Benefits of Influencer Marketing
The last few years have seen a huge increase in the rise of the influencer. It is virtually impossible to scroll through your Instagram feed without seeing products and services being promoted by seemingly ordinary people who have worked to grow their following and become an authority in their niche. How can your business use influencers to market your products? Is it worth the investment? Our very own influencer, Nicola, spills the beans on the benefits of influencer marketing and why your brand should start using these authoritative figures to promote your products and services today.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is the latest buzzword in digital marketing, but how does it work?
Simply put, instead of marketing directly to your target audience, it is the use of influencers to market your key message for you. Research shows that one-third of consumers do not trust traditional advertising and will refuse to follow or engage with your brand online. Influencers give you access to their niche audience in a relaxed and relevant way.
Influencers have built their own audience who trust in their thoughts and opinions. Look at Mrs Hinch for instance. As soon as she mentions a product she uses, the brand in question ends up sold out across the shelves of the country.
Take Zoflora as an example. This particular cleaning product was seen as old fashioned and something your granny may have used in the 1950s. Once Mrs Hinch started praising it on her Instagram stories, it became impossible to purchase and is still hugely popular to this day.
Not all influencers need as many followers as Mrs Hinch to have an impact. We are finding that nano-influencers (2000 to 5000 followers) and micro-influencers (5,000-50,000 followers) can have a massive impact in driving brand awareness and sales and are well worth investing in – as long as the engagement and reach rates are right.
Influencers have an unbeatable voice when it comes to marketing – they don’t call them influencers for nothing!
How can influencer marketing benefit your brand?
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? However, influencer marketing is a fantastic way to drive brand awareness and grow sales. The benefits include:
It builds credibility and trust
Influencers have worked hard to create a highly engaged audience who enjoy following their daily lives – including which brands they use. By promoting your business on their socials, influencers build credibility and trust in your brand – if they use it, then it must be good! Traditional advertising is no longer trusted by a large part of your target audience, so authentic brand mentions from popular influencers can help side-step those who insist on ad-blockers.
Influencer marketing is focussed and relevant
Influencers have created an audience based on their own niche. By partnering with an influencer whose audience is in the same niche as your – let’s say products for Mums – then you have a ready made target audience at your fingertips meaning any leads generated from your campaign will be relevant.
When you are paying influencers to create content that markets your brand, you can have as much or as little involvement as you like. Some brands like to approve content before publication, others prefer a more organic approach. It is a good idea to choose an unused hashtag on which to run the campaign and give the influencer direction on what themes to include, who to tag and what call of actions to use. This makes influencer marketing focussed and relevant, which ensures the content is marketed to the exact audience you want it to be marketed to.
It is cost effective
Compared to other forms of advertising, influencer marketing is not costly. With an average cost of £10 per 1000 followers, paying an influencer to promote your products can reap a huge ROI. Whether you are looking to increase brand awareness or drive conversions, influencer marketing can get you the results you need.
Influencer marketing saves time
Creating an ad campaign takes time – whether that’s crafting the images, creating the copy and scheduling the content across your channels. Influencer marketing takes all of this out of your hands as you are not just paying for the advertising – but all of the design and copy too, saving you lots of time.
Should your brand invest in influencer marketing?
We think that influencer marketing is a no-brainer. The benefits speak to themselves and you definitely don’t want to be left behind. Influencers have an unique voice in the marketing industry which your brand can use to increase brand awareness, drive sales and ultimately grow your business to where you want it to be. What are you waiting for? Get in contact with us today to find out how we can propel your business to the next level with an influencer marketing campaign.
