# How to Make Influencer Marketing a Crucial Part of Your App’s Growth Strategy

- Link: https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/
- Published: 2018-05-15T12:17:46+01:00
- Author: Jon Howard

_This is a guest post by Jon Howard, Head of PR/Influencer Relations at Flaregames._

![How to Make Influencer Marketing a Crucial Part of Your App’s Growth Strategy ](
https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/How-to-Make-Influencer-Marketing-
a-Crucial-Part-of-Your-App’s-Growth-Strategy-min.jpeg)

Influencer marketing can be an effective means to secure engaged users for your 
app/game. However, without proper due diligence measures and a deeper understanding
of your product’s target audience, it can also be a volatile marketplace where imprecise
data and an element of finger-crossing is the norm. In this piece I’ll cover the
wider approach we take to influencer marketing at Flaregames while digging into 
how we find the right users; ones we know will really engage with our games.

Table of Contents

 * [Knowing your audience](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#knowing_your_audience)
 * [Connecting influencer data with your data](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#connecting_influencer_data_with_your_data)
 * [Making contact with influencers — the outreach strategy](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#making_contact_with_influencers_%e2%80%94_the_outreach_strategy)
 * [Building out your influencer partnerships with further content](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#building_out_your_influencer_partnerships_with_further_content)
 * [Finalizing the creatives](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#finalizing_the_creatives)
 * [Going live — the nitty-gritty details to look out for](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#going_live_%e2%80%94_the_nitty-gritty_details_to_look_out_for)
 * [How influencer marketing sits within the growth stack](https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf/#how_influencer_marketing_sits_within_the_growth_stack)

## **Knowing your audience**

One of the biggest mistakes you can make — and this is coming from personal experience—
when executing on an influencer campaign is not knowing your audience. If you can’t
picture an image of your future app/game user in your head, don’t start signing 
off on multi-thousand dollar contracts with influencers.

It’s very easy to get lost in the sea of content on platforms like YouTube or Instagram
and make baseless assumptions about influencer channels fitting your app/game. Again,
this is coming from someone who’s made this mistake and learned from it.

While it depends much on the size of your marketing team and the budget invested
in R&D, take the time during your app’s beta phase to really dig into the core audience
engaging with your product. At Flaregames, we spend a load of time in focus group
testing, working with a variety of small focus groups to try out different messaging
and concepts. We then conduct broader quantitative surveys that speak to thousands
of gamers at a time, looking at the reactions from certain demographics and even
comparing crossover audiences. In our case, one example could be people who engage
primarily with console and PC games over mobile.

To give you an ideal of scale, for the soft launch of our mobile shooter Zombie 
Gunship Survival we tested 30 different audience segments (target groups) in four
different countries, reaching an audience of over 35 million people. What you get
in the end-stage is a clear picture of who you want to reach with your marketing
campaign.

Quick learning to share: there’s always industry debate about what kind of mix you
should aim for — for purposes of scale/download volume — when recruiting different-
sized influencers for your campaign. Do I partner with one big channel for high 
impact? Do I work with a range of micro-influencers? Put simply, if you’re looking
for hyper-engaged users, avoid binary thinking and let the data help guide which
influencer channels are right for your product. In the next section, I dig into 
the next stage of this process.

 

_Credit: Demolition Ranch/YouTube_

## **Connecting influencer data with your data**

Knowing your product’s audience is only half the job. Now it’s time to know the 
audience of your target influencers/channels. Frankly speaking, metrics like the
number of subscribers and average view figures tell you very little and are a dangerous
guide, not least because of viewer fraud, particularly on YouTube. What you need
to know is how engaged a channel audience is, and how receptive that audience is
to sponsored content.

Any influencer agency worth their salt will have access to the average engagement
rate (% ratio of video likes/comments/shares compared to overall views) for a channel.
There are lots of variables involved but as a high-level guide, any YouTube channel
with over a 5% video likes to views ratio is a good bottom-line indicator of an 
engaged audience, while nearer to 10% is particularly strong.

To define the audience’s reaction to sponsored content, that’s down to you to put
in the hours and watch other sponsored videos that influencer may have released 
within the last 3–6 months. Check out the comments below the description and get
a feel for the sentiment. This is not a quantifiable assessment and it can be a 
daunting task to wade through a lot of the bad stuff (trolls, spam links, assorted
vitriol), but it’s worth the time spent.

⌊Example of strong views to likes engagement ratio — Credit- Makiman131:YouTube⌉⌊
Example of strong views to likes engagement ratio — Credit- Makiman131:YouTube⌉

_Example of strong views to likes engagement ratio — Credit: Makiman131/YouTube_

After you’ve looked at engagement, it’s time to dig into the audience insights from
each channel. Taking the example of YouTube, a channel creator has information on
his/her audience including age, gender, location, viewing device/OS, and video consumption.
Providing your target influencers are willing to privately share this information,
cross-reference this data with your product audience findings. If there is a strong
crossover, then wonderful.

