Influencer marketing: the only profitable marketing in 2019?

Social selling, prescription, sponsorship, private sales, etc.: these are all sales techniques that have emerged in recent years. When the marketing upstream of these practices becomes professional, it gives rise to influencer marketing.

 

Influencer marketing is a popular practice, and there’s a good reason for that: it pays off. We are talking about an ROI ratio of nearly 8 to 1. Difficult to verify.

81% of consumers regularly buy items after seeing them shared on social media, for example. According to a study by Collective Bias, 60% of in-store shoppers are influenced by social media and blogs. 70% of millennials make purchasing decisions based on recommendations from their peers.

Influencer marketing ranked first in the list of fastest online customer acquisition strategies in a 2017 study by Influencer Marketing Hub .

Traditional ads no longer work. The audience has left the television sets, hardly watches paper media anymore and has generally become impervious to any form of commercial solicitation, especially when it is not in demand.

Basically, people love their small mobile screens and consume more and more ‘in the move and in the moment’.

Is influencer marketing the best way to reach a consumer on their mobile phone? If you know how to do it, yes.

As B to C marketers are devoting an increasing share of their budget to influencer marketing. I’m going to explain what this growing phenomenon is based on, which makes it possible to reach consumers by telling them authentic stories (the famous storytelling, revisited).
What is influencer marketing, how does it work, and why is it a worthwhile investment?
What are the essential steps to follow when identifying and working with social media influencers?
What tools do I have to imagine my own influencer marketing?
These are all questions that we will address in the following paragraphs.

 

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the marketing of products and services by partnering with individuals who have influence over a large group of followers – also known as followers – on social media (ranging from a few thousand to several million). Influencers can be journalists, bloggers, vloggers, public figures, industry analysts, experts, repentants, artists, sportspeople, or anyone else who has amassed a large number of social media followers. Some of these influencers come at a price. All you have to do is find an agreement with them for them to push your offer to their followers.
A brand partners with an influencer because they want to have direct access to that influencer’s engaged community through that person’s trusted voice. It’s an effective way to impact specific audiences who are much more likely to respond to the inspiring and friendly voice of an influencer they choose to follow rather than a pop-up or banner ad, which is banned by their brains.
Today, we see that the B to B spheres are increasingly considering influencer marketing, with the same purchase decision mechanisms applying to professional customers looking for recommendation, legitimacy and reassurance.
Traditionally, an influencer is someone who has a large number of highly engaged followers on one or more platforms. But more and more brands are choosing to work with multiple “micro influencers” instead of one or two big influencers. A micro-influencer may not have a massive following. But it still has a targeted influence on a very specific audience. In fact, they are sometimes considered more authentic and trustworthy than their elders. As long as their engagement rate (ratio between likes/comments/shares) is high.

 

Why bet on influencer marketing

A study by TapInfluence and Nielson Catalina Solutions showed that influencer marketing generates 11 times more ROI than traditional marketing methods: for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, companies would earn an average of 7.65 dollars.
So why does influencer marketing work so well?
Done right, it’s authentic, trustworthy, and focused on the purchase prescription. It’s a relatively easy and inexpensive way to grow your business, increase brand awareness, and boost sales.
A successful influencer marketing campaign can fulfill many different business goals simultaneously.

 

There are many levers of influencer marketing to help brands

• Expand reach: Working with the right influencers allows you to quickly and easily reach a large, pre-established and well-targeted audience.
• Boost sales: Customers listen to influencers and are receptive to their recommendations, so they buy products and services based on that. This is an inexpensive way to increase conversions.
• Increase brand awareness: Customers are likely to trust your brand’s message if it’s delivered through an influencer they already trust.
• Strengthen your brand reputation: By working with an influencer, you enhance your brand’s reputation because a personal recommendation from a trusted source is a powerful way to shape a potential customer’s opinion.
• Engagement: By partnering with an influencer, you can increase likes and engagement for your brand’s social media accounts.
• Create user-generated content: Influencers have a very good understanding of the type of content their audience enjoys. In addition, you can use UGC (User Generated Content) for a multimedia influencer campaign and repeat over time.
• Increase traffic: Through links on an influencer’s social media accounts and/or blog, you can redirect traffic to your own web pages.
• Improve SEO: Many influencers have highly valued sites and simply visiting one of your pages from one of theirs (backlink) will improve your natural referencing (SEO).

