A mere two decades ago, there was a narrow range of platforms for brands to reach potential clients; they had to compete for limited ad spaces on radio, TV, and print media. The result? Only brands with massive marketing budgets could reach larger audiences. Today, every brand can reach any audience and achieve more with less. Hitting your marketing goals requires strategies; influencer marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies today. Any brand can leverage influencers to improve its marketing goals.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
A social media influencer is someone with dedicated followers and a ready audience that consumes any content they put out. The term influencer was formerly limited to celebrities, but today any content creator with sizable followers can become an influencer. Brands can hire content creators and celebrities to market their brands and products to followers. Influencers do this by directly talking about the brand or offering visibility by creating content that subtly displays the brand and product. Influencer marketing is an effective strategy when done right.
The key question is; how can brands identify influencers and content creators who fit their marketing profile? Unless you have a dedicated influencer team, you can find influencers for your marketing needs with Pareto to hit your marketing goals.
There are four types/levels of influencers; nano-influencers, micro-influencers, macro-influencers, and mega-influencers. Each level is characterised by the influencers’ audience reach and conversion. But brands don’t just hire any influencer out there. Hiring influencers is just as important as creating quality products.
What Factors Should Brands Consider When Hiring Influencers?
Influencers, even in the same niche, may bring different marketing results. Yet, marketing seeks to get the best result at the least cost, so brands must choose the right influencer carefully. Brands hire influencers based on their marketing goals, products, the influencer’s public image and engagement, and then the brand image. One effective tip is hiring influencers with the same values and public perception as your brand. For example, sports brands will improve their marketing goals by hiring sports influencers. Why? It is easy for brands and influencers in the same niche to relate the message to the audience.
It is also vital to hire influencers based on the marketing goals. If, for example, your marketing objective is to reach hundreds of locals within a month, it is best to hire influencers with a strong pull in the local social media communities. Nano-influencers (2000 to 5000) and micro-influencers (5,000-50,000) are highly effective marketing and can help you crush marketing goals.
What Are The Benefits Of Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is an effective strategy to improve marketing. Six key benefits hiring an influencer can bring to your brand:
- Cost-effective and time-saving marketing: Influencer marketing is easily the most effective strategy to reach more people faster and cheaper. The average cost-per-conversion for influencers is typically smaller than for traditional advertisements. You save time and money when you hire influencers.
- Boost sales and traffic: The ultimate goal of every brand is to boost sales and traffic. You can leverage influencer marketing to increase sales while driving more traffic to your brand.
- Access to new and bigger audiences: Once influencers create content for you, you can have long-term access to their audience. Although most influencers remove marketing content once the contract expires, you can retarget their audience through digital marketing. Influencer marketing also helps your brand to reach new audiences without spending more on marketing.
- Source of feedback data: Every brand needs feedback and consumer data to create and deploy products and services that customers love. You can gather important data from the comments and trends on influencers’ posts through influencer marketing.
- Improved brand trust and credibility: Influencers wield influence through loyalty, and that’s a tremendous asset to building trust and credibility for your brand.
- Improved SEO: Influencer marketing boosts SEO and leads to better page rankings.
How Can Brands Leverage Influencer Marketing?
You can effectively leverage influencers to improve your marketing. It could be by setting your marketing goals and objectives. Set clear, actionable, and measurable objectives to achieve your marketing goals. Your objectives determine the influencer you hire. Along with this, choose a social media platform. Only a handful of influencers have a strong presence across all major social media platforms. You must choose a social media platform where the influencer is strongest to get the best results. That may not matter if you are making a video to post across all platforms.
Create suitable content and content you want to put out. Although influencers largely determine the content they are comfortable with, you choose what content works best for your marketing strategy. Videos? Written posts? Whatever you choose, ensure it improves your marketing goals.
As you can see, there are various ways brands can improve their marketing strategies with the help of influencers. If this marketing approach is something you are considering, keep these tips in mind to help.