## **Making contact with influencers — the outreach strategy**

There are different schools of thought regarding the building out of your influencer
program, and in my opinion, it’s really down to the amount of time and resources
you can spare. Boiling it all down: if you have the internal resources to handle
the hundreds of emails and Skype calls to make an influencer campaign happen, then
do that. Same principles as a PR manager reaching out to journalists, nothing beats
the personal touch and the passion and knowledge you have for your own product.

However, launching an app/game on the market is always a hectic time and there are
many agencies out there who really know their stuff and are very good at mediating
between you and a target influencer/s. The industry has matured rapidly from a couple
years ago when pricing models and contractual negotiations were decidedly more “
Wild West”. This also means that transparency has increased and it’s perfectly possible
to sign campaigns based on agreements with fixed CPIs or CPMs to add another way
to mitigate against a campaign performing poorly.

## **Building out your influencer partnerships with further content**

So everything looks good and you’re verging on closing a partnership with your chosen
influencer/s. But what else can be agreed upon to further drive value?

This is a really interesting topic as at Flaregames we’re big proponents of influencer
partners featuring in our user acquisition videos on Facebook and during in-game/
app ads. Over the last 2 years, we’ve experienced cases of influencer-driven UA 
ads performing twice as well (in terms of click-through rate %) as other creatives
in our video networks at the time.

Concretely, consider therefore if you might want to leverage your influencer partner/
s in Facebook videos, YouTube ad pre-roll, tutorial content about your product —
or even simple things such as written endorsements for your PR efforts. The influencer
may not be willing to do this, or it may require a higher offer, but consider how
this extra content could make for a more 360-degree campaign that’s less dependent
on one channel.

_Example of a UA ad starring a YouTube gaming influencer — Credit: Flaregames x 
Royalistiq_

## **Finalizing the creatives**

Influencers know their audience way better than you — fact. Don’t pretend otherwise.
This means you shouldn’t 100% dictate the creatives produced between you and the
influencer. Just make sure you’ve clearly mapped out the brief and wider vision 
for the partnership from the outset. Provide a detailed document breaking down your
product, your key campaign messages and how you want to communicate to your product
audience.

_Credit: Hannah Hoffman x Flaregames partnership for Nonstop Knight_

In short, think of influencers as creative consultants as opposed to one-off traffic
providers. They are the masters of engagement, and providing they’ve agreed to work
with you on the basis your product is a fit for their channel, will know how to 
best showcase your app. Needless to say, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t step in
if the suggested creative isn’t doing your product justice, and/or could be potentially
harmful to your brand. With this in mind, ensure to leave plenty of time for feedback
before your campaign is set to go live.

## **Going live — the nitty-gritty details to look out for**

Before a video is pushed live and you start to (hopefully) see the downloads roll
in for your product, there’s a couple of minor things that actually have a significant
impact on performance. The key areas are thumbnail image, video title, and links
in description:

 * **Thumbnail (YouTube)**: don’t underestimate how much this impacts the number
   of people clicking through. If you know from your market research that your audience
   like the game presented in a certain way, make sure to work with the influencer
   to incorporate that.

 * **Video title**: this is more down to what works for each influencer, but receive
   the video for the title before it goes live so you know how your product/brand
   is being presented.

 * **Description**: firstly, be mindful at all times of FTC guidelines — if an influencer
   is not correctly disclosing sponsored content, the onus is on you to correct 
   before going live. Secondly (and this is specific to YouTube), push for all download
   links to be above the description fold and ensure the agreed call to action is
   being used by the influencer, both in the description as well as the associated
   verbal callout in the video. Make it as easy as possible for your future players
   to download your product.

![Credit- Smosh Games x Flaregames partnership for Nonstop Chuck Norris launch ](
https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Credit-Smosh-Games-x-Flaregames-partnership-
for-Nonstop-Chuck-Norris-launch-min.png)

_Credit: Smosh Games x Flaregames partnership for Nonstop Chuck Norris launch_

## **How influencer marketing sits within the growth stack**

I hope the above helps anyone new to influencer marketing to get a clearer picture
on what needs to be done to increase the chances of a successful influencer campaign
= attracting engaged users who invest in your app/game.

When it comes to influencer marketing for mobile apps/games, one of the bonus benefits
is that downloads from influencers’ content pushes a game up the app store charts,
thus attracting more users by virtue of a high chart position (regardless if those
users didn’t watch the influencer’s content). However, to achieve this kind of impact
requires an influencer campaign of a certain scale, therefore a certain cost.

Secondly, not every influencer partnership will yield thousands of downloads. There
are too many variables outside of a marketer’s complete control to ensure KPIs are
surpassed with every video. However, the natural way of mitigating against this 
is to operate at a certain scale, working with a host of influencers for any given
campaign to ensure that its success doesn’t hinge on one piece of content.

Put short: if you’re operating on low budgets (under circa 10k$ for an influencer
campaign), it’s still possible to work with several influencers and mitigate against
the poor performance of a particular video but be realistic when it comes to setting
your KPIs and think about how to leverage those influencer partnerships beyond traditional
sponsored videos (as highlighted earlier).

#### _Thanks to Regina Leuwer. _