Influencer marketing is a potent tool for establishing brand authority, increasing brand awareness, increasing traffic, and attracting new customers. Influencer marketing generates an average return on investment of $18 for $1 spent, which is significantly higher than other marketing channels. (business marketing)
You’re almost likely familiar with influencer marketing as a brand manager, and you may have even run some campaigns. However, there is always more to learn in order to get the most out of this increasingly popular strategy.
We’ll reveal how to establish a successful influencer marketing strategy to help you accomplish your business goals in this post, which includes best practises and case studies from top brands.
What is Influencer Marketing and How Does It Work? (business marketing)
Influencer marketing is a sort of social media marketing that relies on content creators and bloggers, often known as influencers, to provide product placements and endorsements.
The majority of influencers use social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and many of them have their own blog or YouTube channel. Top influencers have spent years creating high-quality content, cultivating a loyal following, and cultivating a tight relationship with their fans. If an influencer promotes or recommends your product, it can offer your brand a significant boost.
Influencer marketing works in a similar way to celebrity endorsements or movie product placements. Assume you’re the brand manager for a clothing company. You could have conducted a magazine or television campaign with a well-known supermodel wearing your jeans twenty years ago.
You might ask the “popular girl next door” to wear them in her Instagram story these days.
What is the purpose of influencer marketing?
Have you ever found yourself on YouTube or Instagram watching someone use a product — such as combing their hair, making coffee with a new espresso machine, or even driving a sports car — and thinking about how that thing could benefit you?
Then you’ve witnessed an influencer at work.
1. Influencers can help brands reach new consumers.
Someone who isn’t familiar with your business or follows your social media channels is unlikely to see your material, but they may follow an influencer with whom you can partner.
Businesses may magnify their brand messages and spread product information to acquire new customers by working with influencers.
2. Influencer marketing has a higher level of authenticity.
Rather than publicly “selling” a product like a regular advertisement, an influencer displays themselves utilising it and discussing the benefits.
This feels more genuine than standard brand promotion since it feels nearly like a genuine recommendation from a friend. Positive social proof, to be precise.
3. You can target specific groups of people.
Many influencers specialise in a particular field — such as health, beauty, travel, or parenthood — and share their expertise with their fans. Influencers establish themselves as people of authority in their area by producing information on a certain issue and acting as a helpful resource for followers. As a result, they gain a following of interested individuals.
Brands can use this link to target specific consumer groups, such as moms, foodies, and travellers, among others.
How to Put Together an Influencer Marketing Plan
1. Define your objectives.
What do you hope to accomplish with influencer marketing? Set specific goals and use KPIs and monitoring to measure them, whether you’re trying to reach new target customers, increase sales, or enhance brand perception.
Influencer marketing efforts should complement your overall marketing strategy and help you achieve critical business goals. This is a crucial step: thinking about your goals will help you identify the right influencers, select the best channels, and set a budget that is feasible.
2. Establish a budget
How much money are you willing to put into your campaign? Influencer collaborations are typically funded from a brand’s total marketing budget. If you’ve previously performed influencer marketing campaigns, you may use prior data to estimate the expected ROI and budget accordingly.
If this is your first campaign, you may want to start small and gradually expand your influencer marketing programme once you’ve gained enough experience to ensure your influencer marketing activities are lucrative.
3. Identify the most effective influencers for your brand.
Your influencer selection will be influenced by your target demographic as well as your own brand values.
You’ll need a thorough understanding of your target demographic to locate the correct type of influencers for your brand. What characteristics do they have in common? What is crucial to them? What sources do they consult for information? Finding content creators and bloggers with a group you’d like to reach out to can be as simple as looking at your brand’s audience personas.
It’s critical to stick to your brand’s principles. Make sure you thoroughly vet influencers before reaching out to them. Which brands have they previously collaborated with? What is the nature of their content?
If “sustainability” is one of your brand principles, for example, collaborating with an environmentally minded influencer makes sense. This is critical so that the material they make for your brand is genuine and resonates with their audience, which includes your potential customers.
