Marketing is constantly evolving as today’s markets are becoming more and more competitive. As such, businesses need to stand out against their competition to be successful and make an impact on their consumers. With a considerable number of people turning to social media and trusted content creators for their recommendations, working with influencer marketing specialists is a must.
Unfortunately, many business owners seem to underestimate the value that influencers can bring to the table. For business-to-consumer (B2C) operations, influencer marketing is an extremely powerful way to reach untapped markets and see a hefty return on investment (ROI) from your efforts.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
With large established followings and high levels of influence over their audience, influencers have revolutionised the way brands connect with their target market. Influencer marketing focuses on collaborations with ‘influential’ individuals to endorse a brand or product to their followers. It’s a great way to build trust in your business and make an impact on purchasing decisions as people are confident in the creator’s recommendations.
Authenticity Is Key
When partnering with any influencer, authenticity should always be top priority. After all, if you own a fashion brand, yet collaborate with a food blogger, this isn’t going to be very useful! Most of their audience will not be interested in your clothing products, meaning this will significantly reduce the effectiveness of your campaign.
You don’t want your collaboration posts to seem disingenuous from the influencer’s usual content. Their followers trust their word and recommendations, so you need to use influencers that align with your brand to feel organic and receive the best engagement rates.
What Are The Benefits Of Influencer Marketing?
This form of promotion is an essential aspect of social media marketing and is a great way to generate new leads for your business and quickly grow your digital presence. Here are a few benefits that our influencer marketing specialists can bring to your brand…
- Trust – influencers have already built relationships and credibility with their fans. This means people trust their content and recommendations, so you will quickly gain attention if they promote your brand.
- Brand awareness – influencer marketing can expand your reach to new corners of the market so more people know who you are and what you do.
- A high ROI – over 1 in 4 marketers use influencer marketing as part of their strategy and report that it offers the second highest ROI compared to other marketing methods.
Types Of Influencer Marketing
Our influencer marketing specialists are well-versed in a range of different influencer marketing techniques. The most common types are gifting, paid collaborations, brand ambassadorships, and affiliate marketing.
Gifting
This is arguably the simplest form of influencer marketing and is often the best choice if you have a smaller budget to play with. Gifting involves sending a sample product to an influencer, in return for a mention across their social media. Creators aren’t legally obliged to promote your brand as there is no contract or money exchanged. This being said, you should mention what you would like in return for the gifted product in your initial discussions. The majority of time, influencers will keep their word. Working with influencer marketing specialists can help to make the entire activity much more formal. Gifting is usually targeted at creators with a smaller following.
Paid Collaborations
The paid collaboration process follows a similar approach to gifting, although there is a cost involved when asking creators to promote your products. This means the influencer is contractually obligated to share your brand with their audience and, in comparison to the free gifting method mentioned above, it allows you to target influencers with a much larger following. Paid collaborations may include sponsored posts or content creation, such as writing guest blog posts, co-creating videos, or hosting sponsored giveaway competitions.
Brand Ambassadorships
These are long-term partnerships between your brand and an influencer or celebrity, who essentially becomes the face of your brand and spreads the word. However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be somebody famous. Ambassadors could also be an expert in the field that both they, and your brand, serve. For example, a personal trainer could be a brand ambassador for a sportswear brand.
Affiliate Marketing
In an affiliate partnership, the brand provides the influencer with a unique link or promotional code to share with their audience. Their followers can then click on this link to receive a discount, and the content creator receives a small commission. Naturally, this is an incentive for both parties involved. You can also track the amount of traffic and sales that come directly from this influencer collaboration, so it’s a great way to determine how successful your campaign is.
Types Of Influencers
Depending on the size of their following, influencers can be split into four categories: mega, macro, micro, and nano influencers.
- Mega Influencers. These are individuals with over one million followers; and they tend to be famous celebrities, rather than influential content creators. As a result, they provide a huge level of exposure and reach, but at a hefty price.
- Macro Influencers. Macro influencers have between 100,000 and 1 million followers. These individuals are most useful if you want to reach many people within a target demographic, but this comes at a price.
- Micro Influencers. These creators have between 10,000 to 100,000 followers. They usually have high engagement rates and have a great level of influential.
- Nano Influencers: These are influencers with a following of 1,000 to 10,000 people. Despite their smaller audience size, these creators tend to have the highest engagement rates.
Contact Us
Now that you understand more about influencer marketing and how it can help your business, get in touch with us today! Our influencer marketing specialists would love to support your brand in this new venture. Give us a call on 01376 386850 or click here to speak with the team.