Do I Need To Focus On Influencer Marketing For My Digital Efforts?
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What Is Influencer Marketing?
I’m sure you are well familiar with the term influencer. As a refresher, an influencer is an individual who typically has a large following on any internet platform and has the ability to overall influence the people that follow them.
These are the individuals that have a solid and loyal fan-base across platforms including Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. There are different types of influencers such as celebrity influencers, blog influencers, social media influencers, etc.
Now, these influencers are the ones that are involved in the hot new strategy that is influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing in a nutshell is the strategy of using influencers to promote your brand, services, and products in an effort to further reach a greater audience and influence purchase decisions.
The Benefits of Influencer Marketing
This strategy is not exactly a new concept. It basically stems from the same idea of using celebrities in commercials. In essence, you are using their likability to push your brand on consumers. Let’s look at some of the main benefits of influencer marketing.
- Influencers can easily reach your target audience.
As mentioned before, influencers are individuals with a large following. Finding the right influencer that has a following that aligns with your target audience opens the opportunity for you to reach potential new customers fast and effectively.
- Influencers help build trust for your brand.
An influencer for the most part has a following that listens to them. Their loyal fans are more than likely to base their perceptions on the views the influencer portrays or communicates. An influencer can help instill a positive perception of your brand in the minds of their followers.
- Influencers help facilitate a consumer’s final purchase decision.
Probably one of the most important benefits is that influencers can help facilitate a consumer’s final purchase decision. If a consumer is on the fringe of purchasing from your company, an influencer’s voice, review, or overall opinion on your products could be all that is needed to push that consumer to the final purchasing stage.
- Influencers can set trends within your industry.
Influencers have become trend setters in our world. They are a resource for consumers to find out what is “hot” or “new”. Having an influencer showcase your product or services increases the chances of your brand becoming the next big thing.
Current Data on Influencer Marketing
If you’re still in the need of some convincing below are some key statistics and takeaways from 2021 about influencer marketing.
- 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective.
- 89% of marketers say influencer marketing works just as well as any other marketing channel.
- 71% of marketers say the quality of customers they have obtained from influencer traffic is better than other sources.
- As of 2022, 86% of marketers plan to continue investing and implementing influencer marketing strategies.
Is It Time to Consider Hiring an Influencer?
The bottom line is that an influencer is only as helpful as how applicable your brand is to their following. You can’t go out and hire any influencer and expect success. There are factors you should consider before making a final decision.
Brand Relevancy
The first thing to take into consideration is how relevant your brand will be to the following of the influencer you are considering hiring. It wouldn’t make sense to hire a fitness influencer if you’re a company that sells baked goods.
Target Audience
The next is your target audience. For the most part, most influencers have an audience consisting of younger generations such as Gen Z and millennials. Hiring an influencer is definitely a viable option if the individuals within that age group are your target audience as well.
Cost
The third thing to consider is the cost. There are plenty of factors that go into the overall pricing for an influencer. It mainly is dependent on their popularity, the platform they are on, and what exactly it is you want them to do regarding your brand promotion.
For example, a mid-tier influencer on Instagram could end up charging anywhere between $500-$5,000 for one post.
The Influencer Themselves
You must consider the fact that influencers are humans as well and even though you may be paying them to promote your brand, you do not have control over them or their actions.
There is a risk involved in hiring influencers. One day they could be on top of the world and one of the most influential individuals on their internet and the next day they could be at the bottom of the barrel.
Influencers do what they want just as much as you do. My advice is to search for an influencer that aligns with the image you want your brand to portray.
Is It All Worth It?
It really is up to you on deciding whether hiring an influencer will help you reach your marketing goals. I believe the statistics speak for themselves in the fact that implementing an influencer marketing strategy does have its positives. The other thing with noting is that influencer marketing is showing no signs of slowing down. It may be best to get on board now.