Influencer marketing may be a relatively new term for many, but it is a marketing strategy that has been around for probably decades. However, it isn’t your fault to not be aware of such an impressive and effective marketing strategy because it gained prominence only a few years back. Just about a decade ago, this area was strictly associated with celebrities and bloggers, that too, very few of them. However, times are changing rapidly now and business owners are constantly searching for new ways of marketing and branding their products. Influencer marketing has become the new age mantra to achieve marketing goals and company objectives.
Let’s find out more about influencer marketing and how an effective strategy helps in explosive business growth.
What is influencer marketing?
Basically, influence marketing is a way of marketing products and services on social media. This primarily relies upon endorsements and product advertising done by known personalities, mainly bloggers and Vloggers. Those having strong social media presence and large number of followers are preferred for this purpose.
Take the example of Vloggers on YouTube. Once someone’s YouTube channel becomes popular, ranks higher on the video sharing platform, and the number of followers enters three digit figure brands start flocking towards the Vlogger to spread word about their products. Suddenly, viewers start getting information about which brand of clothing they prefer or which camera is the best in the market. This is actually what influencer marketing is all about.
PewDiePie is an important example in this regard; he is so famous on YouTube that he took up the challenge with famous Indian Music Company T-Series to reach 100 million subscribers. He could be termed as the perfect personality to rope in for influencer marketing.
The whole idea behind influencer marketing is to promote your product by taking those personalities on board who are trusted by large number of users and are in some way related to your niche. You need to research about your goals, target audience and then hire an internet celebrity to promote your products.
Goals and target audience are the two main driving forces that can determine the personality best suited for your marketing campaign. This is convincingly done by dedicated company for Social Media management Gold Coast.
What type of businesses does influencer marketing suit?
Influencer marketing, as the name suggests, suits all those businesses that rely upon influencing people into buying their products. However, it is most suitable for small-sized businesses and emerging startups trying to make a name in their respective markets and niches. By hiring a prominent personality to sell their products, they manage to gain the all-important brand value that otherwise would take longer to be achieved.
Moreover, hiring a blogger or a social media personality is a cost-effective strategy for emerging businesses because they cannot afford to hire top celebrities. Social media stars don’t charge as much and has a following in thousands and millions. Reaching out to the desired audience becomes much easier for new businesses and small enterprises through influencer marketing.
But, medium to large sized businesses can also benefit from influencer marketing in their own way. In this regard, analysing your target audience is very important and so is identifying the ideal platform to market products at.
How to Plan for Influencer Marketing Campaign:
The industry you operate in certainly matters while planning for an influencer marketing campaign. Selecting the wrong or incompatible personality can ruin the entire marketing campaign. For instance, for promoting beauty or fashion related products you need to choose a glamorous personality. Similarly to promote fitness or sports related products, the ideal choice would be an athlete or a very fit personality.
In the same way, the promotion platform also matters a lot for your business. To promote fashion and beauty products, Instagram and YouTube are the perfect options while Twitch is the ideal forum to promote video games and related accessories.
Once you have identified your niche and target audience, it is time to select the influencer for your campaign. The chosen personality also greatly depends upon your objectives. Without understanding your marketing goals and audience, you cannot run a successful campaign as the personality won’t suit the business you have.
You need to employ an all-inclusive approach while planning for influencer marketing. You can rely upon expert teams for social media management Gold Coast to do the assessment and decision making on your behalf. They are quite proficient with the industry dynamics and can easily help you determine your target audience and influencer after examining your marketing goals.
How to create an influencer marketing strategy?
Just like any marketing venture, influencer marketing is also a strategic process that requires in-depth researching, targeting, and decision-making. Strategic success would be farfetched if you fail to prepare the right strategy for achieving your goals. The top three factors you need to consider while creating an influencer marketing strategy are as follows:
Identifying Social Media Platform:
Identifying relies upon researching. So, the first step of your marketing strategy should be researching about every single aspect associated with your brand and the probable influencer. First and foremost, you need to realise the network or platform to focus on initially, and later you can add multiple networks. Such as, focus on Instagram or Facebook first then expand your reachability by including YouTube or Twitter.
Starting with one network is beneficial because you can focus entirely on a single area. The marketing requirements of every network vary greatly, which makes it important to focus on one in the beginning. If unsure about where to being, hire a team of social media management Gold Coast to do the job.
Determine your Budget:
You can spend only as much that you have. There is and should be a limit when it comes to finances. Having an idea about how much you can pay influencers and invest into the influencer marketing campaign. Furthermore, you would need to dedicated expenses for planning and executing of the strategy as well as regular reviewing of the impact of the campaign.
Careful monitoring is the key to successful influencer marketing campaign, without which your strategy won’t evolve as per the changing consumer dynamics or trends and it will soon become mundane.
Finding and Contacting Influencers:
A good social media management Gold Coast team can help you in this step a lot. You might have the perfect strategy on paper but having the right influencer on board is extremely significant if you want to achieve success. A social media management team would identify your network, goals, and the perfect influencers to target.
There are certain tips that might be helpful for you if finding influencer all by yourself.
- The influencer MUST post about similar items as you want to promote. For instance, restaurant owners should hire influencers known for their love for dining out and food.
- The authenticity of the influencer and reputation also matters a lot. Having a reputation of bad influence will be detrimental for your campaign and positive image would be helpful.
- The regularity of posting on social media is another key aspect to check out. The more active influencer is on social media, the more fruitful it would be for you to hire them.
You would be surprised to know that around 80% of entrepreneurs and business owners believe that influencer marketing is an excellent marketing tool that can help in business growth. When a trusted personality is roped in to market a product, the consumers are bound to take notice and follow them. That’s why influencer marketing has gained so much prominence. You can also reap the various benefits it has to offer by creating effective influencer marketing strategy.
