What Is Influencer Marketing?
Consumer habits have changed. With the emergence of social networks and new platforms, different ways of communicating have appeared. This phenomenon has also given rise to new categories within the world of communication, in addition to the transformation of traditional ones.
As technology evolves, consumers are no longer faithful to a specific brand, because now everyone can seek, compare, investigate and listen to the opinions of other consumers before purchasing a product. For this reason, involving influential people within the online world, whose opinions are taken into account by consumers, has become one of the main strategies of brands to increase notoriety and sales. This is what our London agency calls "influence marketing".
What do Influencers contribute to businesses?
The influencer has a great capacity to mobilize opinions and create reactions in other users.
- It has
great potential audience. - Your opinions reach a large number of users.
- They contribute value to the activity and a high level of participation in conversion.
Trademarks, therefore, use influencers for different strategies:
- For the launch of a new product or service.
- To increase brand awareness.
- To promote an action or campaign.
- To publicize an event.
Given this, according to a study, 59% of the companies surveyed said that they intend to increase their marketing budget for Influencers over the next year. Moreover, 22% of companies think that this is the method of acquiring online consumers with a better cost-effectiveness, against other promotional channels such as display ads or affiliate email.
What media channels are the most effective for Influencer marketing?
Based on the responses of the companies surveyed:
- Blogs have become the most used medium to contact influencers (37%).
- Second is Facebook (25%).
- YouTube and Instagram (6%), Twitter (5%), and finally Pinterest and Google Plus (2%). Follow the link for more.
What industries have been benefiting from Influencers?
In recent years the marketing of influencers has developed gradually. First of all, fashion and retail professionals claim to have carried out actions or campaigns with influencers. And in 2017 this trend also begins to create value in sectors such as culture, sports, leisure,
Integrate Influencers into a Marketing strategy
In order to integrate Influencers within the entire strategy, you should carry out research to identify the profiles that seem to be close to your target audience, with the best impact they can produce on them.
Influencers usually identify with a specific social network. Once they have ensured that the community is settled on one particular account, they can leap to another and check their performance. Therefore, before selecting the most appropriate Influencer, it is advisable to have a preferred channel, a priority, which you think generates the most interest for your brand, while always exploring others.
1. Trust and relevance of influencer
Influence is based on the trust reflected by a certain blogger or
2. Don’t shoot for the stars
In the wealth of information on social networks, do not persuade a famous television to retweet you - it will be expensive and complicated to manage.
3. Use your network to the max
Your context helps you to identify the voices that influence your industry, either as opinion makers,
What you should do is identify different voices on the net. Monitor the networks with hashtags, keywords, and alerts in search engines. From
With these three steps, you already have a digital landscape of the influencers of your commercial area or your economic activity. Now, you have to take action.
Personalise the action
There is nothing more counterproductive than sending a massive email with a "Dear blogger." If you really want to professionalize, it is enough to relate to a limited group of about fifty. If you validate the classical theory mentioned above, with fifty influencers you will generate a greater effect than with non-segmented mass advertising. The remuneration or compensation of influential marketing varies depending on the sector: it can be a gift card, a discount, a special activity, a unique experience or a monetary payment.
Controlling actions
The cost of these actions should be included in the strategy's advertising expense heading and, as such, should reflect a return on investment.
Google Analytics is a good tool for controlling actions with influencers. The task of research follows once the influencer has launched the message and can be monitored in real time thanks to the different analysis tools present in the market.
In the case of working with an agency of representation of influencers, it will be the one that offers the data of performance to the mark. And, once the impact is measured, it is best to structure the rest of the budget towards the profiles that have brought better performance.
Conclusion
Networks such as Instagram have diluted the traditional boundaries of the media and hence the debate on the role of the so-called influencers has gained momentum. Influencers bring something that brands might not achieve through traditional advertising: sincere emotion and reliability.
Brands generally seek this type of action to report sales and leads, but many also use it to promote the brand and products. However, while it is proven that influencer actions have short-term benefits, long-term benefits might be less effective.
Do you think that contacting influential people can bring benefits to your brand? If you have your own experience to share, contact us at [email protected] and the next post about influencers could be yours.
Chief Product Officer
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