Ways of Driving Growth Through Influencer Marketing

In recent years, customers' media consumption habits have undergone a remarkable shift due to the emergence of digital channels. This has led to a decline in the effectiveness of conventional advertising methods such as TV commercials and billboards. 

As a result, marketers have been compelled to adapt to this evolving environment by embracing digitalised approaches that foster better engagement.

Influencer marketing has emerged as a compelling strategy, with a staggering 80% of marketers allocating dedicated budgets to this method. When executed in the right way, it can yield an impressive return on investment, with every dollar spent resulting in a $5.78 return.

Utilising influencer marketing for brand growth demands a well-crafted strategy. In this blog post, we will delve deeper into the world of influencer marketing and guide you on creating authentic strategies that foster meaningful business growth.

Influencer Marketing: Then and Now

In the past, brands would enlist celebrities and experts to endorse their products or sponsor content, hoping to capitalise on their fame and credibility to sway a consumer's purchasing decision.

This approach had its drawbacks. Firstly, it was costly and often impractical for medium-sized businesses. Secondly, measuring the effectiveness and ROI of such campaigns proved challenging. Thirdly, consumers began to recognise the commercial motives behind these endorsements, leading to a lack of authenticity and trust.

The landscape of marketing has since transformed with the emergence of social media and digital platforms. The one-size-fits-all approach has become obsolete, and establishing brand loyalty and advocacy now requires a more engaging strategy.

Today, social media and digital channels empower individuals with a passion and niche to become influencers and cultivate a devoted fan base. Unlike traditional celebrities, these influencers possess authenticity, relatability, and high engagement levels, making them compelling to their followers. More than 49% of customers now rely on influencer recommendations.

For instance, Instagram alone boasts around 37 million influencers, presenting a wealth of opportunities for marketers. These influencers adeptly craft stories around their interests, lifestyles, and values, effectively sharing them with their audience through various formats, such as photos, videos, stories, reels, and live streams.

The influence of this marketing approach is undeniable, with the global market size of the influencer industry projected to reach a staggering 22.2 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. As a result, it stands as one of the most promising industries for marketers to tap into.

However, marketers must carefully align their campaigns with the influencer's niche, target audience, and the core values of their brand. This collaboration ensures a seamless integration that resonates with the intended audience, fostering genuine connections and boosting brand credibility.

In the following sections of this blog post, we'll be providing you with a roadmap to build customer-centric strategies but before that, let's take a look at the hows and whys of influencer marketing campaigns.

Types of Influencers

In the realm of influencers, there are various ways to categorise them. One common method involves classifying influencers based on their follower count, resulting in four distinct types:

• Nano influencers: These individuals typically have a follower count ranging from 1K to 10K. They cater to a specific niche audience, leading to a high engagement rate. Their authentic recommendations and vocal brand advocacy are trusted by followers, making them a cost-effective option for small to mid-size businesses and product testing in new markets.
• Micro-influencers: With follower counts between 10K to 100K, micro-influencers also focus on a niche audience and maintain a high engagement. Experts or enthusiasts in specific industries, create quality content that resonates deeply with their followers, making them ideal for building brand awareness, driving traffic, or generating leads.
• Macro influencers: Falling within the 100K to 1M follower range, macro influencers boast a broad and diverse audience. Often consisting of celebrities, athletes, or media personalities, they excel at creating mass awareness, enhancing credibility, and launching new products.
• Mega or celebrity influencers: These influencers have gathered more than 1M followers, enjoying a huge global audience. Usually, movie stars, singers, or models, wield immense influence and popularity, making them valuable for generating buzz, exposure, or sales.

In addition to categorising influencers based on their follower count, another effective approach is grouping them by their content or niche. Some examples include lifestyle, beauty, fitness, and travel influencers. 

Forms of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Choosing the right type of campaign that aligns with your objectives is key to creating winning campaigns. Here are various types of campaigns to consider:

• Sponsored posts: One of the most common and straightforward campaigns involves paying an influencer to create and share a post featuring your product or service on their social media channel. 
• Contests and giveaways: An effective way to engage with the audience is by collaborating with an influencer to host a contest or giveaway. Followers participate by performing specific actions, such as liking, commenting, sharing, tagging, or following, for a chance to win a prize, which can be your product or service or something related to your brand.
• Account takeovers: For a more interactive campaign, consider allowing an influencer to take over your social media account for a limited time. During this period, the influencer shares content that reflects their personality and style while promoting your brand, creating stories, live videos, Q&A sessions, polls, and more.
• Affiliate marketing: In a performance-based campaign, provide influencers with unique links or codes to share with their followers. You can track the sales or conversions they generate for your brand and compensate them based on the results.
• Unboxings and reviews: This informative campaign involves sending influencers your product or service for free and having them create and share videos or blog posts where they unbox test, and review your offerings honestly. 
• Pre-release content: Generate excitement and anticipation for your product or service by giving influencers early access to it before the official launch. They can then create and share content like sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes, and first impressions with their followers.

Why Influencer Marketing is Essential for Driving Growth

Influencer marketing has transcended being just a trend or buzzword; it has evolved into a proven strategy that empowers brands to achieve various growth objectives. The significance of it can be attributed to several reasons:

• Access to a Targeted Audience: Influencers possess access to a targeted audience that can align with your brand. Furthermore, they enjoy high levels of trust and credibility among their followers. According to Edelman's Trust Barometer report, 63% of consumers trust what influencers say about brands more than what brands say about themselves.
• Creation of Authentic and Relevant Content: Collaborating with influencers enables brands to create content that deeply resonates with the target audience. In a study conducted by Stackla's Consumer Content Report, 86% of consumers emphasised the importance of authenticity when choosing which brands to support and favor.
• Amplified Reach and Visibility on Social Media: Influencers can amplify your brand's reach and visibility on social media platforms. As indicated by the reports, influencer content garnered 2.7 times more reach and 1.9 times more interactions than brand posts on Instagram.

