On average, businesses are making $6.50 in revenue for each $1 spent on influencer marketing. In fact, 70% are earning $2 or more, and the top 13% are earning $20 or more. But, 30% are either breaking even or failing to generate a return on their investment. So, learning how to overcome the main challenges when rolling out an influencer marketing strategy can significantly improve your return on marketing investment (ROMI).

Influencer strategy isn't as effective or successful without content marketing. Great content is at the center of the value exchange between a business, influencer, and buyer. Incorporating influencers in your content facilitates reaching new audiences with brand messages that are credible and trusted.

Identifying the right influencers is hard. In this course, I will show you how to use 3 different tools to discover the most relevant influencers for your campaign. Why so many tools? Because each one has different strengths and weaknesses. And a decade ago, I used a fourth tool, but the company that made it has closed. So, I don't want you to become too dependent on any one tool to find the right influencers.

In this course, I will share several examples of influencer outreach best practices, which I call "schmooze optimization." This is the process of making casual conversation with influential individuals who can help you to achieve measurable business goals. And it's worked for a wide variety of B2B, B2C, and nonprofit organizations.

This course will teach you how to measure the success of your programs with the appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs). If it's brand awareness, then you will want to learn how to measure brand lift. If it's engagement, then you will want to learn how to measure applause, conversation, and amplification rates. If it is lead generation, then you will want to learn how to track influencer campaigns in Google Analytics.

Your final project for this course is to create a pitch deck for a social media influencer strategy. The purpose of your final project is to give you a concrete artifact that you can use to demonstrate your mastery of new competencies and skills to either the executives in your current organization or to prospective employers.