When making a purchasing decision, consumers are more likely to be influenced by reviews than advertisements. Studies show that 92% of consumers trust other people’s recommendations, even if they don’t know them personally.
That’s why it’s helpful for your company to engage opinion leaders for marketing. Research from eMarketer shows that influencer marketing has an excellent return on investment, with an average of $6.85 returned for every dollar spent on a campaign.
Influencer marketing provides you with the chance to post various types of content while allowing you to build more natural relationships with your users. But how do you develop an influencer marketing campaign? What is an influencer’s role, and how can you connect with one?
This article provides some insight into influencer marketing and gives you actionable tips to help you find the best influencers.
Traditional marketing is no longer effective
A successful marketing campaign spreads your message to a large audience. The traditional way of marketing is advertising through mass media: you buy advertisements and show them to an audience. Your sales increase and you get to buy more ads to increase audience reach.
The difficulty with this strategy is that there is too much competition in the market. Buyers are often confronted with a massive “avalanche” of varied options and usually do not have the opportunity to view all the advertising. Therefore, they ignore most advertisements.
Traditional marketing tools are becoming less effective as technology evolves. Here’s how influencer marketing can help you find a way out of this situation.
What is influencer marketing
Buyers’ purchasing decisions have always been influenced by the opinions of other consumers. With social media, it has become easier for your brand to encourage people to talk about your company and products
Influencers act as mutual friends between the consumer and your brand. Their recommendations may drive traffic to your website, promote your marketing message across many social media platforms, and even directly sell your product or service.
What do influencers do?
An influencer is someone with a large online following, and may include:
- journalists;
- celebrities;
- scientific workers;
- experts in any field.
Their audience pays attention to their experiences and opinions.
Blog authors can likewise be influencers. Having a huge number of readers and subscribers, however, does not imply that this person has authority in the eyes of their readers.
How to find an influencer?
The type of opinion leader you hire will depend on your campaign’s goals. The following are qualities that an excellent influencer must have:
- Be able to create quality content;
- Know how to spread it.
Ideally, you should look for an influencer with many engaged followers. It is not only follower count that matters, but also their audience’s level of involvement. StarNgage is an influencer marketing agency that provides you with detailed information about influencers’ follower statistics and how to work with influencers as a brand, or business of any size.
Content creation
The basis of successful influencer marketing is high-quality, unique content that attracts audiences. Ideally, you should hire someone who will write original material for your company rather than simply redistribute existing content.
How to develop relationships with influencers
It’s time to start creating relationships with the influencers you’ve shortlisted. Some of them are self-employed, while the majority work with agencies under predetermined terms. Inviting an influencer to a face-to-face or online meeting is the best way to get in touch with him/her.
This article has covered the basics of influencer marketing and finding influencers. Using the guidelines above, you will be able to organize your first campaign yourself!
Bio
Angela Johnson is a leadership consultant at EssayMap. She is also a skilled blogger and content writer who writes content on topics like business leadership, education, self-growth and provides coursework assistance for students.
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