In a way, influencer marketing combines the best of two different types of content: branded content (deliberate) and organic content (authentic).

 

How does influencer marketing work?

As basic as it may seem, the goal of influencer marketing is to build relationships with influential people. Which can influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. The most effective influencer marketing campaigns introduce a brand to a specific audience through the voice of trust, in an authentic and friendly way. It is therefore essential to define your target audience well to be able to identify the influencer who has access to it.
To activate your influencer marketing campaign, you will need:

1. Identify your commercial target, whether it is Consumer or Business
2. Finding the right influencer(s) to reach this target audience
3. Work with your influencer partners to build a narrative that is both true to your brand and their posture. It is in a brand’s best interest that the content that an influencer creates and displays in support of a product resonates authentically with their audience.
4. Keep in mind that influencer marketing, like all marketing, takes a bit of time and requires repetition. You’ll need to convince potential customers that you deserve their attention and, ultimately, their purchase.

 

What makes an influencer relevant to your brand?

An influencer’s primary audience should align with your brand’s target audience. This audience must also actively listen and interact (in the form of appreciations, shares, replies and comments) according to what they say or post.
To assess an influencer’s potential, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do they post about what your brand is doing or something similar?
• Are they experts in your industry ?
• How many followers do they have?
• How engaged is their audience?
• How many likes / shares / comments generate their messages?
• What type of consumer do they reach?
• Does their aesthetic/style match that of your brand?
• Are they already fans of your company/brand or do they seem to be?
• Are they already working with brands?
• Do they need payment or are they willing to partner in exchange for additional products and/or services?

The ideal scenario is to discover an influencer who is already a fan of your brand and a prescriber in your universe. Which means that their support will truly resonate as genuine.
In most cases, you’ll need to do some research and dig deeper to find the right influencer for your brand. Fortunately, there are now useful tools to find these influencers.

 

How can brands work effectively with an influencer?

Identifying and partnering with an influencer is only part of the equation. You also need to decide on a strategy for your entire campaign.
Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of the different types of influencer marketing to consider:

• Takeover campaigns: An influencer is asked to take over your brand’s social media account(s) for an agreed amount of time and use their own platform to cross-promote.
• Content sharing: An influencer shares brand-approved content on their own platforms.
• Branded hashtags: An influencer agrees to share content with a caption that includes a pre-established hashtag.
• Gifts to give: An influencer encourages their audience to participate in a contest and the prize is the brand’s product or service.
• Guest content: An influential guest blogs on your website and promotes content using links from their own platform.
• Interviews / (Q): An influencer provides an exclusive interview for your brand and cross-promotes it on their platforms.
• Live streaming: An influencer tells live about their experience with your brand’s product or service at a specific time and place. This is done with or without interaction with the audience.
• Video series: An influencer weaves a product experience into a series of videos that they publish on their platform.
• Test/Trial: An influential user reviews a product or service and reviews it on their platform.
• Expert opinions: An influencer draws on their expert status to endorse your brand’s product or service.

 

How to measure the ROI of influencer marketing?

A successful influencer marketing campaign should support your overall marketing strategy and all measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). One of the challenges of influencer marketing is measuring its effectiveness. In addition to looking at the sales generated and your turnover, there are a few other metrics to consider!
Some indicators to track to evaluate the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign:

• Number of followers
• Number of users/subscribers
• Traffic
• Buzz/engagement/virality on social media (likes, mentions, shares, comments)

To make it easier to measure ROI, you can create personalized, traceable links using bit.ly or UTM codes to see how much traffic a particular influencer or campaign is generating.
You are also encouraged to track the indicators beyond traditional social media metrics. Because they do not always result in conversions. This way, you can measure the transformative capacity of each campaign or influencer.

• ICreate a hashtag for your influencer that regular users can also use – maybe even in exchange for the ability to appear on your brand’s account.
• Create custom promo codes for each influencer you work with.
• TCreate a single homepage or a single part of your brand’s site to isolate incoming traffic and attribute it to the influencer’s posts.

 

In the general trend of refocusing on people and authenticity, marketing is no exception. It thus meets the expectations of all buyers, whether they are individuals or corporates.

Customers want real, interaction, proximity and trust. If you don’t give it to them, or if you don’t let them know, it’s your neighbor’s house that they will finalize their purchase.