Influencer Marketing Works
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing where marketing activities are oriented around individuals that have influence over potential buyers. Content marketing focuses attention on your audience. It is more of an indirect tactic that puts an emphasis on attracting and engaging with your customers. It is dependent on having an audience in the first place. Influencer marketing allows you to build an audience quicker so that your content is more effective.
How It Works
Influencer marketing requires developing a relationship with individuals who can create visibility for your company, product, or service. The focus is put on the individual influencers instead of the masses. Influences can range from niche bloggers to famous celebrities to individuals with an active following on social media.
The right people have the ability to influence a far greater amount of people than any advertisement or piece of content. You may gain access to an audience you would never be able to reach on your own. You are working with influencers that are already trusted by their followers.
- Find people that are influential in your niche or industry.
- Build a connection with them.
- Create a working relationship where they endorse your products or services, create content, or promote content.
Influencer Marketing Versus Traditional Marketing
The market is changing. Young people have the ability to block ads on their phones, are jaded about advertising, exist in an overcrowded digital market. Word-of-mouth sways consumer choices far more often. People are more likely to listen to real individuals that have actual experience with the product or service.
Influencer marketing tends to put the customer front and center. Real people and crowd-sourced content work much better than traditional advertisements. It benefits brands to go beyond permissions to reuse content on social sites to actually building relationships with the creators of the content. When put to good use, user-generated content has a much better return on investment than other marketing strategies. Naturally, people tend to trust other people more than ads.
Incorporating Influencer Marketing into Your Digital Strategy
Influencer marketing is the logical evolution of social, content, digital, PR. It is a wonderfully powerful way to gain instant visibility and see higher conversion rates. It works because people trust the influencers that have already been following for years. Influencers have gained that trust. The internet opens many doors for digital marketing. The easy access means consumers are constantly bombarded with ads. Reviews and suggestions by people they know carry tremendous weight and feel like a breath of fresh air. Instead of wading through a bunch of products and companies that are sometimes indistinguishable, it feels nice to rely on a trusted “friend” to help you make that decision. Influencer marketing needs to be a part of your digital strategy.
Creating a Strategy
Start by actually developing an influencer marketing strategy. It should have a goal with specific KPIs in mind. This gives your strategy focus and provides measurable results.
- Determine your goals. Do you need influencers to increase your brand awareness or shed light on a new product or service, or something different altogether? Each campaign should be aligned with a specific goal in mind.
- Create detailed KPIs. Clear goals are complimented by specified KPIs. If you are interested in becoming more visible and engaging on social media, your KPIs should encompass social media growth and engagement metrics. Avoid being generic. Be very specific.
- Determine how you will measure marketing success for individual influencers. You should be checking key analytics like shares, follows, likes, and comments associated with an influencer’s post. You may also wish to look at engagement, conversion, and return on influencer investment.
Research Potential Influencers
This is the most time-consuming aspect of this type of marketing.
- Identify your ideal influencer. Think about the personality of this person. Think about your niche and what type of following an ideal influencer would have. Create an influencer avatar.
- Determine what type of influencer best suits your brand. These might be celebrities, industry experts, brand ambassadors, or even employees. Certain types may work better for different campaigns. More followers don’t always mean a better candidate. Sometimes the quality of an influencer’s followers matters more than the quantity. If an influencer fails to engage with their community, they may not be a good fit for your brand.
- Micro-influencers are often just as powerful as celebrities. This is in part due to the access you have to these individuals. Typically, micro-influencers have a high engagement with their audience creating a stronger bond.
Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy these days. The ROI is usually high. Influencers already have an audience of individuals that put a lot of trust in their opinion. By working with them, you can gain the trust of their audience. Make sure to put in the work and find individuals that align well with your brand and industry.
