What is influencer marketing?
Inlfuencer marketing has blown up just a few years ago, as creators from different social media platforms started gaining a significant number of followers and consequently the power to impact their purchasing decisions. While being one of the current marketing buzz word favorites and most effective sales driving strategies, influencer marketing may not be qualified as a brand-new tool. It has been out there for a long time. Businesses have been promoting their products and services through people, who’re well-known in their industry and enjoy of respect of potential customers, for as long as marketing exists as a whole.
The authority of such leaders has been used in order to make the company more reliable in the eyes of the public and build the sales around the trustworthy recommendations. Even the most conventional ads, where celebrities endorse a certain brand and promote its newly launched product, fall into the category of influencer marketing.
But, as social media gave real people the opportunity to share their voice and reach out to other individuals with the same interests, passions, problems and views, influencer marketing took a turn, got out of the shade and transformed into a front-row marketing industry. According to the latest poll conducted by Tomoson, a well-known influencer marketing agency, for each $1 businesses spend on being advertised by famous YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat creators, they manage to generate about $6,5 in returns. Another thing that makes influencer marketing extra special and surprisingly effective is that the online creator you chose to promote your business or brand may already be a fan of your services, which turns him into a perfect brand advocate.
Needless to say, the quality of customers companies acquire through influencers and the investment return this marketing channel provides turned it into the fastest-growing and the most profitable sector of digital marketing. Grand brands have already made the shift and increased their influencer marketing budgets. Let’s see what the marketing world is actually raving about and how your small business may benefit from being promoted by an influencer.
Top 3 reasons small businesses need to develop an influencer marketing strategy
1. Influencer marketing is not overly promotional
Traditional marketing is usually too obvious. When applying it, it’s quite easy to go overboard and make things overly promotional. Instead of evoking the customer’s interest to your products/services and inducing people to purchase them, blunt advertisement deters potential buyers from the brand in general. However, when an online creator who’s already used your services and loved the experience makes a short sponsored mention in his YouTube video or Instagram post, the audience rarely reacts in a negative way.
Influencers’ followers are quite invested in the lives of online creators they aspire to. They want to know what they eat, where they shop, which body products they use, which hair salon they go to and which apps they use to edit pictures. If the creator doesn’t provide that information, the followers are quite successful at figuring it our using the power of Google. Knowing that you may easily invest in your influencer marketing by offering an online personality to try out your services for free and providing an exceptional experience. The only thing is that the creator’s feedback has to be genuine and contain his honest opinions. Otherwise, the sensitive audience won’t buy it.
2. It builds brand awareness quickly
Social media recognition and endorsements are quite important when it comes to building your brand, improving customer engagement and boosting website traffic. However, growing your own social media profiles from scratch and building your own followings takes a lot of time, stress and money.
Instead, you may employ the power of influencers, who already have a large fan base which is used to trusting opinions/choices of internet personalities. A single mention of a prominent creator may boost your own social media following and sales at a record speed. Marketing agencies work months to reach the results influencers provide after a single post/video release.
3. It’s one of the most cost-effective digital marketing tools
The kickback of each dollar spent on influencer marketing was mentioned above – and the numbers are pretty appealing to small business owners with rather limited marketing budgets. There’re only a few online tools that may compare to influencer promotions when it comes to cost effectiveness. Lead-generating services like HireRush.com that allow acquiring customers and job offers at a minimal cost are among them.
Create your professional profile
The bottom line is that influencer marketing is a powerful trend that continues to gain popularity among the most outgoing companies. In combination with social media marketing, contractor referral platforms and traditional advertising, it will make up for an ultimate small business marketing strategy with promising results.
