Influencer Marketing: How It Creates A Winwin For All
Influencer marketing is not a new phenomenon. It exists as a brand endorser and is limited to celebrities and later some bloggers. Statistics show that around 3.98 million people worldwide use social media, and by 2025 this number is expected to exceed 4 million. As a result, influencer marketing has naturally become a cost-effective way for brands to capture their niche audiences.
As their target market is rapidly digitizing, brands are using influencers to connect with their customers and achieve their marketing goals. This strategy has been successfully used by progressive companies and brands and has seen exponential growth. Because they are viewed by social media followers and are trusted experts, influencer recommendations can influence customers' purchasing decisions.
Market Understanding
The modern digital world has changed the way brands advertise or sell ads. Influencer marketing grew out of celebrity endorsement, where socially active brands pay influencers to promote their products or services to a specific audience. These influencers, also known as social media content creators, bring great value to brands using different formats across different platforms – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
There is no denying that collaborating with influencers brings better results for brands. Evidence shows that 61% of consumers trust influencer recommendations compared to 38% for brand content. In addition, 60% of marketers believe that content created by influencers gets more attention than branded content.
Several influencers are joining the major leagues of social media influencers amid the growing use of influencer marketing strategies. For many brands, influencers with less reach are valued because of their specific audience. In fact, it's surprising to learn that some influencers with 15,000 followers or less have higher engagement rates.
Key factors for implementing a strong strategy
The sole purpose of an influencer marketing campaign is for brands to reach their target audience effectively. Before jumping into the results of an influencer marketing campaign, brands need to manage their expectations. It's important to note that just because a popular social media star endorses a brand doesn't mean they'll get sales overnight.
To begin with, brands must go through a rigorous process to first determine the fundamentals of a campaign, such as the results they expect and the sustainability of the desired results. Brands can only achieve this by knowing their target audience well. Before using influencers, they must create audience personas to make sure their content reaches the right consumer groups throughout the campaign.
In addition, choosing the right influencer size also helps brands follow the right trajectory. Brands need to identify influencers with the right number of followers - nano, micro, macro and celebrities from under 10,000 to over 1 million followers.
On the other hand, a good influencer campaign also depends on choosing a list of influencers who can create original content and reach your target audience in the way you want. In short, influencers act as thought leaders and must be strategically aligned with brand goals and needs.
In addition, using the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is also an important business success factor. In a world heavily influenced by digital technologies, it is clear that brands are looking for inorganic growth that does not lead to positive results. Therefore, authentic and trusted influencers should help manage and track campaign results with the right KPIs.
Because influencer marketing campaigns have great potential to deliver results, influencers and brands need to include a deeper understanding of conversions, referral traffic, reach, awareness, and engagement. Brands value what they measure and tracking influencers is critical to the success of marketing campaigns for all stakeholders.
At the end of the line
The influencer marketing world will continue to grow and is not expected to shrink in the near future. However, the evolution of the campaign will change how brands and influencers close deals. Therefore, marketers need to explore unique considerations for creating campaigns and work with influencers to find ways to achieve a brand's campaign goals.
Refusal
The opinions expressed above are those of the author.
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