Best Practices for Brands to Build Authentic Influencer Marketing Strategies

Marketing with social media influencers can be a powerful way to drive growth, but it also requires careful planning, execution, and measurement. Here are some of the best practices for brands to build effective marketing strategies:

1. Define Your Marketing Goals and Budget

Before you start looking for influencers, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your campaign. Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, boost sales, or foster advocacy? Also, consider how much you are willing to spend on your campaign. 

Having a clear and realistic goal and budget will help you narrow down your options and choose the most suitable influencers and platforms for your campaign.

2. Choose Your Type of Campaign and Key Messaging

Once you have defined your goal and budget, you need to decide what type of campaign you want to run and what key messages you want to convey to your target audience. 

Do you want to launch a new product or service, promote a special offer or event, educate or entertain your audience, or inspire them to take action?

Depending on your objective, you can choose the most appropriate type of campaign, such as sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, or co-creation. Then, you can craft a clear and consistent message that resonates with your audience’s needs and interests.

3. Find the Right Influencers

Finding the right influencers is one of the most critical steps in your strategy. You'll want to identify influencers who possess the following key characteristics:

• Relevance: Look for influencers who share content closely aligned with your niche, industry, and target audience.
• Reach: It's essential to find influencers with a substantial and engaged following that matches your ideal customer profile.
• Resonance: Seek influencers who possess a strong ability to influence their followers' behavior and opinions.
• Reputation: Focus on influencers who maintain a positive and trustworthy image among their followers and peers.
• Rapport: Building a good relationship with influencers who are willing to collaborate with your brand is crucial.

To discover suitable influencers, you can browse social media platforms, posts, and keywords. Additionally, consider asking for referrals from your existing customers or partners. 

4. Embrace Authenticity and Transparency

Consumers value genuine and honest recommendations from people they trust over scripted and paid endorsements from brands. So, brands need to embrace authenticity and transparency in their marketing campaigns. This means that you should:

• Choose influencers who share your brand’s vision and values, and who are genuinely interested in your offers.
• Give influencers creative freedom and flexibility to create content that reflects their voice and style, while respecting your guidelines and objectives.
• Disclose the nature of your partnership with influencers and follow the rules and regulations of each platform regarding sponsored content.
• Encourage influencers to share their honest opinions and feedback about your product or service, even if they are not always positive.
• Respect influencers’ privacy and boundaries, and avoid micromanaging or pressuring them.

5. Co-create Compelling Stories

Stories are powerful tools that can help you communicate your brand’s values and benefits, evoke emotions, and inspire action. When you co-create stories with your influencers, you can benefit from their creativity, expertise, and insights, as well as their unique perspective and connection with their followers. This approach allows you to showcase your brand more naturally and engagingly, avoiding a sales or promotional manner.

There are several ways to co-create stories with your influencers. Firstly, you can invite them to share their personal experiences and testimonials about your product and service, explaining how it has helped them solve a problem, achieve a goal, or improve their lives.

Secondly, you can challenge them to create fun content that showcases your brand creatively or unexpectedly. This can involve challenges, pranks, hacks, or memes.

Lastly, you can encourage them to involve their followers in the story-creation process. This could include asking for their opinions, suggestions, or questions, as well as inviting them to participate in contests, polls, or quizzes.

6. Foster Long-Term Partnerships

Influencer marketing is founded on a relationship built upon trust, respect, and mutual value. As a result, fostering long-term partnerships with influencers becomes crucial for brands. To achieve this level of collaboration, you can consider the following tips:

• Communicate with them regularly and provide them with feedback, support, and recognition.
• Reward them for their performance and contribution, not only with monetary compensation but also with non-monetary incentives, such as free products, exclusive offers, invitations to events, or opportunities for exposure.
• Involve them in your brand’s decision-making process and ask for their input and suggestions on how to improve your product or service or develop new ideas.
• Provide them with opportunities for growth and development, such as training, mentoring, or access to resources or networks.

7. Track and Measure Success

Tracking and measuring the success of your influencer marketing campaigns is essential for evaluating their effectiveness and ROI, as well as identifying strengths and weaknesses to make necessary adjustments. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that align with your marketing goals and objectives. Common KPIs for influencer marketing include reach, impressions, engagement, conversions, sales, and revenue.

2. Utilise appropriate tools and methods to collect and analyse campaign data. Employ analytics platforms like Google Analytics, social media metrics, and influencer marketing platforms.

3. Compare campaign results against your benchmarks and expectations. Evaluate how well your campaigns performed in terms of reach, engagement, conversions, and sales. Did they meet or exceed your goals? Identify any challenges or difficulties encountered and highlight best practices or insights gained.

4. Optimise your strategy based on the insights and feedback you gathered. Consider how to enhance your marketing campaigns and leverage their strengths. Address any weaknesses and explore opportunities to scale up or replicate success.

In Short

So far, we have explained the evolution of influencer marketing and shared insightful strategies to help you create successful campaigns. It might seem like there are a lot of things to consider, but rest assured that with proper planning and execution, influencer marketing can be your partner in driving sustainable business growth. We wish you good luck on this journey!