In today’s consumer-driven landscape, it has become increasingly common for advertisers to tap influencer marketing in order to achieve their marketing objectives.
This is the golden age of social media and consumers are no longer solely at the mercy of blatant, unnatural, and suspicious advertising. Instead, consumers have taken to social media to build vast networks of peers whose opinions they trust, value, and share. These peers are referred to as social media influencers. Initially, brands used to dictate what they meant to the consumers, but now consumers have begun to define brands. This colossal shift in power from brands to consumers has led brands to adopt new strategies that harness this resounding word-of-mouth model—influencer marketing.
Why does this method of marketing have such a stronghold on the brands? Let’s look at some of the benefits of influencer marketing that has made it have such strong roots in the past year of 2018.
Almost assured Return On Investment
From the large companies to small bootstrapped start-ups, everyone has been seeing influencer marketing as a profitable method of marketing. The returns have shown to more than ten times of the amount invested.
This assured return on investment has not only made the influencer marketing industry touch a billion dollars, but it has also encouraged digital marketers in companies to reserve an enormous ratio of their marketing budget to this method.
Audience & Demographic Targeting
Influencer marketing campaigns can be as broad or niche as a brand desires and a variety of different methods can be used to help determine the most appropriate influencers to reach a desired audience.
Brands can work with influencers who specialize in a particular category of content, such as fashion, travel, or cooking. Additionally, when selecting influencers for a campaign, businesses can request access to information on their follower demographics. These factors can be instrumental in helping brands optimize their campaign to reach a specific target audience.
Influencers can have an effect on purchase Decisions
Influencers have consistently had the power to impact the purchase decisions of consumers in recent ages. Recent surveys show that many consumers buy products or services after they have seen their social media peer use it.
Influencer marketing is also becoming one of the fastest means of acquiring customers in the market. This acquirement includes 50% of really higher quality customers through influencer marketing compared to other acquisition channels.
Thus influencer marketing has proven to be a very effective method to drive sales.
Attracting the Millennial Consumers
We are nearing an age where TV is no longer the prime viewing method for the current generation. With Millenials’ presence constantly increasing over the social media, a lot of them find credibility and trust with their influencer and social media peers than with real life.
With this being the toughest market to capture, influencer marketing has worked an easy way around it for the brands.
Ethical Endorsements and sponsors
Most large influencers are highly selective when choosing brand partnerships, adding a level of authenticity to sponsored influencer content.
By selecting sponsorship opportunities that are a good fit for their image and audience, influencers are able to partner with brands they genuinely love and deliver sponsored messages that feel relevant and organic.
Influencers make or break trends
Often, influencers are given access to new products before they are even available to the public. Influencers have become the go-to source of information about new products within their industry (beauty, fashion, tech, fitness, etc.). The followers respect and sometimes even idolize their opinions within their categories of expertise.
As a result, a product often gains “cool factor” when an influencer recommends it. In this way, influencers are trendsetters that social media users trust to identify and comment on the hottest products and trends.
Immense Reach And Visibility
Many social media influencers have audiences in the millions, with the 50 most followed Instagram influencer accounts totaling more than 2.5 billion followers. While influencer marketing certainly isn’t about blindly following alluring numbers, marketers can build highly effective campaigns that reach millions of consumers with proper influencer vetting based on both qualitative and quantitative factors.
Furthermore, influencer marketing helps brands bypass obstacles many other online marketing mediums face today. With the mainstream adoption of ad blockers, as well as users’ general disdain for overt advertising, influencer marketing offers brands a viable, proven way to interact with consumers in a natural and unobtrusive way.
Ability to share the content across all social media and even web
Compared to social media users are more likely to share influencer marketing content with their own followers, expanding the reach of a brand’s message to even greater audiences.
Because influencers are experts at creating content their followers love, influencer marketing campaigns often achieve a level of virality that many traditional advertisements lack.
Longterm Influencer Relationships
Embarking on an influencer marketing campaign isn’t just about metrics — it’s about building positive relationships. By establishing rapport with influencers, brands can create strong and lasting partnerships that drive long-term results.
Additionally, having a relationship with a leading influencer marketing agency like Greenroom keeps business up to date on new opportunities, as well as the latest industry trends and best practices.
Actionable Insights & Data
Influencer marketing campaigns can yield invaluable data for brands. From engagement information such as views, likes, comments, and shares, to click through rate (CTR), acquisitions, social sentiment, and other important KPIs, brands not only have the ability to reach new audiences through influencer marketing, they can learn about the behaviors of their own customer base as well.
To know about how Greenroom works and how we can help with your brand’s marketing, visit our website, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages.
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