July 2016 issue 01 iNby Influencer Marketing in the Retail Industry:

A Guide For Retail Marketers “Partnering with the right influencers makes all the difference when it comes to end results.”

Affinio Tableof Contents

FOREWORD 1

PART ONE: Why marketers need to 2 understand retail audiences

PART TWO: How-to identify the right 7 influencers for a retail audience

PART THREE: Understanding and 11 measuring influencer performance

CONCLUSION 15 Foreword

Connecting with consumers is a challenge for retail marketers - especially if they don’t know their audience on an intimate level.

eer to peer influence is more Instead of building strategies and powerful today than top- then finding the audience, we P down communications. More believe in flipping this process. and more consumers are relying The “build it and they will come” on their peer sources for buying model is outdated, yet many decisions. Not only are consumers marketers still use it. Before trusting their peers for purchase marketers can successfully recommendations, they are also strategize and implement an blocking ads making paid efforts influencer marketing initiative, less effective. they must have an intimate understanding of their ideal Building off of this desire for peer audience. to peer communications, retail marketers are embracing In this eBook, powered by Affinio, influencer strategy more than we will take you on a journey ever before. Why wouldn’t they? from the very basics of Some reports show that among the understanding retail audiences, to top industry categories, retailers selecting the right influencers, and are seeing the highest ROI. measuring their success using Affinio’s audience-first approach. While influencer marketing is not This eBook provides step-by-step new, it continues to evolve as examples and insights, pulled strategies and technologies from the Affinio platform, for advance. Influencer marketing, retail marketers to draw upon. when done right, presents a unique opportunity for retail Topics covered in this marketers and brands to connect Foreword with consumers in a meaningful eBook: way. But in today’s oversaturated media environment, connecting PART ONE: Why marketers need with consumers and identifying to understand retail audiences the right influencers is still a flawed system. This means that in PART TWO: How-to identify the retail marketing, engaging right influencers for a retail influencers with high-value audience audiences is more important than ever before. PART THREE: Understanding and measuring influencer That’s why at Affinio, the performance marketing intelligence platform, we believe in taking an audience- first approach. 1 PART ONE: WHY MARKETERS NEED TO UNDERSTAND RETAIL AUDIENCES

Consumers today are more they will be rewarded. As empowered, complex, and shared in a Google study, wiser than ever before; but ⅔ of US consumers “understanding consumer the attention they are willing say social media passions will drive to give to brands is minimal. purchasing behaviour.” Here’s the reality: consumers influences their are overwhelmed with shopping behaviours. But the harsh reality is this: media, messages, and choices brands only get one shot with (so many choices!). Simply consumers. If a brand doesn’t type in the words “outdoor overload, they also present a align with the interests and adventure gear” on Google unique opportunity for retail passions of an audience, they and you’ll find hundreds of marketers and brands to will be replaced with the retailers at your disposal — connect with consumers in a next best thing. We told you, all of which are fighting for meaningful way. Thanks to consumers are picky… and that minimal consumer social networks, brands are they’re allowed to be! attention. Consumers are present throughout every Therefore it is more picky, rightfully so. Because touch point of the consumer important than ever for of this information overload, path to purchase. According retail marketers to consumers disregard the to pwc, “⅔ of US consumers understand their audience majority of messages they say social media influences intimately, and the key receive and instead focus their shopping behaviours.” audience segments found only on the brands that within it. speak to their interests and What this tells us is if brands passions. can pinpoint what makes their ideal audience tick, While social networks have and speak to them in a way added to this information that resonates, 2 PART ONE:

Connecting with Consumers Using An Audience-First Approach

At Affinio, we take a completely different approach to understanding audiences. An audience can no longer be solely broken down into basic demographics for retail marketers to target. For example, let’s say you’re a retail marketer for an outdoor clothing & gear brand. Sure, males aged 25-55 might need outdoor gear; but what products they need and the reasons that they want them are based on their interests, not their gender or age. This is where demographics are limiting.

