The online world is noisy and every business (small, medium or large) is fighting for audience attention continuously.
We live in a world of informed consumerism and today’s audience is hard to win and even more difficult to keep as they approach every brand with a septical outlook. In such a scenario the need to find alternative digital marketing channels builds the genesis of influencer marketing where the basic idea was to leverage the power of influencers to drive trust and sales.
But winning trust and driving sales are tougher than they look from the surface. No brand can ever buy trust or sales. Like any other marketing channel influencer marketing too needs a skilled approach to run effective program that contributes substantially to business outcomes ie trust and sales.
Before we get into the why of influencer marketing’s global success , let’s understand what exactly is influencer marketing?
In short Influencer marketing is the process of collaborating with popular and relevant influencers in your niche to promote your brand and increase your revenue.
Influencers are personalities with a large and loyal tangible follower base on social media. They are believed as subject matter experts in their own niche and their recommendations are valued by their followers.
Influencers are different from celebrities, creators and KOLs with overlapping charecteristic features, however broadly they are all referred to as influencers under a single umbrella.
Humans love and trust humans – this builds the genesis of influencer marketing holistically.
A successful influencer marketing campaign requires extensive planning and a deep understanding of your target audience and marketing objectives. It’s about how you build a confluence of influencer, brand and audience to deliver finest business outcomes.
10 Influencer marketing facts to consider
1) Branded content is 22X more engaging than display ads.
2) In 2018, Google received 61,000 search queries for the term “influencer marketing”.
3) Influencer marketing was considered effective by 92% of the respondents.
4) 86% of the respondents were also willing to dedicate a specific budget for their influencer marketing campaigns.
5)71% admit to having increased the amount of content they produce and share
6) 89% of those respondents who budget for influencer marketing intend to maintain or increase their influencer marketing budget over 2023
7)23% of respondents intend to spend more than 40% of their entire marketing budget on influencer campaigns
8)There is a strong preference for working with small (nano – 39% and micro – 30%) influencers ahead of expensive macro-influencers (19%) and celebrities (12%).
9) 72% of Gen Z and Millennials follow influencers on social media.
10)1 in 4 marketers currently leverage influencer marketing.
Source : Hubspot and Influencer marketing hub
Success stories of modern brands built on influencer marketing.
The Rise of Daniel Wellington
Filip Tysander, the founder of Daniel Wellington, decided to ditch endorsements, a key marketing mechanism for luxury brands . Instead, he devised a new strategy for the launch of his luxury watch brand in 2011.
With a meticulous, ROI- driven and measurable framework in place today, Daniel Wellington is among Europe’s fastest growing companies, with more than 4.7 million Instagram followers
The Rise of MVMT
In 2013, Jake Kassan and Kramer LaPlante dropped out of college and founded direct-to-consumer fashion brand MVMT, with the mission to disrupt the watch industry via stylish, less pricey watches.
With a framework in place MVMT designed an influencer marketing strategy to win.
MVMT now sells more than just watches, with products including sunglasses and accessories, and it has more than 1.1 million Instagram followers.
Note : Await our how to guide for Influencer marketing framework to drive superior business outcomes to understand the science behind influencer marketing and success stories to understand how influencer marketing has become important and a major tool in building modern brands- faster.
8 benefits that makes influencer marketing a winning formula in your marketing mix
1) Influencer marketing has high ROI – ROI of influencer marketing is as high as 650%.
2) Influencers are more trusted than friends and family for Gen Zers.
3) Influencers help you establish social proof and build awareness at scale.
4)Influencers inspire purchases.
5) Influencers help you share authentic content in a human way.
6)Influencer marketing allows you precise targeting at the first level itself as the hard work has already been done by influencers. You just have to ensure that the influencer is relevant combining it with first party audience can even take you a step further to power multi-channel retargeting.
7) Content that features influencers is often seen as more authentic and trustworthy – factually it’s 67% more trust worthy.
8) Improved Search Engine Rankings
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is a strategic channel that drives business outcomes for both performance marketers and brand marketers and is becoming an integral part of your marketing mix.
Want to deliver better business outcomes with efficient influencer marketing ? Book a FREE demo today and drive measurable trust and sales with influencer marketing.