What Is Influencer Marketing & How Does It Work?
Whether you’re a brand or a blogger, you will have undoubtedly heard the phrase “influencer marketing”. It’s an idea that has created a lot of hype in the industry, changing the way marketing is done online.
Put simply, influencer marketing is marketing your products or services through an individual with a significant online following. It is considered to be one of the most effective marketing techniques that have delivered consistently solid results over the past few years.
For an in-depth explanation about what it is and how it works, read on.
Influencer marketing: the future of marketing
According to a poll conducted by SaaS firm Tomoson, influencer marketing delivers the best overall customer acquisition rate when compared to other marketing channels. Businesses are benefiting massively from it, with around $6.50 being earned for every $1 spent.
As today’s customers become smarter and more marketing-savvy, brands must look to other channels to reach their target audience, and influencer marketing is the key.
An influencer is someone who has built a large social following online. This is done by delivering interesting and engaging content within a specific niche, such as beauty, cooking, fashion, and so on. Their relationship with their followers is one of trust and authenticity and their opinion matters.
As a result, influencers have the power to affect the buying decisions of their audience. By teaming up with influencers, brands can indirectly market their product or service to customers in a natural, authentic setting. To help us understand influencer marketing better, let’s look at a real-life example.
In 2016, Dunkin’ Donuts launched a SnapChat campaign with the aim of spreading awareness of National Donut Day. To assist with this, the brand activated eight influencers, asking them to create and share their own teaser content. The campaign spanned three time zones, and gave customers the chance to receive a free donut when they bought a drink in-store.
After the campaign was launched, a significant upsurge was seen in consumer engagement with the brand. Dunkin’ Donuts earned 10x more followers on their SnapChat channel, and reached more than 3 million people with an engagement rate of 40,000. The evidence is compelling: influencer marketing can deliver real results for brands.
The key to influencer marketing is choosing an influencer whose audience aligns with your target customer demographic. If you choose them right, you can be sure that your sales funnel will receive only quality leads. Now you’ve got an idea of what influencer marketing is, let’s see how it works.
What are the benefits of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing can deliver a range of benefits to your brand, from engagement all the way through to sales. To really illustrate the benefits of influencer marketing, let’s break it down.
1. More than double your ROI
Customers respect and trust influencers, so you can quickly expect to get an excellent return on your investment. It is believed that influencer marketing fetches up to 11x more return when compared with traditional marketing methods. In fact, approximately 70% of businesses using influencer marketing earn more than $2 for every $1 invested.
2. Higher search engine rankings
Since content shared by social influencers is considered legitimate and authoritative by Google, you can effortlessly get backlinks from them for your business. This will in turn significantly boost your search engine rankings, returning higher visibility to your customers.
3. Increased engagement
Marketers often report higher engagement when they share content that has been created by an influencer. Influencers know what kind of content their audience likes and how to deliver it as well. This unique style and type of content can boost your engagement rate by 5.7%, a significant amount compared with the 2-3% reported by most brands on Instagram.
4. Better customer retention rate
When customers reach out to brands after viewing an endorsement from their favourite influencer, there is a good chance that they will stay locked into your brand for some time. Brands often report a retention rate of 37%, a figure that can be attributed to the trust and respect that customers have for influencer opinions.
While influencer marketing does receive criticism from some quarters, it still holds considerable sway in the marketing world. Brands are allocating high budgets to influencer campaigns, and influencer marketplaces are becoming more and more prolific. If your brand is struggling to find the engagement and sales you expect, then it might be time to turn to influencer marketing. Find an individual within your industry niche and reach out today to take your marketing to the next level.