In the recent past, influencer marketing has had its fair share of ups and downs, but marketers still swear by it for social reach and engagement. SocialPubli.com recently released the 2019 Influencer Marketing Report: A Marketer’s Perspective that said 93 percent of marketers value influencers. In this article we breakdown why marketers are bidding on influencer marketing and how to optimally implement it as a marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing is now an integral part of the marketing mix and is very effective to reach out to a niche audience.
Let’s look at a few stats based on how marketing professionals are leveraging influencer marketing.
According to SocialPubli.com,
- 93 percent of marketers surveyed use influencer marketing
- Most marketers collaborate with influencers for content promotion (35.4%) and product launches (34.2%)
- 84 percent of marketers find influencer marketing is effective
- Marketers turn to influencers to increase brand awareness, drive engagement, and reach new audiences
As influencer marketing grows extensively, let’s first fully understand — what is influencer marketing? And, how to get it right.
Learn More: Will Social Media and Influencer Marketing be BFFs in 2019?
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing involves promoting your brand through an influencer who has a significant impact on your target audience’s purchasing decisions. Influencers are considered experts by the people who follow them. They are knowledgeable in their given category – be it fitness, fashion and lifestyle, technology, gaming, or finance. Whatever influencers say about a certain product, service, or brand is deemed as trustworthy info, giving brands a reason to work with them
~ Shane Barker, Digital Strategist, Shane Barker Consulting
The above statistics prove that marketers rely on influencer marketing as part of a comprehensive marketing plan.
Why Do Marketers Love Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing has now become a predominant marketing strategy for several reasons.
1. Influencers Can Engage Effectively
Influencer marketing is different from celebrity endorsements. A celebrity endorsement usually motivates people who idolize the celebrity to buy (or use) certain products and brands. These fans embrace the product (or brand) because they want to follow their favorite celebrity.
Influencers are subject matter experts, who have their target circles established in a niche segment. They build a community of followers in a specific field of interest and engage with their audience regularly. Marketers can leverage this influencer-community relationship to promote their brand or offerings. The message can be placed in an ongoing conversation between the audience and the influencer, making it more relevant, therefore ensuring engagement and conversion.
2. Influencer Marketing is a Scalable, Word-of-Mouth Strategy
With digital interactions on the rise, social media has become the favored channel for audiences and influencers alike, with Instagram at the forefront (according to eMarketer).
When conversations happen on social media channels, the probability of the message going viral is pretty high, and every marketer dreams of a viral campaign. Influencers already have their target audience in place, and instead of building an audience on a brand page (which takes time), marketers collaborate with influencers to reach a wider audience and gain more followers. A large online audience ensures a greater reach of the brand message.
Learn More: Influencer Marketing Trends and Challenges into 2020 and beyond
3. Influencers Generate Targeted, Relevant Content
Influencers usually create their own content; this organic content resonates well with their audience. It’s the influencer who drives the concept, presentation, timing, and conversation behind the content, which lends credibility and authenticity to the message.
Moreover, influencers understand their audiences’ wants, so they know how, when, and which message will have a maximum impact. With the right tools and technology — smartphones with high-end cameras, editing apps, etc. influencers can now whip up creative, appealing and high-quality content in a jiffy.
This amalgamation of audience, innovation and technology is a compelling reason for marketers to partner with influencers who naturally fit their industry and portray brand values.
4. Influencer Marketing Strategy Has the Best ROI
SocialPubli.com also reports that influencer marketing has the best ROI among other digital strategies — 35.3 percent, which is a lot more than social ads will ever get you.
Although, measuring ROI for influencer marketing is a significant challenge for marketers because of fake followers, misleading content, social bots, etc. Learning from past challenges marketers are now using affiliate link tracking along with engagement and Cost Per Engagement (CPE) to track and analyze the success of their influencer campaigns.
Here are a few reasons the influencer marketing strategy has the best ROI:
- Marketers don’t need to invest in tools and technology to create content.
- Marketers receive better reach because of the influencer’s marketing/promotional skills.
- These days micro-influencers and nano influencers are becoming far more effective for a narrow, defined niche audience. To top that, they are budget-friendly so brands prefer them and they are approachable, which leads to higher engagement. Win-win!
Learn More: 5 Ways to Create an Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy
Key Takeaways for Marketers
Influencer marketing continues to evolve despite the challenges we saw last year. For an effective influencer marketing strategy, here are some actionable tips:
- Identify your goals for an influencer strategy. For example, do you want to create brand awareness or launch a product?
- Identify influencers who naturally portray your brand values. Instead of going for the most popular figure, choose an influencer who has a small but loyal following in your niche.
- Your Influencer strategy should be in collaboration with your other strategies for a seamless campaign flow.
- Give your influencers creative freedom; brief them about your theme, goal and strategy, but let them deliver the message in their style. That’s what their audience wants and will respond to.
- Be transparent. Encourage your influencer to tag the promotional posts as ‘sponsored or paid partnerships’ to retain the audience trust and be compliant with FTC guidelines.
Are you ready to activate your influencer marketing strategy? Tell us on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook; we’re always listening!
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