The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing and How Powerful it is to Give Your Brand a New Push

Is your brand’s influence faltering? As more and more companies try to get ahead, influencer marketing has emerged as one of the best ways to promote your content to the right people. It is considered that influencers (Key opinion leaders – KOL) are surrounded by an aura of authenticity. Therefore, they are more trusted than any other marketing tool.

How do you know whether influencer marketing is right for your business? What’s the best way to find influencers who will have a positive impact on your brand? And can it really help you with your marketing strategy or is it just another buzzword? Your answers are here in this complete guide for everything you need to know about influencer marketing.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on using key opinion leaders to drive your brand’s message to the larger market. They are third-party influencers—people who have large audiences on social media—to promote a product or brand.
Not surprisingly, 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing in their campaigns, and it’s now considered a key advertising strategy.

Different from traditional advertising, in this tactic, the message is delivered by someone outside of the company, rather than by the company itself. Also, rather than targeting a large group of people, influencer marketing targets individuals with a large following who can reach many people with their endorsement.

It is an effective way to reach a large audience because people trust the opinions of their peers. This type of marketing has proven to be more effective than traditional advertising and has been utilized by major brands such as Nike, Coca-Cola, and Apple.

In order to be successful, influencer marketing requires careful planning and execution. You need to identify the right influencers for your brand and craft messages that will resonate with their followers. If done correctly, influencer marketing can be an extremely effective way to reach a large number of people with your message.

How effective is influencer marketing?

There’s no doubt that influencer marketing is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolkit. But how effective is it really?

A recent study by eMarketer found that influencer marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing, with 84% of marketers saying it’s been effective for them. And, according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s study, Influencer marketing generates $5.20 for every $1 spent. That’s a pretty impressive return on investment!

But while influencer marketing may be effective, it’s not a magic bullet. It needs to be used strategically, in conjunction with other marketing initiatives, in order to be truly successful.

How to find suitable influencers?

There are different types of influencers in the market. Some may be more popular than others and some may have a wider reach than others. But, all influencers have their own unique niche that they cater to, which makes them valuable for any kind of campaign or promotion. Influencers can be categorised as below:

• Nano influencers: between 1,000 and 5,000 followers
• Micro-influencers: between 5,000 and 20,000 followers
• Power or mid-tier influencers: between 20,000 and 100,000 followers
• Mega influencers: between 100,000 and 1 million followers
• Celebrities: more than 1 million followers

An example of using celebrities: Maserati x David Beckham

A popular industry using mid-tier influencers or macro-influencers is hospitality. Brands will invite influencers to visit the restaurants, try the new food and make a review video. This is a great strategy for local restaurants with a limited budget, but the results are outstanding.

There are a number of ways to find suitable influencers for your brand. One way is to use an influencer marketing platform, which can help you identify relevant influencers based on factors such as your target audience, budget, and goals.

Another way to find suitable influencers is to search for them yourself on social media. Look for people who have a large following and who regularly post about topics related to your industry. Once you’ve found some potential influencers, reach out to them and see if they’re interested in working with you.

How to measure influencer marketing?

There are a few key ways to measure the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaigns:
1. Reach: How many people did your influencer reach with their content? This can be measured by looking at the number of views, likes, comments, and shares on their posts.
2. Engagement: How engaged were the people who saw your influencer’s content? This can be measured by looking at the percentage of people who liked, commented, or shared the post.
3. Sentiment: What was the overall sentiment of the comments on your influencer’s post? This can be positive, negative, or neutral.
4. Click-Through Rate (CTR): How many people clicked on a link in your influencer’s post? This can be measured by looking at the number of clicks on a link divided by the number of views on the post.
5. Conversion Rate: How many people completed the desired action after clicking through from your influencer’s post? This could be subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a white paper, or making a purchase.

The following statistics can be used as the benchmark for brands to measure the effectiveness of their influencer marketing campaign:

The engagement rate of nano-influencers with fewer than 5,000 followers is the highest (5%) (Hype Auditor 2020). This number decreases when the number of followers increases. 47.3% of influencers on social media are micro-influencers with 5,000—20,000 followers. Obviously, gen Z is most likely to respond to influencer marketing efforts.

What You Should Consider When Working with Influencers

When it comes to influencer marketing, there are a few key things you should keep in mind in order to make the most of this powerful tool. Here are a few things to consider when working with influencers:
1. Their audience. Make sure the influencer you’re working with has engaged and matched your brand’s target audience. There’s no point in working with an influencer with a massive following if their audience isn’t interested in what you’re selling.

2. Their reach. In addition to having a relevant audience, you also want to make sure the influencer has a good reach, meaning they have the ability to reach a large number of people with their content.

3. Their engagement. Another important factor to consider is the engagement level of the influencer’s audience. An influencer with a large but unengaged audience is not going to be as effective as one with a smaller but more engaged following.

4. Their tone and style. When it comes to the actual content that the influencer produces, you want to make sure it aligns with your brand’s tone and style. There’s no point in working with an influencer whose aesthetic doesn’t fit with your own.

5. Their vision for working together and your budget. Once you’ve found a few influencers that fit your brand’s standards, it’s time to reach out and work out what kind of relationship you could have with them. You should be clear about the goals of your partnership, how long you’re looking to work with them and what you’re willing to spend on their services.

Influencer marketing is here to stay and it’s one of the best channels for brands. When all brands are competing for customers’ attention, authenticity is what influencer marketing can bring to the brand and win the customers’ trust.

Contact Intelligence4Start for the right marketing strategy customised for your brand.