Would you head onto the football field without a playbook? Is your goal to score on every play? Or move the ball forward?
Your endorsement marketing campaign must have clear goals and a path towards success to be a valuable component of your marketing strategy.
Endorsement marketing can be used by marketers to create a wide array of measurable results. Select your campaign goal(s), add your desired (quantifiable) outcome, and stick to it. A wise marketer once said “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it.”
Looking Back
The best way to create goals for your endorsement marketing campaign is to look at past campaign performance. Have you leveraged the influence of another individual to market your brand in the past? What was the outcome? If you had a time machine, how would you change it?
Integrate or Disintegrate
In addition to your endorsement marketing campaign, what other marketing campaigns do you have active? What are the goals of your other marketing campaigns? Got them ready?
Now, make a decision: are you going to use endorsement marketing to complement your current marketing campaigns, or to accomplish a different goal?
Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s look at the various outcomes of endorsement marketing, and discuss how these outcomes become the foundation for your campaign goals.
Reach a Large Audience
There are 7,400+ professional athletes on Twitter, who collectively create over 623 million impressions every day. By tapping into endorsement marketing, your brand is able to borrow the established influence of a professional athlete and reach a crowd of thousands, even millions.
When should my goal be to reach a large audience?
- When introducing a new product or service, when you have strong visual advertising assets, when you’re a national brand, when you have specific media-buy goals
What metric will determine my success?
- Total Reach
- Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
Affiliate your Brand with a League or Team
Has your target market customer ever attended a professional sporting event? Have you looked at the rising costs of marketing your brand in-stadium?
The majority of professional sports leagues and teams have sold their multimedia rights to third parties, who grant exclusive marketing access to a small amount of brands. Endorsement marketing is an easy way to sidestep exclusivity agreements and affiliate your brand with a specific league or team.
When should my goal be to affiliate my brand with a sport/team/athlete?
- When you’ve missed out on a licensing or exclusivity opportunity, when a competitor has locked in rights to a league or team, when a major league or team event is on the horizon
What metric will determine my success?
- % of Athlete’s Audience within desired Geographic Area (if team-focused)
- Athlete’s Topics of Influence include desired League (if league-focused)
Affiliate your Brand with an Athlete
Aside from major reach and influence, investing in endorsement marketing with an athlete can be a smart investment for your brand.
Collin Kaepernick’s rise to fame is an epic example. In just 18 months, Kaepernick’s digital marketing value spiked 1805%*. Brands who signed the young athlete early are reaping the benefit. Your campaign goal can be to simply get your foot in the door with an athlete on the rise.
*based on opendorse data between Oct 2011 – Jan 2013
When should my goal be to affiliate my brand with an athlete?
- When you’re certain this athlete is aligned with your brand values and long-term marketing strategy, when you’re a young brand looking to build trust quickly, when you’re an established brand looking to grab a larger portion of the market
What metric will determine my success?
- Engagement Rate
Drive Web Traffic
On average, 1% of an athlete’s Twitter following will engage with an endorsement message. The average Cost-Per-Engagement on the opendorse platform hovers around $1.00.
Endorsement marketing can introduce your website to thousands of new visitors in a matter of seconds, but be prepared to capture their attention quickly. Web visitors from social media, by nature, are quick to visit and leave your site.
When should my goal be to drive web traffic?
- When you’ve built a new website, when you’re introducing a new campaign, when you’ve built a conversion-focused landing page
What metric will determine my success?
- Total Engagements
- Cost-Per-Engagement
Start a Conversation
When athletes ask questions, the audience engagement increases 6.3%. If your goal is to start a conversation, athletes can put your brand on the hot seat. Be prepared for some authentic feedback from your prospective customers.
When should my goal be to start a conversation?
- When you’ve recently made the headlines, when you’re looking for quick research/feedback, when you have a longer campaign planned
What metric will determine my success?
- Viral Reach
- Mentions
Increase Event Attendance
A well-timed endorsement can turn digital engagement into physical foot traffic. In one opendorse campaign, one athlete endorsement sent 50+ customers to a brick and mortar store, where the line wrapped around the block.
If your customers are following the athlete you’ve selected, you’ve increased retention. If you’re targeting a new market, you’ve introduced your brand to a new segment of customers.
When should my goal be to increase event attendance?
- When you’re a local business, when you have a major monthly/quarterly/yearly event, when you have an online site for ticket sales
What metric will determine my success?
- % of Athlete’s Audience within desired Geographic Area
Convert Customers
If you’re a marketer well-versed in the conversion rate for your various landing pages and websites, you’ll be able to clearly predict and understand the ability for endorsement marketing to help convert customers.
Endorsement marketing helps you reach an audience, engage them, send them to your site, where your conversion analytics take over.
It should be assumed that only 10-20% of the consumers reached through endorsement marketing are in the proper stage in the buying life cycle to convert to a customer.
When should my goal be to convert customers?
- When you have a clear understanding of your customer conversion funnel, when you have a well-developed landing page, when you can offer a customer instant satisfaction
What metric will determine my success?
- Engagements
- Engagement Rate
- Cost Per Engagement
Sell Product
At the end of the day, every marketer wants every marketing campaign to help sell more product.
We’re no different here at opendorse.
If your goal is to sell product, focus on a long-term endorsement campaign, wherein your brand becomes integrated into an athlete’s digital image, and consumers are reminded of your product throughout their personal journey through the buying life cycle.
When should my goal be to sell product?
- When your product is greatly discounted, when you have an ecommerce platform, when your typical sales cycle is less than 1 week
What metric will determine my success?
- Reach
- Number of endorsements
- Engagement Rate
Wrap up
No matter what your endorsement marketing campaign goal is, be sure to create measurable goals. Your campaign can be multi-faceted, but the more goals you include, the more diluted your results may be.
Congrats, you’ve survived Day 1 of training camp. Ready to tackle the next challenge?
Learn how to find your core audience >>
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