If there’s a niche, there’s an influencer ready to explore all there is to know about it—connect with them as part of your first influencer marketing campaign, and you’ll unlock a wide audience.
Online advertisements are a powerful marketing tool, but excessive advertising can backfire: many viewers get annoyed by marketing messages that interrupt their content.
What is an entrepreneur to do in a world where 20-38% of Americans use ad blockers? One option that’s become increasingly popular is influencer marketing.
Keep reading to learn more about this trend and when it’s the right move to work with influencers.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
An “influencer” is a public figure who works with brands to promote their content, products, or services. This idea isn’t new—celebrity endorsements have been around for a long time—but social media has made “influencing” into a career all its own.
Nowadays, social media influencers don’t need to be film stars or musicians, they can be anyone with a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or blog sharing reviews that people trust.
The purpose of influencer marketing is to connect the brand to its target audience without alienating viewers with advertisements. Influencers are already building viewership by talking about relevant products and services; when they highlight a brand they are already reaching an audience that trusts their opinion.
Why Use Influencer Marketing?
First, influencer marketing gets your brand in front of an audience. Worthwhile influencers will have a clear niche that they focus on: that could be videogames, makeup, software, home development, anything! A social media influencer working in your field will reach viewers who want to see that kind of content.
What’s more, viewers follow influencers because they trust their opinions, think they highlight useful brands, and (very importantly) they are not annoyed by the influencer showing up in their newsfeed. Following influencers who explain their opinions of a brand can feel much more consensual and trustworthy than anonymous ads telling users to buy things.
Another benefit of influencer marketing is its affordability. While there are some bigger profiles who could cost more to work with, many influencers are willing to do promotional reviews, unboxings, and shoutout your business on their page at low cost. Influencers also make their own content for your business, saving you time normally spent producing marketing materials.
Prices for promotions often go up depending on the follower count, and can vary depending on the platform they use. Working with smaller accounts can actually benefit your brand: not only are “micro-influencers” with 2,000-10,000 followers cheaper, but they can produce more content and engagement than huge accounts.
Is Influencer Marketing the Right Choice?
Looking over the benefits, you might be wondering, “so should I just go ahead and start purchasing influencer posts?” Well, no. Working with influencers can be really useful, but you have to know how and when influencers will make the biggest impact for your business.
First, determine if there’s a goal which influencer marketing is suited to achieve. This could be:
- Driving traffic to a product page
- Establishing quality and reputation
- Improving branded search results
- Building Connection in your industry
Set Your Goals
If you have a goal in mind, ask yourself: is this an issue that’s been unsolved for a while? Are other marketing and branding strategies working or failing to meet this goal? Will reaching an influencer’s audience be the primary way to meet this goal, or is it part of a broader strategy?
Keep in mind that different goals can contradict each other. Pursuing top-quality reviews that show your brand is one of the best on the market will require working with different influencers than if you want to broaden your outreach to the widest audience possible.
Identify Your Budget
Next, find influencers in your market and your price range. It may turn out that some goals just don’t align with the influencers available, but others could be a perfect fit. In addition to Google searches, you can use BuzzSumo to find the best performing content by influencers in your niche. Pitchbox is another tool that can connect you with industry influencers and streamline your outreach.
Get Started!
Once you’re in touch with some quality influencers ready to work with your business and help you meet your goals, you’re good to go!
Social media influencers are a relatively new force in marketing, but they’re making big waves. Integrating these networks into your branding can help you reach audiences that are interested in your products or services, without the suspicion of targeted advertising. Savvy use of influencers alongside customer reviews can build trust and grow your customer base.
