Influencer Marketing
With this, its the most cost-effective and reliable way of advertising online that can drive good return on investment and help any business grow online and offline as well.
What Influencer Marketing is about?
As I said, it's about supporting good content creators and social media influencers to engage more targeted customers to your business or brand and grow your business online.The real value of influencer marketing in any business is spending less and generating more, as experts say that with influencer marketing we can get the highest return on investment as it was not possible before.
Brands can utilize this method for their:
- Marketing campaigns
- PR campaigns
- Product launches
- Branding and awareness
While most of the times marketers have to rely on ad-networks that can be cheated with fraudsters and spammers, influencers can fill this hole and help every brand to get to the right audience, at right time by the right person. With a new mindset and a whole new way of advertising your products, every influencer can help you reach more audience that maybe not possible with spending on ad-networks for CPC and CPM bids.
Outbound Marketing is out Inbound Marketing is in
Yes, as traditional marketing (outbound marketing) has been around for a long time, what we have observed is inbound marketing is a lot better then outbound marketing and the influencer marketing falls under inbound marketing campaigns.When you are paying an influencer or a social media sensation, you are leverage inbound marketing and from this, you can have your brand in front of right audience who are ready to stay in touch with you.
Different studies show that over 70% of advertisers are now using influencer marketing in a number of ways to cut-down advertising expenses and generate a higher return on investments. From Facebook and Twitter to today's favorite apps like TikTok and SnapChat, advertisers are spending on influencers to reach to a new audience.
Why social media influencers?
You may ask that why should we pay to social media influencers and not the radio celebrities, TV actors and politicians or other public figures.The catch here is, when you are spending money on new talent, you have to spend less, gain more and have that particular social media influencer to work as you want. While actors from Hollywood and other public figures will charge thousands of dollars and they will also have their conditions.
I am talking about the social media sensations and the people who are in trends, who are new and just got into the news, you should find them and ask them to post about your brand, product or services. This is how influencer marketing and good relations with influencers will give you the best ROI.
What are the benefits of influencer marketing?
Hundreds, yes, there are hundreds of benefits of influencer marketing and you can have a look at some of the most prestigious written below:- Instant brand awareness
- Free PR and social media influence
- Increase word of mouth advertising rate
- Low investment, targeted audience and confirmed ROI
Multi-billion brands with influencer marketing
Do you know Google Adsense, Instagram, YouTube, iPhone, and WordPress are the greatest examples of influencer marketing?Some people will disagree with my statement, but the entire Google services and WordPress business is running because of influencer marketing, however, they are not paying their influencer marketing partners.
They are providing top-notch services for free and using their own platforms to deliver more freedom to the internet and then they are using advertising and subscription options to make money.
Why I am saying that they are relying on influencer marketing? Because everybody who is talking about "How to make money with Adsense" or "How to create a WordPress blog" falls under the influencer marketing tactics.
But, the only key here is, you have to be extra smart and provide your services for free, they have a subscription model for more advanced services or use advertising to make money and this is a huge mountain to climb.
7 Steps Influencer Marketing Strategy
When we talk about influencer marketing, what newbies do, they just jump in and start spending money on Facebook ads, rather than reaching out to the top or famous social media users.Let me tell you that influencer marketing is all about reaching out to the social media influencers who have sufficient followers (more than 5k followers) on any social media network and asking them to post about your product.
Now, its not that easy, here I have an effective influencer marketing strategy:
1. Know your industry
Before doing anything else, let's dig-in and search about what are the trends in your industry, where your product or brand falls and what are the main categories that can be labeled to your products.For example: If you are selling bracelets, you are in the fashion industry and if you are selling washing machines, you are in the electronics industry.
2. Know your audience
Now. after researching about your exact industry, the next step becomes a lot easier than before and its about finding the perfect audience for your influencer marketing campaigns.For example: If your industry is electronics and you are selling washing machines, you have to target moms and older people, if you are selling most advanced and touch screen washing machines, you can have an influencer marketing campaign with teenagers to spread a word about your brand, as they get excited to share technological changes with their parents.
3. Find social media influencers
You know your industry, you know your audience and now it's about finding the perfect social media influencers that can help you get a higher return on investment.For example, You are selling web hosting, now your perfect list of social media influencer will be from blogging, digital marketing, and web designing industry. You can't get better results when you are asking a street fighter to talk about web-hosting.
4. Use hashtags
While searching for influencers and other people who can help you gain momentum, you can use hashtags and find what's interesting, what's trending and what people like in your industry.For example: If you are selling fitness related items, you can use hashtags like #getfit #fitnesstips #fitnessmotivation and so on.
5. Pay influencers
Don't ask for free mentions, always pay social media influencers and even if they ask for free products, send them and ask them to post a video review for those products.If your products are too expensive, you can simply ask social media influencers to get the product, review and record a video then send the product back to you and for this, you should pay them according to their followers count and audience engagement.
6. Capture results
Don't just pay and sit, go ahead and capture results, spy on your influencer marketing campaigns and ask influencers to send you insights of their posts.Don't let your hard earned money go into the drain, use social media tools to track ROI and Google Analytics can also help you in this regard, you can also use a tool to find brand mentions and grow your business gradually.
7. Work only with top social networks
Don't invest in a newly launched app, go for social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok.Because there will be some social media networks that can be trapped and maybe the follower count on them is fake, people are doing their best to cheat brands, so be aware of fake and original audience engagement.
How much should you spend on influencer marketing?
It depends on your marketing budget, item cost and the influencers you are working with. If an influencer has 1000 followers and the average audience engagement level of 20% you can pay up to $1000 for one post. However, many influencers will post several updates and charge less than $1k.What is influencer marketing strategy?
Influencer marketing strategy is a planned way to increase brand awareness and get more people to talk about your brand. This involves audience research, influencer outreach, spying on competition and working together with social media influencers on their own ideas.Is influencer marketing effective?
Of course, it is the most effective way to advertise online and since the start of the social media networking age, every digital marketer is considering influencer marketing as an effective advertising solution for small business to international brands.What does an influencer marketer do?
An influencer marketer is someone who reviews your product, talk about it and then post updates on the product, this makes sense when you ask a few influencers to review your products at one time and it boosts sales, brand awareness, growth rate, and social media influence.What is an influencer job?
Influencer job is a new kind of job for which you don't have to be an educated person or a degree holder, all it costs is your huge fan following and your profiles should be about a niche or an industry. As brands will likely to pay influencers who are representing an industry, not an agenda.I hope this guide on "Influencer Marketing" helped you and answered all of your questions regarding the topic.
If you are still in need of more information then comment below and I am here to help you out.
