If your brand is going to try a different type of marketing, then you want to be sure the new project will be worth your time and effort. One type of marketing that has proven to be extremely beneficial to brands and marketers is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing benefits range from a higher-than-average return on investment to allowing a brand to connect with a previously unreached audience.
One survey revealed that 94 percent of marketers found influencer marketing to be effective. Nearly half of those who used it in the past year planned on increasing their budget for influencer marketing in the year to come.
Understanding the various benefits of influencer marketing can help your brand decide how to use it and how to shape an influencer marketing strategy that will let you best take advantage of its benefits.
Top 5 Influencer Marketing Benefits
Before jumping into how your brand can best take advantage of the benefits of influencer marketing, let’s take a look at a few of those top benefits.
1. Influencer Marketing Reaches Where Traditional Ads Don’t
Banner ads, commercials, and other forms of traditional advertising don’t have the reach or impact they once had. Hubspot reported the average click-through rate on display ads is less than 1 percent. Around 65 percent of people skip the ads that play during or before online videos. Influencer marketing gives brands a way to work around traditional advertising. It allows you to connect with people who would otherwise not give a brand a second look.
2. Influencer Marketing Actually Influences People
Another benefit of influencer marketing is that it does inspire people to action. A study from Twitter found that 40 percent of users made a purchase following a tweet from an influencer. Another study found that more than 60 percent of people ages 13 to 24 would try a product recommended by a YouTuber.
3. Influencer Marketing Lets You Reach a Specific, Targeted Audience
Influencers, particularly micro-influencers, usually connect with a very specific audience. Partnering with the right influencer can help your brand reach an audience it has previously neglected or hasn’t been able to reach.
4. Influencer Marketing Runs on Trust
Trust is big in influencer marketing. Without trust, influencer marketing won’t work. Influencers, in particular micro-influencers, are seen as 94 percent more credible and believable than others on social media. Additionally, 87 percent of consumers say that authenticity is one of the most important things for a brand to have.
5. Influencer Marketing Has a High ROI
From a dollars and cents perspective, one of the most significant influencer marketing benefits is its high return on investment. A 2016 TapInfluence study found that influencer marketing has an ROI that’s 11 times higher than other forms of digital marketing.
Where Should Your Brand Focus?
When crafting an influencer marketing strategy, to what benefit should your brand pay the most attention? It depends on your goals. If you are trying to reach a new audience, then it makes sense to zero in on the targeted, specific audience benefit. If you’re hoping to make your brand more credible and to build trust with people, then focusing on authenticity and trust building makes the most sense. Finally, if you’re concerned about getting the most for your marketing dollars, focusing on the return on investment from influencer marketing is going to be the most appropriate option.
How Do Influencer Marketing Benefits Affect Strategy?
How do you work the benefits of influencer marketing into your strategy? It depends on the benefit. For example, if you are aiming to reach a new audience or want to cut through the noise and connect with people who are tuned out to traditional advertising, then one option is to build a strategy around new audiences.
First, you’ll want to identify potential audiences, such as soccer moms, preteen fashionistas, or crafty vegans. If you plan on working with micro-influencers who typically reach a niche audience, the more specific the audience, the better.
If your goal is to increase return on investment, then you’ll want to lay out specific numbers in your strategy. How much will you spend on a campaign in total, and how much will you spend on each post? Next, think about how you’ll track your return on investment. Will you measure the number of sales that result from a post? Or the number of new subscribers you get as a result of a post?
Jumping into influencer marketing with its benefits in mind helps you to set your goals and then shape your strategy to meet those goals.
Examples of Influencer Marketing Benefits
Fashion Nova
Increase ROI. An excellent example of a brand using influencer marketing to increase or maximize ROI is Fashion Nova. Fashion Nova is a faster-than-fast fashion brand that’s popular with the likes of influencers such as Cardi B. and Kylie Jenner. In fact, the brand works with somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 influencers, according to a report from Vice. While it compensates its big-name influencers like Jenner, it typically pays others in free clothing. The company has been tight-lipped about its revenue, but WWD reported growth of 600 percent in 2017 on the site. The brand has also seen impressive growth in terms of online followers. At the time the Vice article was published, it had 6 million followers. By the time WWD published its interview with the brand’s founder, the brand had grown to nearly 11 million followers.
Apartments.com
Reach where traditional ads don’t. Landing an ad during the National Football League’s Super Bowl championship game is often enough for brands. But Apartments.com knew it needed to go beyond the big game to connect with its target audience. To do so, it launched an influencer campaign on social media using Jeff Goldblum (who starred in the TV ads), L’il Wayne and several YouTube stars. As a result of the influencer campaign, there were more than 8 million engagements in the weeks around the big football game. The original TV spot had 15 million views on social media.
FlatTummyCo
Build trust. FlatTummyCo is a brand that’s managed to stir up controversy and build trust using influencer marketing. Launched in Australia in 2013, the brand first saw the benefits of influencer marketing when it partnered with a popular blogger and had 17 new orders in an hour, the Guardian reported. These days, the brand reaches out to around 200 potential influencers each week. It carefully chooses with whom it partners in an effort to create a trustworthy and authentic image. For example, the brand tries to connect with women who might not be super skinny but who are trying to improve their body shape or get fit.
Whether you’re trying to maximize revenue, improve your brand’s image or make more connections, influencer marketing benefits can help you reach your goals.
