6 Things to Look for in an Influencer Marketing Platform
An influencer marketing platform can help you manage and measure your influencer engagement. It centralizes all of the data and resources you need to deliver a smooth experience for your influencers while simultaneously measuring performance and assuring the success of your campaigns.
A simple Google search for influencer marketing software yields list after list of the "best" influencer marketing platforms. But how can you truly choose which program is best for you?
If you’re currently searching and looking for an influencer marketing management platform, then this guide is for you.
Key Takeaways
From adding influencers to tracking content drafts and providing reports, influencer marketing software should streamline your entire workflow.
Using influencer marketing software is less expensive than hiring an agency and faster and more efficient than handling campaigns manually using multiple tools and spreadsheets.
Each influencer marketing software is definitely unique, including the social platforms it supports.
How to Run Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Working with influencers necessitates a strategy for managing influencer contacts, tracking deliverables, and gathering campaign statistics. The three most popular techniques to manage influencer campaigns are as follows:
Manual processes involving email, spreadsheets, and screenshots of social media statistics are probably the least expensive approach to run campaigns, but they are the most time-intensive and can make it impossible to assess how effectively your campaign is going.
All of the necessary work is done on your behalf by agencies. This is an excellent choice for larger firms with more sophisticated marketing requirements, but keep in mind that it is frequently more expensive than managing campaigns yourself.
Influencer marketing software saves you time and money by automating most manual activities and centralizing all of your campaign data on a single platform.
How to Evaluate Influencer Marketing Software
Here are ten ways to assess an influencer marketing software’s compatibility with your business.
1. Ease of Installation and Use
It must be user-friendly software if you want to save time. Otherwise, you may spend more time figuring out how to manage your campaigns using the platform than you do manually.
There are various ways to determine whether an influencer marketing platform is simple to use.
Do you find the user interface easy to use?
What have other users mentioned in their reviews regarding the software?
Do you have any training materials?
You should also make certain that the influencer marketing software you selected has a customer support team ready to assist you. When you run into problems or make technical errors (who doesn’t?), you want to get help as soon as possible.
2. Offering a Demo or Free Trial
The easiest approach to find out if an influencer marketing platform is right for your organization is to give it a shot. If a platform does not provide a free demo or trial period, you should generally look elsewhere. There are plenty more high-quality alternatives that will allow you to test the platform before investing.
Free demos are a show-and-tell format where an expert walks you through the software to explain how it works.
Free trials let you use a platform for a short time so you can evaluate the software for yourself.
3. Focused on Your Marketing Objectives
It's a good thing that not all influencer marketing software is created equal. If software tries to accomplish everything, it will not be able to focus on one task and perform it extraordinarily well. Keep this in mind while you look for the best influencer marketing software so that you may prioritize quality over quantity.
Begin your search by analyzing your company's requirements. For example, with what types of influencers do you wish to collaborate? Which platforms are essential for reaching your target audience? How will you assess the effectiveness of your influencer initiatives?
4. Available Features
You want your influencer marketing management software to meet all of your needs, from finding influencers to tracking sponsored posts. Make sure all the features you need are included in the quote to avoid having to purchase software add-ons.
Here are a few features that your influencer marketing software should include:
Influencer contact management
Influencer messaging
Shared Dashboards
Content Calendars
Real-time reporting
Easy payment and billing integration
5. Budget
The majority of influencer marketing networks demand a monthly or annual subscription fee. Make a cost-benefit analysis of the features you will receive and decide whether they are worth the price.
For example, manually looking for influencers can take hours and yield just limited results. In this situation, investing in influencer marketing software can save you time while also matching you with the greatest available influencers to produce a high ROI - making it a smart investment.
6. High Ratings from Satisfied Customers
The website of a company can emphasize crucial product features, but customer reviews reveal the whole story. Want to know how dependable and precise the software is based on real-world user feedback? You may readily find product reviews by searching Google or checking on top review sites such as G2 or Capterra to verify the trustworthiness of a platform.
Conclusion
When evaluating influencer management platforms, the most important thing to keep in mind is your company’s particular needs. Software should help make our jobs easier and more efficient and not be difficult for your staff to adopt and utilize.
By keeping the tips above in mind, you'll be able to fully evaluate all the software options you're interested in and make the right choice for your business.
As for me, the influencer management platform that I recommend is CreatorPilot. Though there are a lot of choices in the market today, this platform saves at least 20 hours weekly on managing campaigns. Be sure to check it out.