Affinio takes an audience-first approach. The algorithm behind the Affinio platform segments any social audience based on their shared interests and affinities. Instead of relying on what people are saying, Affinio segments audiences into interest-based clusters by looking at who or what people choose to follow. We are able to shed light for the first time on the influences, passions, interests, and ultimately what an audience cares most about.

By taking an audience-first approach, retailers are armed with the insights that matter. To By taking an audience-first demonstrate, we’ve analyzed the Twitter audience of an unnamed outdoor clothing & gear brand. approach, retailers are armed with the insights Using this segmentation, we can immediately see the breakout of several interest-based that matter. communities, including surfers and rock climbers.

As shared by Douglas Holt in this articleBranding in the Age of Social Media, the brands that succeed are the brands that break through in culture. While both the and rock climbing communities have a shared interest in the outdoor brand we analyzed, they have unique interests and nuances that differentiate them. How a retail marketer targets each community should, in theory, be completely different.

Let’s look at these two communities closer to see how they differentiate and what insights retail marketers should pick up on.

3 PART ONE:

Affinio Audience Analysis: Surfing Cluster

Surfer Interests and Influences

Surfer Bio Keywords Surfer Top Used Hashtags

Surfer Top Domains Surfer Top Emojis

4 PART ONE:

Affinio Audience Analysis: Rock Climbing Cluster

Rock Climbing Interests and Influences

Rock Climbing Bio Keywords Rock Climbing Top Used Hashtags

Rock Climbing Top Domains Rock Climbing Top Emojis

5 PART ONE:

As seen from the Affinio example analyses, retailers can take an audience-first approach by identifying the different interest- based communities within their audience. While the surfing and rock climbing communities share a love for the outdoors, they have different needs, wants, and expectations of the retailer selling to them.

By being able to identify and understand the interest-based communities within their audiences, retail marketers can adjust their communications strategies for each segment, ensuring they align with the interests and passions of their ideal audience. Like Google shared, “passion drives purchase.”

Passion drives purchase.

Before retail marketers can successfully strategize and implement an influencer marketing initiative, they must have an intimate understanding of their ideal audience. Remember, audience-first.

NEXT

PART TWO: How-to identify the right influencers for a retail audience

6 PART TWO: HOW-TO IDENTIFY THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS FOR A RETAIL AUDIENCE

Peer to peer influence is concentrate on vanity more powerful today than metrics, such as followers top-down communications. Influencer marketing and engagement. The According to Edelman, 71% lives in the Wild West problem with this of consumers rely on peer where anything goes. information is that it doesn't sources for buying decisions. speak to the purpose of This means that in retail influencer marketing. The marketing, influencer end game isn’t the influencer marketing is more important selection, strategy, and themselves, it’s the audience than ever before. performance measurement. that they have built over time. Not only are people trusting Most of the information their peers for purchase available today on influencer Some solutions will also recommendations, they are marketing centers around provide information about also blocking ads making the influencer themselves. the audiences of the paid efforts less effective. While this can be a great influencers. Most of these While influencer marketing place to start, the whole idea solutions concentrate on the is not new, it continues to behind the strategy is to demographic breakdown of evolve as strategies and partner with trusting sources their audience. This technologies continue to in order to reach their information is meant to help advance. audience. you narrow down your choices to identify the right In this evolution of There are a lot of tools out roster; but is this really the influencer marketing, we still there that offer metrics on best way of going about have not seen a standard influencers to help with your influencer selection? revealed. Marketers need a selection. They tend to standard for influencer 7 PART TWO:

Identifying Influencers that Already Resonate with Your Retail Audience

At Affinio, we look at influencer marketing in a different light. We flip the influencer search and selection process to start with the people you are trying to reach — your ideal audience. By analyzing the interests of your audience, you can identify influencers who already resonate. Let’s look at an example:

In PART ONE of this eBook, we looked at the audience of an ‘outdoor gear & clothing’ brand. Let’s use this analysis to identify ideal influencers.

