The way businesses are doing their marketing is rapidly changing.
Generally speaking, it is often the large corporates which are using the more traditional ways of marketing today, also known as display advertising, which mainly includes Television, billboards, magazines and even radio.
There are many reasons for this. One reason is that that is “how they’ve always done it”, and despite the fact that the costs are increasing and the results are decreasing, they continue to pour money into it. The other is that large corporates are bureaucratic and are slow to implement new things.
While the large corporates are spending large amounts of money on marketing that clearly isn’t very effective, and with which it is very hard to measure results with, there’s a trend among smaller businesses turning to more effective and targeted marketing ways. Of course, this is not very surprising, because as a marketer, you must make sure that you get as much out of your marketing dollars as possible.
There’s a reason why startup companies have exploded within just a couple of years, whereas the large companies stand still and don’t move very much, and part of that is because the smaller companies use marketing methods which generate a far higher ROI.
Influencer marketing is particularly one of those marketing ways that has grown in popularity dramatically over the last couple of years. Ads on TV, in magazines and billboards, so-called display advertisements that have been around for quite some time are slowly losing efficiency and popularity among companies.
In the modern age of technology, there are so many ways that businesses can market their brand on, which generate much better results than display advertisements, while often also offering the possibility to measure things such as reach, ROI and location.
If you are looking to get the most out of your marketing budget, you should avoid all forms of traditional advertising, and instead, move your focus towards other alternatives.
For a lot of businesses, the results of display advertisements don’t justify the price for them so a lot of businesses are changing to more effective marketing ways. In this article, I’ll be explaining Why Influencer Marketing Should be Part of Every Brand’s Marketing Strategy.
1. Better Reach
Influencer marketing takes place on social media. This is a place where you, in theory, have the ability to reach billions of people. Now, while you will never do just that, what you will do is have the opportunity to reach people who are more relevant to your brand. People who are your target audience.
Display ads have created a form of immunity by the people watching them. For many, many years, people have constantly been attacked with commercials and ads wherever they’ve gone. Whether they’ve turned on the TV, opened a magazine or seen billboards along the roads, they are constantly bombarded by ads. This has created a form of immunity against these types of ads because people have learned how to ignore them and filter what they see.
With influencer marketing, however, the approach is a lot different. Not only do you reach your target audience where they spend their time, but you also reach them in a better, and more effective way. This is because you reach your audience with the help of someone who is a trusted and respected individual within your own space. This is a person who people look up to, and go for advice, recommendations, and tips related to the industry they’re interested in.
Think about it: you are far more likely to trust a recommendation from a good friend than a stranger, right?
2. Affordable
This, of course, depends on how much you spend, but let me explain.
First off, influencer marketing has proven to be able to generate an impressive ROI, and this means that for the money invest, you will get more back many folds. According to a study, for every $1 invested in influencer marketing, brands got $6.5 in return.
The other reason why Influencer Marketing Should be Part of your Marketing Strategy is that it offers lots of opportunities. The cost of an influencer marketing campaign is mainly decided based on which influencer you decide to work with, and how much these individuals charge. The good thing about this is that there are influencers all over the spectrum, from people with a few thousand followers all the way up to millions of followers. As a result, any business with any budget can take advantage of influencer marketing. It’s not just limited to a fortunate few.
Compare this with the huge production costs of making a television commercial, and then paying for it to be distributed on television. It’s an expensive story.
Lastly, with influencer marketing, the ability to target your audience is completely different compared to classic advertisements, and the main difference is that the biggest part of the people seeing the display ads are not targeted and would actually never buy your products. And this is something many small businesses know. In short, with influencer marketing, brands get more bang for their marketing buck and this is what makes it more affordable.
3. Modern way of marketing
Modern isn’t always better, but in this case, it certainly is.
If you want to display your business as modern and up-to-date you have to be able to adopt new trends and changes in the industry.
A lot of companies are doing this and it is very clear that there is a change going on where brands are making a transition from old-fashioned ads to more modern ways which also helps companies reach their target audience in a completely new way.
Influencer marketing plays an important part of that transition and many modern businesses are quick to adapt it while old corporates are a bit behind. People are spending more time than ever on social media, and so it wouldn’t make sense if you didn’t leverage it to your advantage. Furthermore, to gain traction on social media, businesses could need a little help from trusted industry leaders.
4. Consumers trust influencers more than they trust companies
Maybe not very surprising.
Most people have a hard time trusting companies simply because they know their agenda. To make more money. As a result, people know that everything that the company will say will be said with the purpose of selling. Because of this, people tend to trust the words of businesses to a smaller extent than the words of their peers and people they look up to.
In this case, influencers. Since consumers have a hard time trusting businesses, you need to leverage influencers to speak for you, and to spread the word about you in a more authentic way.
Have in mind that 92% of people trust peer recommendations, and people see influencers as peers. What’s more, if they then look up to them, you’ll have an even greater impact on your audience.
5. Influencer marketing will help grow your audience
Influencers have a large following on social media. This is the audience that they communicate with, reach, and share information and tips with. An influencer should be able to influence their followers’ lives and decisions, and with the help of influencer marketing, you’ll instantly have access to their audience that you didn’t have before which means that if an influencer ask their followers to follow your page, there’s a huge chance you’ll gain some followers fairly quickly and you will gain a brand exposure to thousands or even millions.
This is far better than just a bigger number in your profile. It is actually much more powerful than that. In fact, not only will the influencer drive you exposure, brand awareness, and other results, the followers that you accumulate are people that you can then reach time and time over through your posts on social media. This means that long after an influencer campaign is over, you can enjoy the fruits from it.
6. Influencers Offer New Audiences
Influencers help bring new targeted people to your company. Influencers in your industry are leaders within your space on social media. They’re trusted individuals which people go to for advice, and because they are just that, they tend to attract like-minded people, in other words, your target audience.
As a company, you’re dependent on reaching new people, but at the same time, you’re dependent on reaching the right people. It doesn’t matter if you reach a billion people if those people are not part of your target audience, because they will never buy from you.
By working with leaders in your space, you can get your brand in front of more people – people who actually care.
7. Influencers help humanize your brand
A complaint that many consumers have, especially on social media, is that brands are so stiff and boring.
There are of course exceptions, such as Wendys’, McDonald’s, Skittles, and so on, but for the most part, businesses are struggling to become more human and show some personality.
It is hard for brands to humanize themselves all on their own because normally, they do regular display marketing without showing the face of someone in their team or writing anything personal.
For the consumers, it becomes very abstract and hard for the customer to create any kind of personal connection with the brand. It gets hard for the consumers to resonate with companies which aren’t human, and this is a problem because it creates a gap between consumer and brand, and makes it more difficult to impact them.
The good news is that with influencers, however, you can change that. The influencer puts a face to your brand which makes the customers associate your brand with someone they trust and look up to. By having a face behind a brand, it also increases the trust and the odds of them purchasing something from you. Influencers, who are known for being themselves, can help bring a more human side to your brand, which brands normally have a hard time establishing.
Conclusion
There are countless reasons why influencer marketing should be part of your marketing strategy. Influencer marketing helps you become more relevant to the audience you’re targeting, it lets you reach new people at the places where they are actually spending time, and it helps you reach the people who truly matter to your brand. Not just to reach people.
Since influencers are trusted individuals who people look up to, what they say tend to be far more trusted and listened to, as opposed to what the company itself is saying, and this is because people know that businesses only have one agenda, which is to sell more. Therefore, they take what they say with a large grain of salt.
