The overall marketing plan of an SMB or corporation must include a digital marketing strategy, part of which should be influencer marketing.
Many corporations are already enjoying a massive return on investment from their influencer marketing campaigns, and you too can enjoy the same return by including influencer marketing in your marketing campaigns.
According to this study, the average return from an influencer marketing campaign is 650%, which means that for every single dollar spent on an influencer marketing campaign, $6.50 is provided in return.
Many marketers are still unaware of the potential of influencer marketing campaigns despite the hype of influencer marketing in the marketing community. After reading this article, you will be eager to include influencer marketing in your marketing campaigns!
Reasons to Consider Influencer Marketing
There are many strong reasons to include influencer marketing in the marketing campaign, whether you are a small entrepreneur, SMB, or a big brand. Both small and big businesses can benefit from influencer marketing campaigns.
Here are some of the reasons to include influencer marketing in your marketing campaigns.
1. Authentic Source
Most people are fed-up with traditional advertisements, and most of them do not even believe traditional advertisements. It’s because people are bombarded with many advertisements throughout the day, and most of these ads only care about sales.
However, the case with influencers is very different than that of traditional advertisements. For instance, this study shows that 70% of teenagers trust a YouTube influencer more than a traditional advertisement.
People trust influencers more than traditional advertisements because they are usually honest with their followers. An influencer’s Facebook pages and YouTube channel makes up a brand in itself, and they do not provide fake information to get a sale because it can hamper the brand image.
Moreover, the influencers are usually updated with social media marketing trends that allow them to conduct more effective marketing campaigns for the brands.
2. Reach Out to New Audiences
One of the major purposes of carrying out a marketing campaign is to reach as many new potential customers as possible. With the help of influencer marketing campaigns, it has become easier to reach out to new audiences.
Most influencers are followed by many people that belong to a specific niche. And, these influencers use many different strategies to gain the attention of their followers.
When these influencers promote your brand with their innovative ideas and strategies, they will be able to capture the interest of new potential customers towards your brand, which can enhance brand awareness.
Furthermore, the customers that are attracted via influencer marketing are quality customers, because they will have a trust in the brand, just as they trust the influencers.
3. Cost-Effective
The marketing budget for a huge corporation is counted in the millions, but this is not the case for small and medium-sized companies. They have a very limited budget, and they must think twice before spending even a thousand bucks.
As we all know that influencer marketing is a very effective way of marketing, the question that comes about is the cost of running a campaign. The good news is that it’s a very cost-effective way of marketing.
Sometimes the free sample provided to the influencer can make the influencer promote your brand for free. The influencers can connect directly to their audiences, which increases the conversion rate on the reach.
Moreover, influencer marketing can easily reach the niche customers of the brand, which makes it an even more effective approach.
4. Boosts SEO of the Website
Most people perceive influencer marketing as a part of their social media marketing campaigns. It’s true that influencers promote a brand via a YouTube channel or Facebook pages. However, people do not realize that influencer marketing can boost SEO for the business’ website as well.
Customers usually use a search engine to get detailed information about the brand, as it cannot be extracted from the Facebook Pages or Twitter account. The brands they see via influencer will be indexed in search engines as well.
Potential customers will visit the website, which automatically increases the number of search queries about the company, which will then give a boost to the search rankings.
According to this study, user-generated social media posts are responsible for around 25% of search results for the top 20 brands in the world. Again, social media sharing and engagement is also an important factor that determines the search engine ranking.
If many people mention the brand name on various social media platforms, it will give the signal to the search engines, which will then give the SEO boost.
5. People-Focused Stories
Every brand in the world makes various promises and claims. They can run an advertisement on TV or radio claiming various things. However, people can be skeptical because there are many low-quality products in the market.
Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to promote people-focused stories to the niche market. Influencers can explain to their audiences how the specific product or brand made an impact on people’s lives.
When people watch the testimony and the way a product impacted people’s lives, they will be more interested in the product and brand, which leads them to give the product or brand a try.
6. Benefit Both the Parties
Influencers consistently need to come up with new and valuable content to engage their followers. The influencers can promote your brand at an affordable cost, which is a plus for your brand.
And, the influencers will get a chance to increase their own popularity with the help of the brand, which helps in enhancing their image as well. Furthermore, the quality review on the brand will make them gain more followers from their content.
7. Creativity
People who are not creative cannot establish themselves as an influencer. Influencers bring many creative ways to promote a product, which will attract potential audiences to the brand or to the specific product.
This study shows that around 71% of customers are likely to try a product or a service via social media references.
8. Easier to Track
There is no point in investing in something if it is not providing a desirable return. The social likes, clicks, traffic, and other things can be easily measured via various technologies, which makes it easier for the brands to track the performance of an influencer marketing campaign.
It’s 1-2-3: Study, Plan, and Implement Influencer Marketing for the Brand
By now, you must understand that not including an influencer marketing campaign can prove to be very costly for your brand. However, one cannot get a massive return on their investment just by starting an influencer marketing campaign.
Many brands have not been able to get a satisfying return on their investment due to various reasons. After deciding to include influencer marketing in the marketing plan, one should conduct a rigorous study on influencer marketing.
There are plenty of things that contribute to making an influencer marketing campaign a grand success. Do add influencer marketing to your overall marketing plan, and plan and implement effective influencer marketing strategies to experience a boost in return on investment (ROI).
Many accept influencer marketing as part of a sound digital marketing strategy, but what about you? Have any concerns about expenses and ROI? Jump in and share your experiences below!
Stevan McGrath
Stevan McGrath is a marketing professional and a freelance writer. His specialties include digital marketing, SEO, and social media. Need a specialist writer to write on these? You just found the right person.