As you can see in the audience visualization, the audience breaks out into interest-based communities centered around outdoor activities. While you may be able to find an influencer that encompasses the entire audience, it could be argued that it’s better practice to select influencers niche to each culture within the audience.

Featured below are the top 100 interests of the entire audience. As you can see, they are fairly general interests skewed towards outdoor living.

However, if we dive into a niche, interest-based community, we can see how the interests become tailored to that audience and reveal ideal influencers to reach that community.

Let’s look at the surfing community:

8 PART TWO:

Surfer Interests and Influences

While we see a lot of surfing-related brands, we also start to see individuals who are relevant to this interest-based community. In order of relevance:

Influencers (In Order of Relevance)

1. 8. CJ & Damien

2. 9.

3. 10. Coco Ho

4. 11. Josh Kerr

5.Rob Machado 12. Alana Blanchard

6. 13.

7. 14.

If you are familiar with the surfer world, you likely recognize all of these names as they are mostly professional surfers. In some cases, you would prefer to work with long-tail or niche influencers for budget or strategic reasons. Affinio offers 1,000 interests to choose from.

When analyzing each of these potential picks for brand approval, it’s important to keep in mind who their audience is. We know that they resonate with your current audience, but who else are they reaching?

9 PART TWO:

Analyzing an Influencer’s Audience

Let’s say that Sally Fitzgibbons is a potential pick for this outdoor gear company’s influencer strategy. To ensure they will be reaching more of their ideal audience, let’s take a look at her audience.

As you can see in the audience visualization below, if you were to partner with Sally, you would be reaching more surfers and a lot of Australian-related communities. Depending on your goal, this may be a fit. Perhaps you are looking to expand in Australia. However, if you aren’t looking to reach the Australian rugby consumer, it probably makes Sally Fitzgibbons more sense to keep searching for your ideal influencer. @Sally_Fitz

Partnering with the right influencers makes all the difference when it comes to end results.

Partnering with the right influencers makes all the difference when it comes to end results. Start with an in- depth understanding of your current audience to identify influencers who already resonate with them. Next you should verify that your influencer's greater audience is in line with your audience reach goals. Make this strategy your standard for identifying the right audience influencer every time.

NEXT

PART THREE: Understanding and measuring influencer performance

10 PART THREE: UNDERSTANDING AND MEASURING INFLUENCER PERFORMANCE

In PART ONE of this eBook For example: while an we discussed the importance influencer may have of understanding your retail Bigger doesn’t +200,000 followers audience, and in PART TWO and a steady stream of we covered how-to identify always mean better. engagement, these numbers the right influencers for your do not matter unless they are retail audience. In this reaching the ideal audience. section of our eBook we will Not to mention, engaging an The biggest misconception? cover how to measure the influencer of this audience The idea that big numbers success of your influencer size, ideal or not, likely costs equal big success. Vanity initiatives. a nice chunk of change. metrics such as likes and followers don't necessarily When it comes to measuring While the individual with equate to action. the performance of an +200,000 followers may be influencer initiative, there is alluring, unless they are Basing success on vanity no industry standard. Even reaching your ideal audience metrics alone may be the though influencer marketing — the audience that will least effective influencer is not new, marketers are convert into a customer — marketing measurement — still trying to determine you’re paying to reach people unless — marketers are able which metrics actually that will never be your to drill down and understand matter. customer. who is engaging with their influencer. There is a shift Here’s the reality: there are a happening — no longer does lot of myths, misguided it matter how many metrics, and misconceptions followers an influencer has, when it comes to measuring it matters who follows an influencer’s performance. them. 11 PART THREE: Engaging The Ideal Audience, Big or Small

How do you secure your ideal audience and stay within your influencer budget? By using tools like Affinio, it is possible to compare potential influencer audiences to understand their audience composition and value, without breaking the bank.

In PART ONE and TWO of this eBook, we analyzed an outdoor gear & clothing brand and looked at an interest-based community of surfers found within the audience. By analyzing who an audience chooses to follow, we can shed light for the first time on who each audience segment is, what they are influenced by, what they talk about, share, where they consume content, and ultimately what they care most about.

