Influencer marketing is a great way to get your brand’s name out there and, when done correctly, can create an influx of new leads and clients for your business. Before your company can truly take advantage of influencer marketing, it’s important to understand exactly what influencer marketing is, who the potential influencers in your market are, and why it can help your business. For all of these answers and more, read below on the what, who’s, and why’s of influencer marketing.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is the use of an individual, group, or other entity to appeal to a company’s target audience in order to increase their brand recognition, sales, customer base, and more. Simply put, influencer marketing is the use of people with a large social following that are outside of your brand for the purpose of encouraging them to try your product or service.
Who Are Influencers?
In order to properly use influencer marketing, it’s important to pinpoint who the important influencers in your industry are in order to gain the full benefits. Every industry has a number of different influencers throughout their marketplace, so it’s important to take care with who you choose to build a relationship with to ensure that the influencer has the right audience for your business’ products and services.
Social Media Influencers
Social media influencers typically have a relatively large and loyal following on one or more social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or blogs. These types of influencers get their power from their relatability. Because they are viewed to be just like us and experience the same struggles that we do, their messages come across as genuine and authentic, even when they’re promoting products. Since these types of influencers have a specific point of view (whether it’s the working parent, fitness fanatic, or successful entrepreneur) they tend to have an inherent understanding of who their audience is, what content they’re interested in, and how to connect with them—making them especially successful when it comes to business partnerships.
Celebrities
Celebrities are typically viewed as the people that we strive to be, rather than the person that we currently are (like the social media influencer). Because they’re almost guaranteed to have a huge following, celebrities are a prime target for businesses that have the financial backing to claim them as an endorser of their products or services. While celebrities are not as relatable as the previous influencer group mentioned, they do help to elevate the status of a brand in the consumers’ eye, as well as improve brand recognition.
Your Users
Your current, everyday users can be some of your best influencers because they already know and love your product or service. Every person has a community of people who know and trust them, so these can be some of your most useful influencers when it comes to gaining new customers or clients.
Why Use Influencer Marketing?
There are so many good reasons to use influencer marketing that it’s hard to pick just a few! Our Content Strategists have narrowed it down to the four reasons below as to why your company should add influencer marketing to its strategy.
Grabs Your Audience’s Attention
Consumers are exposed to hundreds of advertisements every single day, both online and off. Think back to when the last time was that you’ve stopped and really took in the message on a billboard, newspaper ad, or other marketing piece. The truth is, these types of traditional marketing communications have now become a part of everyday life and people have learned to simply tune them out. If you’ve found that you’re getting less ROI on your advertising, influencer marketing is a great way to regain your audience’s attention. When the correct influencer is chosen, your audience will automatically be attracted to what the influencer has to say, therefore increasing your brand awareness.
Authentic and Trustworthy Marketing
In the end, consumers are all too aware that beneath the marketing gimmicks and sometimes exaggerated promises lies a company’s desire to improve their bottom line. Influencer marketing helps to lessen or remove the doubt from your audience’s mind about whether or not a product is what the company claims it to be. Influencer marketing allows a company to transfer the credibility of an influencer to their offerings, thereby improving the perceived image of the brand and increasing purchase intent.
Reach a Larger Audience
It’s important to choose the correct people to partner with since influencer marketing depends on exposing the influencer’s loyal audience to your brand. The most important point to look at when choosing an influencer is the size of your influencer’s audience and who their audience is. If your influencer doesn’t have a large following or their following is already using your products or services, that influencer probably isn’t the best choice for your company. For example, if you run a makeup company it wouldn’t make sense to use an influencer like Katy Perry, since she already works with and promotes CoverGirl products.
Connect Better With Your Audience
An influencer is essentially a liaison between their audience and your brand. In other words, the influencer is a way to get consumers who are already engaged to view your product in a more trustworthy light. There’s only so much of an impact that a printed advertisement or commercial can make, but by having someone with a following of like-minded individuals, you can easily connect with consumers in a way that can help them make the jump to lifelong customer.
Influencer marketing is all about creating partnerships with influencers who have a loyal following that represents your company’s target audience. If done correctly, influencer marketing can increase traffic to your website, brand recognition, first-time buyers, and ultimately, loyal customers. For more information on influencer marketing, or for help with creating a specific marketing strategy designed to meet your company’s unique needs, call Green Group Studio at 561-594-7336 to speak with one of our knowledgeable Content Strategists today.
