Influencer Marketing is seeing it big in the world of digital marketing. Granted, there is the part of brands and businesses themselves doing their best to present their products and their services to their target audience and potential clients. However, there are certain areas that are easily covered by influencer marketing in which other means of marketing brands online may not be able to do easily and swiftly. Before we delve into the essential roles and advantages brands stand to gain by engaging in influencer marketing, let us first look into what influential marketing entails.
There are people who are known as influencers and these are certain specific individuals who have established a remarkable follower base and are known as representatives of a particular niche or more. They are influencers because they have built a reputation for themselves in the niche as well as a community of people who are equally interested in or simply fascinated by the niche. Therefore, brands who intend to expand their service or products to a new community or set of people can easily single out an influencer and leverage on their identity or profile as an entry point into his or her community. This way, brands are able to cover a whole new potential customer base through one influential person. The idea is that the influencer has been able to gain a measure of trust from their community and this trust can serve as a currency with which the brand in question can leverage upon.
The benefits of Influencer marketing on customers are quite numerous and we will be exploring them.
The social currency brands get to build upon when it comes to Influencer marketing is almost unbelievable. This is because they have the already existing trust the community has for the influencer the brand has chosen to partner with. It takes a certain level of trust to have reached the number of followers to be tagged substantially. Trust is built and the community will pretty much believe in the brand the influencer has chosen to represent. So whoever it is, whether a celebrity, a PR company, or a media company, as long as there is a community in the form of their following, any product or service they promote would in turn grant the brand a significant level of credibility. This results in good faith on the part of the brand in the minds of its target audience or potential customers.
never-endingOne of the factors vital to a business and brand from its early stages and is never-ending is awareness. With influencer marketing, more people get to know about the brands and there is fewer limitations in this regard through the aid of technology and most of all social media. So those not in the immediate location of your brand can get to know about it by virtue of the community to which they belong online and by following an influencer whom the brand has chosen to partner with.
Influencer marketing unlike other forms of marketing is not medium-specific. All kinds of businesses can choose to go that route and the great part is that once there is a niche for the product and service, brands can simply single out influencers whom they feel represent them and go ahead to partner with. However, sometimes it helps to be strategic about the kind of influencer you want to partner with as a brand, depending on what you want to achieve in the long run. Some influencers are much better for a short-term arrangement while the others are better suited for the long term.
Another great benefit of influencer marketing and how it affects consumer brands considering the setup of social media is that brands are able to gain better reach through organic growth. Organic growth simply means that as a brand, you can leverage n the niche or domain authority that the influencer possesses to reach more people and grow that visibility by virtue of community interlink. So your influencer’s community members take your product or service to share with a community of their own and the chain continues like that.
In more recent times, the power of storytelling is constantly emphasized and you have to realize every action and decision in life, even in terms of business partnership. Influencer marketing when viewed as a relationship between a brand and an influencer requires time and would bring greater rewards with time. It is better to approach it this way than on a one-off arrangement most times.
Consumers are likely to go for the product or service of a brand when they are recommended by an influencer. They are more likely to do so if the influencer is one they like and follow. Therefore, beyond brands gaining more awareness through influencer marketing, it gets better because they get to thrive towards the end of the sales funnel where they get to close more sales. Conversion of sales is achieved within less time because the target audience through influencer marketing is sure to be interested individuals in the first place.
Lead generation is a vital aspect of any business or brand. By generating leads, it simply means that there are a number of people who are interested in the brand’s product or service. The interest here represents that indeed, the value a brand claims to stand for truly exists and there are people who would really benefit from it. It is from the leads that brands get interested customers who move from interest to actually buying and becoming customers.
With influencer marketing, brands can effortlessly reach their target audience especially when the influencer engaged is one whose niche falls within the category of the product or service. This way, brands are certain of presenting their products to the right audience which proves a better result than promoting themselves to a mixed and undetermined audience.