Have you heard of influencer marketing? If you do not recognize the term, you probably have experienced it. This is a type of marketing that concentrates on utilizing key individuals to drive a brand’s message to different markets. Instead of using ads to exhibit a product, it allows influencers to share that brand’s message. Influencers as a form of “word of mouth” for businesses, which should be an objective for every brand.
Influencer marketing is not a fad. It has grown continuously over the past four years and it is here to stay. Many marketing agencies have even created departments just dedicated to it and reports show that more than half of the companies who have used influencer marketing intend to increase their influencer marketing budget over the next year. In fact, the industry grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $6.6 billion in 2019. It is estimated that the market size will increase to $9.7 billion in 2020.
Influencer marketing has been morphing over the years. In the beginning, companies were using mega-influencers (individuals with one million-plus followers) but the trend seems to be moving towards micro-influencers (those with fewer than 100,000 followers) and even nano-influencers (those with fewer than 1,000 followers). The mega-influencer to micro-influencer ratio rose from 1:3 in 2016 to 1:10 in 2019.
You may be wondering why the change. Stats have shown that mega-influencers have seven times less engagement than the other groups. Additionally, mega-influencers and celebrities, most times have supporters that follow them just because they are recognized figures, not necessarily because of their topics of interest. On the other hand, micro-influencers are regarded as experts on specific subjects and their followers truly value their views and opinions. Here is the personal experience of a micro-influencer at Intellifluence Influencer Spotlight and here are some great examples of successful influencers Influencers to Follow.
Benefits
- Audience Targeting: Influencer marketing reaches a more targeted audience.
- Superior Clientele: It attracts high-quality repeat customers who become more loyal to the brand.
- Profit: Influencer marketing can produce great returns, around $6.5 for every dollar spent.
- Authenticity: It produces unique content that’s fresh and authentic.
- Trustworthiness: Influencer marketing is more relatable to audiences and feels more credible and trustworthy. People trust recommendations from others, even strangers (influencers), over brand advertisements.
- Social Media Growth: It creates organic traffic and helps grow social media accounts.
- Stronger Customer Bond: Influencer marketing delivers higher engagement, reach, and clicks.
- SEO Rankings. Collaborating with influencers who blog improves SEO as it generates high-quality backlinks to your website that are natural, boosting page rankings.
- Effectiveness: Traditional digital marketing is not as effective as it used to be. Nowadays, many people have negative associations with it and ignore ads.
Influencer Marketing Considerations
As mentioned before, it can increase audience rapport, engagement, positive brand association, organic traffic, SEO rankings, and sales. Yet there are different things to keep in mind.
Here are some considerations when implementing influencer marketing:
- As with any other marketing effort, identifying the end goal is necessary
- Plan the marketing strategy
- Know your audience
- Identify and select the best influencers for the campaign
- Use mega-influencers and micro-influences according to your budget, niche, and community
- Besides using the content created by the influencer on their site and social media, use it in quotes and testimonials, TV or print ads, marketing funnels, and even in your newsletter
- Delineate expectations to influencers, be explicit with deadlines, the terms of the campaign, and payment
- Encourage creativity
- Develop measurable analytics
As you can see, the benefits of implementing influencer marketing are numerous and far-reaching. If you haven’t incorporated this type of marketing, you are missing out in and shortening your brand’s reach and effectiveness.
