Influencer marketing utilizes a person’s popularity to sell products because people with a considerable following have a better reach when trying to sell products or services. Not more than a decade ago, this type of marketing was confined to celebrities and dedicated bloggers with many readers. In the modern era, influencer marketing has grown and is a very established aspect of online marketing.
With the rise of social media influencers, anybody can gain a strong online presence based on valuable content. This gives them everything they need to influence the market space with products and services of their choosing. These days, a big chunk of the youth depends on social media platforms for staying up-to-date with the world, entertainment, knowledge, and even buying products. So let’s take a deep dive into the concept of ‘Influencer Marketing.’
What are Influencers and Their Role in Marketing
Influencer Marketing combines the old school idea of celebrity endorsements with a modern age Content-Driven Marketing campaign. An influencer could be anyone from a well known local celebrity to someone whose popularity doesn’t carry forward in the “real” world. Online popularity is the only thing that matters when it comes to these kinds of marketing strategies.
Here are the two things needed for an online entity to be considered an “Influencer.”
- A sway on their followers to influence their purchasing habits and decisions, using their knowledge on the product, and their relationship with their audience.
- A proper following in a particular niche. This is important because, with online marketing, you can only sell to a specific target audience because of how crowded the online market space is.
What is Influencer Marketing?
When a brand collaborates with an online influencer to draft out a campaign that involves targeting advertisements and product endorsements to the influencer’s followers, it is called Influencer Marketing. This will help the brand improve its brand recognition and sell more products through a very hip and socially digestible medium.
Depending on the platform that an influencer, well, influences on, strategies and plans can change drastically. YouTube influencers are better suited to do full-fledged marketing videos to show off the product and its uses. In contrast, an Instagram influencer will have different types of followers that react differently to their content.
The classic “hire a celebrity to do a TV commercial” still works very well like it always has. But it is also still costly like it always has been. However, Influencer Marketing is relatively cost-effective and an excellent option for small local businesses trying to find their feet in the market place.
How to Make Influencer Marketing Strategies
Just like Social Media Marketing, Influencer Marketing depends on careful strategizing and planning. When you think about Influencer Marketing, you must immediately believe that it involves a trade of products for marketing. But that is not how that works.
1. Finding Influencers and Figuring-out their Pay
Research is the first step in making any strategy. First off, you want to analyze what social media platform is your target audience more likely to use. For this, there are many digital tools to help you with the analysis of customer trends.
Once you have that jotted down, you must research the famous influencers in that specific niche and contact them. Depending on your budget, you could either go for a big-time celebrity with a following in the millions or go for a micro-influencer who has followers somewhere in the 5-10 thousand range.
2. Setting a Budget and Advertisement Management Strategy
After you understand which you’re going to work with and how much money you’ll need, it is now time to create a budget and management strategy. You need to develop a timeline to execute, plan, and review your marketing campaign successfully.
One way to use social media marketing is to use automated advertisement programs. An influencer is a human being who can fall short of commitments because they have to manage their time and work with various other brands. So, it’s essential to employ some people skills as well.
3. Reviewing and Refining the Campaign
Like any marketing strategy, an Influencer Marketing campaign needs to be reviewed from time to time. Having pre-determined dates where you check the campaign regularly is a good idea. One way to do so efficiently is to learn about data tracking platforms, which can help you keep track of your sales sources. By tracking your results, you can have better ideas to make decisions and changes to your campaign.
Conclusion
The world of social media is ever-changing. It evolves rapidly, leaving behind old patterns. For example, the Instagram algorithm changes drastically now and then, depending on what kind of content the platform decides to push. But one thing that remains constant is the attention that online entities with significant followers will always have a place on the platforms, making their influence obsolete and immune to change. This is what makes Influencer Marketing a very viable option to sell your product to a very targeted audience.
For further information on Influencer Marketing, you may contact us or visit our website www.bmconsulting.in
**This blog has been compiled by Divyanshu Gupta**