Tips For Brands Who Want To Succeed In The New Era Of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has been around for a very long time. Since then, of course, a lot has changed thanks to the spread of the internet. But the basics are the same: you need to find a famous figure to promote your products and services among your customers.
However, as it turned out, not all famous personalities have the same influence according to statistics. For example, a famous blogger trusted by his readers is ten times more likely to influence a buying decision than a popular artist with huge social media followers but known for scandals.
Influencer marketing is the most effective way for marketers to promote their products online to increase sales. In fact, according to research, a large reach does not mean that an ad campaign will be successful. This is excellent news for those whose advertising budget isn’t big enough to hire a celebrity as an influencer.
In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know if you are just starting to use influencer marketing: what it is, what the benefits are, who influencers are and what they do, how to start influencing your target audience.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing involves the collaboration between a brand and a person with high influence and popularity to promote a product or service. This is different from traditional marketing, where a company simply places an ad and hopes it’s enough to get people to contact them. Influencer marketing involves exploiting the relationship between the influencer and the people that follow or trust them. In other words, we are talking about the phenomenon of social proof.
If done right, influencer marketing helps brands better understand their customers by observing and analyzing their interactions with influencers. In addition, there are other benefits:
- People trust people
The main advantage of influencer marketing is that real people are influencing other people. In other words, people tend to trust the recommendations of others. Things like testimonials, social media mentions, user-generated content are forms of social proof. They signal the average consumer that others are already using a particular product and are happy with everything.
Influential people are usually trusted even more. They’ve already put in their time and effort to develop their brand and reach their audience. They value customer relationships more than profits. Plus, the audience knows them well.
- Get insights into the target audience
Influencers know how to attract their audience. They understand what content attracts more and whatnot. By observing and analyzing the interactions between influencers and your target audience, you can gain valuable information that will help you build a portrait of a client, write better content and create effective advertising campaigns.
- You can get more leads
With the help of influencer marketing techniques, you can get more leads. This is achieved through the word-of-mouth effect. The potential audience on social networks is huge. And every time an influencer posts something about your product and another person shares it on their page, new people will know about your company and products.
What do influencers do for business?
The influencer’s role is completely dependent on the marketing goals you are pursuing. Below is a list of things influencers can do for your brand. Let’s see how they can help grow your brand and services.
- Links to your product or services
Influencers can include your landing page, profile, or website in their posts or stories. It will help navigate users to your landing page or website where you want them to land. Interested people can also perceive your products and services once they get influenced by the influencers.
- Text about you
Customers these days rely more on reviews posted below before buying any products and services online. An influencer will give you a review of your products and services on your website or the product page. It will also help with a comparative analysis of you with your competitors.
- Post on your website or group on social networks
An influencer can write a post for your blog or social media group. In addition, you can ask him to speak at an event, for example, in a presentation of a new company product and service.
- Promotion of your brand at events
An influencer can promote your brand at events and on social networks. This can be done in a variety of ways. A person can approach an influencer to appear in an event/ shoot a video/ take a photo wearing your company’s branded clothing.
- Reposts in social networks
Most influencers share information about the promoted company on social networks. Depending on the platform, they may include text information, images, videos, or links to your site. However, be careful, as paid social media posts look a little different than usual.
How to Implement an Influencer Marketing Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide
Now that you understand what influencer marketing is, you need to figure out how to find a suitable influencer for your influencer marketing campaign for your brand.
Step 1: Define Your Goals
Before you start putting together your marketing plan, you need to think about what you want to achieve. Below is a list of typical targets. You can borrow something from here or come up with your own points:
- generation of unique content;
- generating unique reviews;
- creating content that pays off;
- attracting a younger audience;
- involvement in communication with the brand;
- drive traffic to a website or landing page;
- attracting qualified leads;
- increasing the volume of online or offline sales.
After you have decided on the goals, identify 2-3 key performance indicators (KPI) for it. For example, if your goal is to generate unique content, the KPIs can be the bounce rate or the user’s time on the page.
Step 2: Identify the ideal influencer
Correct influencer:
- regularly publishes quality content;
- interacts with its subscribers;
- has a large audience of engaged subscribers;
- writes in a style that matches your brand style.
Remember that having a large number of followers doesn’t always mean more engagement. Influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers can do more for your brand than those with millions of followers.
Step 3: Find the Right Influencer
Everyone can become an influencer and can be a part of your influencer marketing campaign, even a cat. You just need to identify the value of their engagement and quality of content before approaching them.
Influencers have a large online audience. Subscribers are looking for feedback, reviews, tips, and articles on fashion trends from them. Influencers usually specialize in a specific topic, such as fitness, entertainment, or news. In addition, they work on various social networks and blogs. For example, one influencer might have a huge Instagram audience and very few Twitter followers.
Well-known methods of determining if you are on the right track include:
Estimate the influencer’s audience. If your clients are young mothers, and the influencer’s subscribers are 15-year-olds, this is not your option.
Estimate actual engagement as a percentage of total subscribers. Also, note whether the influencer’s interaction with the audience is superficial or not. Is he really making any benefit for your business or just wasting your time or money.
Always measure performance and track your goals. Make changes depending on the outcome.
Finding the right influencer is a laborious process. You need to select keywords, view profiles, and read blogs. All this takes a lot of time and effort. Fortunately, there are tools on the web that can make things easier:
Step 4: Discuss the amount of remuneration
Chances are, you already have a budget planned for this. However, there is little chance for judgment.
Remember that the account of the chosen influencer attracted you with something. It might be worth considering increasing the size of the reward.
Step 5: Track and Measure Results
If you set up clear KPIs at the very beginning, then this step will be the easiest for you. Analyze the entire campaign and make the necessary adjustments. Let the influencer understand where he is lacking and what you’re expecting from your marketing campaign. Track his post engagement, story and see how it’s impacting your business growth.
Bottom line
Traditional marketing is becoming obsolete: people do not pay attention to bright billboards and streamers on the streets, automatically skip ads on social networks, do not hear audio ads in supermarkets, and do not watch TV commercials. Now they rely more on modern methods due to the increase of a wide variety of modern advertising techniques online. These marketing methods are more target and result-oriented.
Influencer Marketing, on the contrary, is becoming an increasingly relevant format in digital marketing. It allows you to effectively build communication with the target audience and attract a new one. It makes people promote your brand and services on their own and help your business grow—the best way to promote your brands and services at a very affordable cost. Influencer marketing is the most trending and effective method of business promotion. It helps increase conversion and generate more traffic as compared to traditional marketing methods.
