Do you want to gain more visibility for your business through influencers? If your answer to this question is yes, by now you must be aware of one of the most trending marketing tactics of recent years – Influencer Marketing. And if you’re struggling to navigate through the world of influencer marketing and looking forward to knowing more about influencer marketing, its pros and cons and prospects, keep on reading! We’re going to explain the whole concept of influencer marketing and how your business might benefit from it.
What is Influencer Marketing?
So, what exactly is – influencer marketing? Defined by digital marketing experts Jeff Bullas, influencer marketing is a strategy that orients itself around an influential person, a mouthpiece, or someone with a bit of online fame and an audience in a given industry.
This differs from traditional marketing where you pay for ads and then sit back and hope they’re enough to persuade people to buy your product. Influencer marketing is entirely about leveraging the relationship that exists between an influencer and their followers. It’s all about social proof and placing trust into the hands of social media savvy individuals who the audience see as authentic resources. And an influencer is someone who has garnered a large audience on social media that is a group of potential buyers in your market. The influencer, if you’ve managed to market your products to them successfully, will tell their fans, followers or subscribers about it, influence them to learn more about it and buy.
Often, they will create sponsored content featuring your brand and product/service to share on their respective social media channels and blog, to improve brand awareness, increase traffic, and drive your brand’s message to your target audience. The key to a successful influencer marketing campaign is to work with the right influencers who have a good reputation in your particular niche or industry. For small businesses and people with a budget constraint, influencer marketing will get you a higher ROI than traditional marketing strategies which can cost a pretty penny.
Brands finding success through influencer marketing
Now let’s take a look at some of the most popular influencer marketing case studies from brands that have helped inform and shape the industry, with the help of successful advertisers and social media influencers:
1. Dior: 67 Shades of Dior Campaign
At 2020 Influencer Marketing Awards the Gold Winner for the Best Beauty Campaign was Dior, for the campaign celebrating the launch of Dior’s Forever Foundation. The campaign wanted to create global awareness of the new foundation showcasing the wide range of 67 shades available and celebrate the product’s diversity with an ambassador representing each shade. Sounds incredible, right? So they selected and worked with 67 influencers for the campaign – each one matching one of Dior’s 67 shades. In turn, the influencers made one post per day over 67 consecutive days. The 67 influencers had a whooping total audience reach of 2.66M which led their posts to have 1.85M impressions and resulted in 592K engagements.
2. Dunkin’ Donuts: On National Donut Day
Dunkin’ Donuts wanted to create awareness of National Donut Day by launching a Snapchat campaign. Dunkin’ Donuts made a special offer for the day, and selected eight popular influencers lifestyle creators to spread content about the offer in their cities on SnapChat. The eight influencers then “took over” the Dunkin’ Donuts SnapChat channel for 24 hours on National Donut Day to run the campaign in three time zones across the USA. The influencers used their content to drive their supporters to the Dunkin’ Donut Stores and take up the special offer. Also, Dunkin’ Donuts supplied the influencers with Snapchat Geofilters which people could use in-store. The campaign reached 3 million people, with 40,000 cases of engagement.
3. Zara
Clothing retailer Zara is one of the most successful brands in using influencer marketing. As a part of their campaign Zara wanted to highlight their latest products by showcasing them in a way that would appeal to their target audience. By collaborating with influencers, they were able to give the impression that their products were more accessible than high-fashion clothing. A notable part of their social media marketing campaign was the #iamdenim campaign, a collaborative design project in which the brand worked with “real people” to produce clothing for “real people.” Their video content showcasing influencer Teesh Rosa managed to get more than 355,000 views.
Right time to implement influencer marketing in your overall strategy
Say you’ve tried all the typical marketing tips and tricks, and they’re working, but somehow aren’t driving that much growth. And you’re looking for something with a little extra power or the growth hack that boosts your sales.
Thankfully, that’s where influencer marketing comes in.
Influencer marketing often goes hand-in-hand with two other forms of marketing: content marketing and social-media marketing. Most influencer campaigns have some sort of social-media component, whereby influencers are expected to spread the word through their personal social channels. So you may consider using this particular tactic of marketing as a part of your overall strategy by including it as a part of social media/content marketing.
Small time influencers vs big time influencers
Also known as – Micro influencers vs macro influencers. Now, if you’re wondering which might work best for your business and what’s worth your while, we got you covered.
First up, let us just explain the difference between a micro and macro influencer.
Micro Influencers
micro influencers – those who typically have less than 10,000 and up to 100,000 followers. Because they might be relatively new to the industry they are more likely to request less in exchange for a partnership than macro influencers.
In most cases, micro influencers are better able to connect and engage with their followers because, said plainly, there aren’t as many. Therefore, their audience has a higher likelihood of believing their message and trusting their recommendations, which means better conversion rate for your business.
Macro Influencers
On the other hand, macro influencers are typically those who have a lot of followers on a given social media platform, typically greater than 100,000 and in some cases, in the millions.
These influencers are famous, a household name and known by many.
By using macro influencers, a brand is positioned in front of millions of people. It’s great for visibility and awareness.
So, which one should you go with?
Both macro and micro influencer influencers have their pros and cons, but in most instances, I’d choose a micro influencers. For small businesses and people with a constrained marketing budget, this would be the absolute go-to option.
Because most small influencers know that they won’t receive as much compensation as those with mega followings and will therefore not ask for as much in return. They are also working to build their brand, so having a partnership would be a win-win situation here. And also because authenticity and true engagement matters.
But if you have the resources, you may seek out the best influencers whose audiences align with yours and who will provide you with great ROI. In that case, we’d also suggest trialing both a micro and macro influencer campaign, starting with micro to access a response. Report on which does better in order to develop your future strategy. Assess your KPIs and choose accordingly.
Future of influencer marketing
It’s clear that influencer marketing is here to stay. As modern consumers become more and more averse to traditional advertising, influencer marketing emerges as a promising advertising channel.
Influencers can deliver multiple benefits to brands in the form of enhanced visibility, engagement, credibility, and revenue. Moreover, they turn out to be more cost-effective than paid advertising, trade shows, and exhibitions.
Just like all other marketing strategies, it’s bound to change with new technologies and trends.
Here are some trends that brands/influencers can expect in coming days and prepare for them:
- More micro- and nano-influencers
- Emphasis on in-house influencer marketing programs
- Growth of influencer networks
- Stricter FTC regulations for advertisers
- Emergence of more CGI influencers
Influencers can deliver multiple benefits to brands in the form of enhanced visibility, engagement, credibility, and revenue. And influencer marketing should be part of any modern marketing strategy. Like any other marketing channel, there are pros and cons to consider. But the best part is, once you get influencer marketing right – you can gain significant traction without the substantial costs of traditional advertising.