Recently, there was a running joke on social media about how influencers earn such exorbitant prices. In fact, their prices can be so much that it makes the take-home of the marketing lead that onboarded the influencer look like pennies. For businesses that want to invest in digital marketing, it begs the question: what is the role of influencer marketing digital marketing strategy? Are they really important to include in your strategy? These and more are the questions that we are going to answer in this post. But to set the record straight, what exactly is influencer marketing? What criteria must be met before one can be called an influencer?
Influencer Marketing and Influencers: What Are They?
Influencer Marketing is one of the powerful strategies used in digital marketing where a brand collaborates with an influencer to reach a particular target audience. The influencer gets paid or other means of remuneration for helping to distribute the brand’s content. In return, the brand reaches a wider number of people that are likely to engage with the offer of the brand.
What Makes an Influencer?
This is an important question that many brands looking to explore influencers must answer. A common misconception is to think an influencer is limited to someone with 1 million followers on social media but this is a half-truth. What makes an influencer is someone on social media that has the ability to cause people to make certain actions. They do this by being an expert or an authority in their community. Due to this, their opinions are often respected and accepted by the members of their community. This is the magical secret behind the conversion rates of influencer marketing that made 92% of marketers gave it a thumbs-up as an effective strategy.
Roles of Influencers
For all the craze around influencer marketing, it is not enough to simply jump on the bandwagon. It is important to get a clear picture of the role they can play for your brand. In the same vein, the specifics you hope to get from your relationship with them are also crucial. Here are some benefits you can get from collaborating with an influencer.
Cost Saving
According to a report on consumer trends by Hubspot, 38% of Gen Z have made purchases based on recommendations from an influencer within 3 months before the study. The percentage from other age groups also follows closely which demonstrates the impact of influencer marketing. What this means to you as a brand is that you are assured that you will be getting the expected ROI. Smart companies are also leveraging the impact of micro and nano influencers. These are influencers with followers below 100, 000. The engagement rate is higher for these groups and in addition, you can reward them with products rather than money.
Gain the trust of the target audience
Influencer marketing done right is like marital bliss with a brand and the influencers. Brands that get the fit right can use the opportunity to increase trust in their products. This works like a transfer of the trust that the community members of the influencer have in them to your product. It is however important to give the influencers creative liberty to speak to their audience the way they prefer. Keep things real and don’t force it. If the pairing is a good match, the chemistry between the target audience and your product is inevitable.
Reach new Audience
Brands looking to introduce their products to a new audience will find influencers to be formidable allies. The algorithms of social media work in ways that your posts are mostly limited to the people following your page. Influencer marketing can be an effective way to organically reach new audiences. A notable case study in this regard is the men’s skincare brand known as Bulldog. Without having a TikTok account, their sales went up by as much as 10%. This was achieved by collaborating with TikTok influencers to create shaving mistakes videos. It should also be noted that the same campaign gained a whooping 29.8 million impressions!
Conclusion
The roles of influencers are as diverse as your imagination can be. As long as you ensure that the influencer is a good fit for your brand, with the right strategy, you can get impressive ROI from influencer marketing. Wondering how you can find the right strategy and a good fit? Effe Towers is the perfect matchmaker for brands to find the best strategy and influencer to get the results they desire from their campaigns.
