Influencer marketing is one of the newer mainstream marketing methods that can provide an amazing return on investment. The idea is to leverage a social media audience by getting influencers to endorse your brand or product. In a nutshell, it is a golden opportunity because many influencers are still not putting a correct valuation on their audience.
7% of companies planned to invest over $1M in influencer marketing in 2020. It shows the massive potential of influencer marketing. The good news is that you do not need to invest huge sums to get results. This article will see how you can get increased brand recognition and a flood of sales with the right influencers in your niche.
The Positive Impact of Influencer Marketing on your Sales
Influencer marketing offers direct advantages for sales generation that has a high conversion rate when done correctly. Also, it is a marketing channel that can yield results quickly because you can hijack huge audiences. Converting even a fraction of that audience has the potential to bring in a flood of sales.
Endorsement from a trusted source
An audience generally trusts the person or channel they are subscribed to and will listen to product/brand recommendations. The trust comes from the relationship built up over possibly years of enjoying their content. You can utilize this trust by getting the influencer to plug your products into their content.
The same level of trust from other marketing channels is hard to replicate. Whether you are doing PPC or content marketing – you will need to build up trust from scratch.
Target audience
If you manage to find the right influencer, then you will access a highly targeted audience. We will cover how to find suitable influencers later on in another article. But for now, understand the power of an audience where the majority are target buyers for your products.
Increase brand awareness
New brands struggle to gain traction if there is a lack of awareness about their arrival in the marketplace. Influencer marketing is a fast way to reach a big audience at an affordable cost.
Influencer marketing can be part of an omnichannel strategy where you showcase the brand using various portals. Customers expect to interact with your brand using multiple channels, and adding influencer marketing is beneficial in this context.
Product demonstration
Whether your products are simple or complicated, it is worth getting an influencer to do a quick demonstration of how to use them. They can do it as a formal demonstration or naturally whilst using your products to make their social media content.
Customers are more likely to watch a product demonstration video from a personality they enjoy watching regularly. The demonstration can incorporate product advantages, which in turn might interest audience members in buying.
Authentic and valuable
Providing value is a big trend in marketing that transforms the traditional sales funnel into a buyer’s journey approach. The influencer has already provided value to their audience not to be hostile when presented with a product recommendation.
Most viewers feel that influencer product plugs are not pushy. They explain that it is a paid promotion for which they receive free products or money. Audiences want their influencers to succeed, so they understand the positive benefits of the product plugged into their personal success. Some audience members buy recommended products simply because they want to show their appreciation to the influencer.
Why Influencer Marketing is Cost-Effective?
Influencer marketing can be expensive if you are targeting the most sought-after content producers in your marketplace. They usually have big audiences and understand their value. They receive offers from many brands every week, so they may decide to be very picky about the products they endorse.
So what is the solution to these demanding, high-profile influencers? Avoid them and choose influencers with smaller audiences. Smaller content creators are still at the stage where they are excited to get endorsement offers from brands. You can take advantage of the situation by asking for access to their audience at a low price. Acquire multiple smaller influencers at a reduced cost, and they may have the same effect as a bigger one.
Furthermore, influencers are likely to stick with brands when they grow their audience. You may receive a special reduced rate because of the loyalty you have built up over the years.
Influencer marketing can provide a 60% boost in the engagement rate, which means the conversion rate might be higher than alternative marketing channels. The ROI of influencer marketing can be significantly higher, which is perfect for startups and marketing departments on a budget.
How to Evaluate a Suitable Influencer?
Are you sold on the benefits of influencer marketing and are ready to find potential partners to start? Building new relationships with influencers is an exciting process. You never know where they might lead.
Finding influencers to align with your brand is not too hard. Use hashtags, relevant keyword searches, and social media platforms. The tricky part is evaluating an influencer that is a good target to offer a paid promotion.
Here are some ideas for evaluating influencers:
- Personality: Does the influencer personality match your brand? It is not always important for the personality to match because you will still get product sales. However, if you are sensitive about your brand image, then choosing a suitable personality is important.
- Authenticity: Ideally, the influencer is genuine about what they say and share. Expertise and a love for the niche are also great because they can talk about your products intelligently.
- Engagement: How well does the influencer communicate with their audience? Ideally, they should have a confident and informative tone that enables them to talk about your products with authority. Other factors play a role in the engagement rate, such as the audience size. Based on research, the audience engagement rate is higher for smaller audiences. It is another reason why targeting smaller influencers leads to higher marketing ROI.
- Niche: Ideally, the influencer posts content in a niche that is directly about your products or compliments them well. The goal is to access audiences that match your target buyer. Keep this in mind while selecting the right influencers.
- Audience size: As we have already discussed, going after small to medium-sized influencers is where the golden opportunity lies. However, you need to correctly evaluate their audience size to determine the amount of money worth paying to the influencer.
Final Thoughts
Influencer marketing is great because it is applicable for startups and large corporations alike. The popularity of becoming an influencer is increasing. You will have even more opportunities to find influencers that are a good match for your brand.
So what are you waiting for? Start looking for your 1st influencer to increase sales, boost brand recognition, and align yourself with a content creator that will help grow your business to new heights.
