it can be a great way to harness a ready-made community and grow your own.

When you need some creative direction

Working with a content creator isn’t always just about getting them to post what you ask. Often, brands will use creators throughout the whole process to spark ideas and figure out how to engage the target audience in the best way.

After all, these guys know exactly what their followers want and can help you create content that really speaks to them. It’s in both of the brand and the creator’s interest to produce the best content possible, and often creators are worth their weight in gold for the campaign creative direction and input they can provide during the creative process.

But this doesn’t only apply to the campaign process. Many brands are now introducing creators into the even earlier stages of the process, such as working with them to design products. Involving creators in the product design process allows brands to benefit from the constant dialogue creators have with their followers around current demands and trends, while they can also ask their followers to provide feedback on products.

They also know their audience very well. For brands, bringing a creator whose follower demographics match their target audience into the design process enables them to produce products that are guaranteed to be favourites among their desired audience.

When you have a new product or service on offer

It can be very hard to take a product to market in a way that doesn’t force the brand on the consumer. However, creators can make this easy for your brand. Their ability to bring a product to people’s attention in a way that is genuinely helpful to the consumer makes influencer marketing stand out.

If you have a new product or service coming out, influencer marketing can offer the perfect opportunity to raise awareness and potentially boost sales. Using an influencer marketing platform that gives you real-time insights can also be incredibly helpful when using influencer marketing for lead conversion. This way, you can see which creators are performing well, getting engagement and leading people to their basket and adjust your spending accordingly.