Businesses are spending an increasing amount of their marketing dollars on influencer marketing. 59 percent of marketers in a survey said that they are increasing their influence marketing budget in the coming year. It is not without good reason that marketers are making a strategic shift to influencer marketing. Influencer marketing can help organically expand your brand’s influence, faring even better than organic search. Let us take a look at how influencer marketing can be a game-changer for your business.
What Makes Influencer Marketing A Game-Changer?
Conventional paid advertising channels may catch the attention of prospective customers, however, the amount that they contribute to your conversion rate is debatable. Then again, there is the problem of banner blindness. Today, consumers are exposed to a massive number of paid advertisements, due to which they do not even register many of these ads. Say, your paid advertisement did manage to catch the attention of consumers, then the intent behind the ad-selling will probably make them think twice about buying it. Too much selling is a clear turn-off for prospective customers, owing to all the noise that brands are making with their paid marketing initiatives.
On the other hand, influencer marketing is not about direct selling, rather it involves leveraging the trusted fan following of influencers. Influencers do not put forward a ‘salesy’ message to get followers to buy a product or service, they instead strategically, feature brand products in their social media posts encouraging followers to give it a try. Followers are naturally curious about trying out the product as they trust the opinion of the influencer. Influencer marketing wins for two reasons. One, it is more believable than traditional ‘salesy’ messages, two, they trust the opinion of influencers. Paid ads fall behind influencer marketing as far as authenticity and approachability are concerned. These factors have a huge impact on the purchase influence, and in turn, the brand conversion rates. This is where influencer marketing gets it right.
Top Considerations While Implementing Influencer Marketing
Brands initiating an influencer marketing strategy need to know their target audience inside out. Else, they will not know where to start looking for influencers. Influencer marketing does not always have to be paid, you can seek out influencers who already like your brand, and ask them if they want to feature your products on their social media channel. Influencers can be found on various platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Influencer marketing is not easy, but the results it yields make it worthwhile. You will need to spend time researching, contacting and negotiating with influencers, before your campaign takes off. Once it does take off, you will need to track the results of the campaign, and measure the ROI to see if you want to make any tweaks.
You need to be careful about how influencers will feature your brand in their posts. Sponsored posts may do more damage than good for your brand sometimes. Followers can easily sniff out a paid ad, and it may have the exact opposite effect that you wanted with your influencer marketing campaign. What some of the best influencers do is to organically feature the brand in their posts, so it does not seem like a paid ad or sponsored post. Registered influencers on Ifluenz are using sponsored posts best practices for a maximum impact.