Over the past few years influencer marketing has gathered more air time, and now more than ever – while brands catch onto the fact that it’s no longer companies who tell consumers what to buy, but peers who influence each other – or influencers who set the tone for the masses. We need to address not all influencers are created equal, yet they can certainly support your marketing, as long as they are managed and treated as a service provider.
What is Influencer Marketing?
There are two kinds of influencer marketing:
1. The classic example, which is essentially earning the praise of a VIP providing you an endorsement and being seen to like your product.
2. Then there’s influencer marketing by volume: getting a number of lower-level influencers to post about your product around the same time, which puts you out in the atmosphere in a way that says, “This product is popular among the kind of people who are similar to me.”
Classic influencer marketing is harder to obtain without ‘big dollar spend’ or friends in high places, so a lot of brands have been opting for the latter type, and using social media and video to achieve strong results. It helps that video has a place on not just video-sharing platforms but of course Travall, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and on and on.
At my previous agency we completed a campaign for Jamie’s Italian in Jumeirah Beach Hotel – Dubai. Taking three influencers, having them take part in a cook off, with the public voting and seeding the content.
Simple, cost-effective with high social impact.
“Companies no longer tell consumers what to buy, but peers who influence each other. But it has to be done effectively”.
Think about your own database of business contacts how many year’s has it taken to obtain these? I have around 2.1 million in my databases – yet the Influencers we use have a combined total of 54 million. Not all are the ‘heavy-hitters’, engaging micro-influencers with specialties are valuable. I’m happy to help with your creative ideas.
Why it Works
Indeed,why does influencer marketing work so well? A fascinating study by McKinsey found “marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising,” meaning we trust each other or our role models quite a bit more than we trust companies. Maybe it also has something to do with the “global-village” sense you get when you and your network are sharing a video or meme – it’s just a nice way to connect, and gives us a nice communal association with a particular brand or product.
Influencer marketing is also “native advertising,” meaning it happens seamlessly within the customer’s experience rather than interrupting their experience to push a product at them. (As written about in one of my previous blogs regarding my NOW philosophy).
Having a personality advocate a product either directly or by being seen to be using it puts your brand into the story, and we assimilate that kind of information much more readily than when it’s a free-floating advertisement. As a result, this kind of digitally-enabled word-of-mouth marketing can produce 37% greater customer retention and twice the sales of paid advertising.
Who to Target
Okay so it works; but who are the influencers you should be targeting? This depends entirely on who your target audience follows, cares about, and listens to. Who are the trendsetters and thought leaders among your target segments? Pay attention to who your target audience is and sharing the most, then hand-pick the right ones to present to you. Also consider which platforms your target audience is most active on, and who the leaders are on those particular platforms, because social sharing is the engine of influencer marketing.
“marketing-induced consumer-to-consumer word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising”
How to Get Started
Once you decide whom to target, how do you actually get those VIPs on board and sharing your video, and, how do you reach a volume of shares that’s going to convince your target audience that you’re part of the zeitgeist?
“Don’t just look for the ‘celebs”, budgets don’t allow for that right. Consider your business marketing budgets and see if a series of micro-influencers have a network, offer a barter of your product/service.
Don’t get sold on audience, but have them prove their engagement metrics and have them tied to success KPIs. I’ll help you on the right path. Get in touch.
Thank you for reading.
A.