Influencer Marketing in Your Business: The term “influencer” has become a bad word in our culture, mainly because of the Kylie Jenners of this world and the fit tea peddlers we see on sites like Instagram. But influencer marketing is much more than that. Influencers can actually be very helpful to their audience and become great assets to brands, such as those who review cars and electronics, for instance, or those who truly try to make the lives of their followers better. If you’ve always had issues grasping the value proposition of influencer marketing, let’s take a look at a few reasons why you should consider using it for your business.
Great ROI
One of the things that stop many people from hiring the services of an influencer is the cost. But what business owners often don’t realize is how much of a return-on-investment influencer marketing can bring. It has been estimated that companies who use influencer marketing get $5.78 in return for every dollar that they spend. There are areas where influencers have even more power too, like in cryptocurrency, for instance. Having one important influencer, or multiple small influencers mentioning a coin could be enough for it to rise from obscurity and generate millions in revenue. This is why any business in the space should consider using influencer marketing as a tactic.
Emerging Brands are Using it
If you’re wondering how brands like LaCroix went from being unknown to a household name in what seems to be overnight, influencer marketing played a huge role in it. LaCroix’s value went from $646 million to $827 million from 2015 to 2017 which is when they started to ramp up their influencer marketing efforts. They used the clever strategy of hiring hundreds of micro-influencers so they could start disseminating the brand virally across social media.
Another company that used influencer marketing to boost its brand is Tom’s of Maine. The now popular brand of natural personal products used a combination of micro-influencer marketing and employee advocacy to increase brand awareness back in 2015. What made their effort so different is that they targeted influencers from tons of different demographics and asked them to fill out a questionnaire before promoting their brand to know exactly what niche they fit into, and to monitor their results.
How to Devise an Influencer Marketing Strategy
If you want to benefit from influencer marketing, you have to watch how and where you spend your money. It’s usually recommended to spread your bets across different influencers and channels and start small so you can gauge which ones are more effective and then direct your resources towards them.But, before that, you have to make sure that you have a set of clear goals. This could be to increase leads or conversations, followers on social media, or brand awareness/mentions. All that matters is that your goals are well-defined and measurable. Once you have your influencers and work together on content, you can test different ideas until you find what works.
Influencer marketing is much more powerful than many people imagine, so don’t get fooled by the images of influencers that are projected in the media. Instead, do your research on how much you can get in return for their help and start small with a solid strategy.