In looking at who was influential to this audience, we found a number of pro- surfers including Sally Fitzgibbons.

Sally has a following of over 220,000 users, and a large majority of these users break out into surfing-related communities. While these communities found in Sally’s audience fit within the outdoor gear brand’s ideal audience, as an influencer she probably costs a pretty penny due to her high-profile status. It is also important to note that as such a high-profile athlete, Sally is also attracting a number of non- surfing related communities that wouldn’t fall into the outdoor gear brand’s ideal surfing audience (i.e. rugby and Crossfit communities). These are the individuals you are paying to reach that will likely never be your customer.

Without a solid understanding of an influencer’s audience and how much of their audience fits within your ideal audience, retail marketers fall into the trap of paying high fees for little return. 12 PART THREE:

Analyzing a Niche Influencer

Next we decided to look at a smaller, targeted niche influencer also found within the outdoor gear surfing community. Sometimes engaging smaller influencers is better for a brand — they typically havea smaller, passionatefollowi nga nd are usually conducive to budgetary restrictions.

One of the influencers we identified using Affinio is Holly Beck, a lesser-known pro-surfer.

Holly has a following of just over 3,500 users, with the majority of those followers all falling into interest-based Holly Beck surfing communities. While small, Holly has an extremely @HollyBeck27 high-value audience that the outdoor gear brand may want to capitalize on.

Sometimes engaging smaller influencers is better for a brand.

Measurement Over Time

Depending on budget and how specific the audience target goals are, both Sally and Holly have ideal audiences that the outdoor gear brand may wish to engage. Once marketers have identified their influencer and the ideal audiences they wish to target, they need to be able to truly measure the impact of their influencer campaigns over time.

Using Affinio, marketers can actually see how their audience changes over time. As the outdoor gear brand grows, in theory their surfing-related audience should grow in conjunction with their influencer efforts.

13 PART THREE:

Outdoor Gear & Clothing Brand Affinio Growth Chart

With this measurement tool, found on the Affinio platform, we can actually measure the growth of clusters and the date of acquisition. In addition, we can see what new communities are emerging. For example, because of Sally’s strong ties to Australia, an Australian surfing interest- based community could emerge in the outdoor gear brand’s audience if they leveraged her as an influencer.

Instead of being tied up on the number of followers and likes, marketers need to dig deeper and understand if those “likes” fall into the ideal audience segments identified. While it is crucial to measure performance, be sure that the numbers you are measuring add up to success.

You’ve heard it before, it’s the age old matter of quantity versus quality. In the case of your influencer marketing initiatives, quality always wins.

14 Conclusion

For retail marketers to effectively break through the noise and connect with consumers, they must take an audience-first approach.

y leveraging the interest Affinio is able to analyze these graph, and segmenting an connections to develop a social B audience based on who and and cultural fingerprint for each what they choose to follow, retail user and segment them into marketers will have access to interest-based clusters. deep, cultural insights otherwise unknown. Through actioning By leveraging the interest graph these cultural insights, retail (what or who an audience chooses marketers can ensure they select to follow), Affinio is able to extract influencers that are already knowledge and cultural insights resonating with their ideal from an entire social audience - audience. Furthermore, by not just the vocal minority. This understanding each interest-based sheds light for the first time on community within a brand’s who each audience segment is, audience, retail marketers can what they are influenced by, what accurately measure growth and they talk about, share, where they influencer success. consume content, and ultimately what they care most about.

ABOUT AFFINIO www.affinio.com

Affinio is an award-winning marketing intelligence platform that leverages the interest graph to understand today’s consumer. Founded in 2013, Affinio empowers the world’s leading

Conclusion brands, agencies, media companies, and publishers to redefine the way they research, plan, and execute relevant marketing strategies.

Behind Affinio is an advanced, incredibly powerful technology that mines the billions of relational network connections that exist within any social audience. Using our deep learning and custom network engine,

15 AFFINIO.COM | @AFFINIO | [email protected]