So, you want to scale your business and if you have been on social media lately, influencer marketing has been all over. In this article i will touch upon key aspects of influencer marketing and provide an ultimate guide.
So small businesses to large corporations use influencer marketing for various purposes. And believe it or not, the core idea and process of ensuring your product is promoted is basically the same. The differentiating factor is how much money you are willing to shell out!
But it’s not all about spending large amounts of money on influencers though. In other words, if you are bigger than your competition by x times, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you spend x times more. You can still use the micro-influencers and but the most important thing for entrepreneurs is to find the right micro-influencer for their niche.
But Does Influence Equal Fame and Popularity?
Sound pretty simple, doesn’t it? Get a famous person on social media and partner with them and boom your business has taken off.
The simple answer is not necessarily. That’s not how influencer marketing works. Yes, having an incredibly famous celebrity helps create awareness at big stage but it may not translate into customers rushing into your online store and buying items off your virtual rack.
The core idea behind influencer marketing applies as much to enterprises as it does to other organizations. You will usually set a goal for each campaign. And you have to find the best combination of influencers who can assist you in meeting that goal.
It’s all about the right influencer for the right audience
Sometimes, it can help create positive of negative opinions about your product and brand. Influencer marketing about customers listening to your brand, engaging with your brand through the influencer and ultimately triggering a spark where their values are aligned with that of the influencer and in return yours.
More importantly it’s about matching their audience matches your target market and more often than not the best approach for small influencers is using hundreds of influencers rather than the one big brand ambassador.
Do Influencers’ Really Have Influence?
Most often than not, the influencers’ audiences tend to look up to them for advice and inspiration. If they say something works or a particular brand’s product is worth buying, their followers tend to create positive associations with that brand. And in most cases, they either check the brand out and if convinced, they may even end up buying it. This means that the potential for an excellent ROI is typically high with influencer marketing as long as you identify on the right influencers. and the right target audience.
Typically, influencer content works much like the content you would normally create, i.e., user-generated content with one big difference. Influencers has a wider reach, period. This means they can help create a larger impact with in your target market.
The content is also pretty much configured to their style or making videos making its more personal for them as well.
Influencer Content a big piece of the social ecosystem
Influencers’ play a huge role when it comes to driving social Commerce. Its beyond just talking about your products. It’s about being part of a whole ecosystem and driving your audience to that sale. Most of the leading social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest now offer in-app product discovery and checkout tools for brands and offer access to specially designed webpages for checkout. This allows buyers for quick access with limited research as they trust what their influencers promote.
However, in 2022, social platforms have become increasingly saturated with promotions and influencer content. Therefore, its recommended to utilize and expand the ecosystem. By creating shoppable galleries and tagging products on posts, you can turn your social media accounts into essentially a new branch for your digital stores.
Benefits of influencer marketing
When compared to you posting the same content, it may not be perceived the same by your customers. Let’s face it, customers are smarter these days and they know that you are selling them your product creating an inherent bias. This bias is eliminated when their favorite influencer posts it’s as its viewed as more authentic and trustworthy. By combining these approaches, you can feature your products in an interactive, shoppable posts eventually convince your customers to make a purchase.
As you scale your plans for influencer marketing, you will start gaining value from using some of the many influencer marketing tools and platforms. You can use these platforms to search for influencers based on the characteristics of your target audience.
Many platforms allow you to search influencers across multiple social networks, making it easier for you to create campaigns.
Create Influencer Landing Pages
As mentioned, simple posts are not enough. Create an ecosystem that will work in tandem with your influencer marketing posts. Typically creating dedicated webpages on main website are a great addition when it comes to directing customers to the products. These pages are could be customized to reflect your brand and what the influencer brings to the table creating a sustainable marketing opportunity.
Compliment it with Email Campaigns
Who said Email marketing is dead.
Research shows that customers tend to open an influencer-specific campaign email when compared to a marketing email from your company as its more eye catching. You may embed the same Influencer posts and profile links into the email content itself, creating a whole new experience for more engagement.
Let’s look at a popular Social media Influencer
For example, one of the world most popular perfume influencers, Jeremy Fragrance is a Mega-influencer who offers well-organized YouTube playlists with categories like “best of” for men, fragrance reviews for women, and online buying guides for fragrances, among others.
By the way for all luxury niche perfumes, check out @hover8store on Instagram or their website hover8store.com. They have some great promotions and carry a selected list of luxury branded perfumers only. Their prices are unmatched and they provide only authentic genuine perfumes.
Bottom Line
Influencer marketing is on the rise. Use it wisely and don’t put all your eggs into one basket.