Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing: How to develop your strategy

In today’s digital-driven world, consumers are turning towards one another to ensure the product/service they want to purchase is the right one for them and are doing this across multiple channels such as social media, product review websites and online forums.

Because of this shift in consumer-influenced purchasing behavior, identifying and engaging with the key influencers in your industry is quickly becoming a critical component of a B2B organization’s marketing strategy. If done correctly, influencer marketing can lead to rapid growth in sales, raise brand awareness and establish strong brand equity.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing can simply be defined as social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers–individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts or trustworthy sources of information within their groove.

 

Types of influencer marketing:

  • Social media takeover: this influencer marketing works great for growing your follower base on social media platforms.
  • Sponsored content: sponsored content often pops up on Facebook and Instagram. For example, brands pay for publishing a promotional post on the influencer’s account. The opinion leader takes care of content creation and puts out a post made according to the client’s guidelines.
  • Brand ambassador programs: Some influencers love specific brands so much that they are ready to promote them even for free, which made some companies offer them brand ambassador programs.
  • Affiliate marketing: this type is seen as the easiest way to generate lead. Using this strategy, you don’t have to waste time using influencers, rather publish an affiliate program on your website and wait.
  • Unboxing: this strategy is a bit risky because it needs some better understanding before adopting this method. For example; an influencer might not open a gift sent by a brand which might probably cost the brand lot, or give a negative feedback which might become dangerous for the brand.

 

          Benefits of influencer marketing:

  1. Brand awareness growth: most marketers now use influencer marketing to boost brand awareness and it works effectively.
  2. Quality lead generation: recently, 30% of brands use influencer marketing to generate leads while 70% of them believe that influencer marketing brings higher quality leads compared to another avenue.
  3. Content strategy enrichment: this is achieved by reposting the influencer’s content or encourage their followers to create user-generated content. This makes Influencer marketing a great opportunity for social media posts to become lively.
  4. Cost-effectiveness: A well-thought-out influencer marketing strategy can drive better results for lower fees or even allow you to trade off in the future compare to other channels which require regular influxes of cash from your budget.