This is yet another reason to stick to the channels you’ve been using you trust, don’t you think? They may not produce dramatic outcomes, but at the very least they’re reliable, predictable and adequate.
The issue is “good enough” doesn’t always make a difference. In niches that are crowded with consumers it’s best to be bold and big. Sometimes it’s the only option.
The desire to be big and bold naturally drives marketers and their brands to a method which many aren’t convinced about influencer marketing.
Many marketers who are familiar in their field aren’t convinced by influencer marketing to say the least. They consider it to be an fad or a passing trend which could be helpful in certain circumstances, but isn’t the type of thing that could be used to support the multichannel marketing strategy.
It’s true, but it’s not true. The influencer marketing industry continued to expand throughout (and even beyond) the outbreak which led to the development of numerous new businesses amid an extremely difficult period for marketers. It’s also more sophisticated and data-driven than it’s ever been.
It’s never too late for them to take influencer marketing a new look. If you’re among the latter, here’s why ought to.
Influencer Marketing Is Relatively Hands-Off and Easy to Scale
Compared with marketing techniques that require marketers to do the creative process themselves or outsourcing it to highly paid experts the influencer marketing process is unsupervised and is easy to scale with a small budget.
Why? Because the most successful relationships with influencers give them the freedom to perform their best and that is to manage their own creativity. Hawke Media’s influencer marketing guide recommends marketers and brands to not “hold brand guidelines or preliminary concepts too dear” and avoid giving too much on creative direction. “Reasonable, small requests” are acceptable however you shouldn’t be required to dictate to influencers what they should do to be successful.
If you can get rid of the desire to be in control of the creative side of your influencer relationships you’ll realize that influencer marketing can be adaptable, offering more opportunities for scaling than you be able to figure out which ones to choose from.
Influencer Marketing Is Far More Professional Than People Realize (And So Are Influencers Themselves)
Most influencers put in a lot of effort at their job. They are professional, just like those they collaborate with.
This helps marketers’ work. Not just because influencers who are professionals are trustworthy and accountable, but because the formalization the influencer-marketing trade has led to an expectation and standards for each side of the agreements.
The most prominent example can be seen in the FTC’s decision in 2017 to set up official guidelines for the regulation of the influencer relationship in marketing (and different types of digital marketing relationships too). The FTC’s rules for transparency of influencer marketing are simple enough to adhere to and help filter out influencers who do not willfully adhere to rules. It’s a basic rule of thumb: If an influencer states that they’d rather not to follow the rules, don’t agree with them.
Influencer Marketing Spend Is Huge (And Growing)
HTML0Despite the recent professionalism of the field and rebranding, the influencer marketing expenditure is difficult to monitor. A lot of arrangements are insignificant terms of dollars and only last a few days with some involving only two or three items of content.
We can say with confidence that the size of the market in the field of influencer engagement is estimated to be in the billions, or perhaps the thousands of billions. This number is likely to increase as more companies take on the game of influencer marketing or make more investment the brands have already put in.
Brands Are Doubling Down on Influencer Marketing
Brands and marketers have a clear view of the potential of influencer marketing and are increasing their investment in the area in the coming decade. less than 40 percent of companies who have influencer marketing accounts have reported spending increases in 2018. In 2020, nearly two-thirds of them did.
This is a staggering rise in just two years, when you consider what was happening across the globe in the year 2020. Since marketers think between two and four years in the future when they make decisions such as this, they believe that there is a long-term benefit to cooperating with social media experts.
A Small But Significant Portion of Marketers Invest Primarily in Influencer Marketing
While they’re most often found in areas such as fashion and food however, it’s worth noting that nearly one-fifth percent of companies that invest in influencer marketing allocate the bulk part of their advertising budgets to this channel. This is a major vote of trust in the process and a signal to those who are skeptical about the concept that influencer marketing is a strategy that pays for itself in the form of a handsome profit.
Influencer Marketing ROI Is Off the Charts
How beautifully is that, you may ask?
According to an research study from White Wave Foods’ influencer marketing campaign The parent company behind Silk non dairy milk as well as other grocery brands that are well-known experienced an astonishing 11x return on investment when compared to traditional banner ads.
If you dig deeper into the numbers, the story becomes more captivating. The Silk influencer marketing campaign spent almost 300 more dollars on Silk items (per 1,000 people in the audience) over the group that was not. The households that were that were exposed to the campaign also purchased 10 percent more Silk products, too.
That’s right — influencer marketing does work. It’s here to stay.
Influencer Marketing Is Here to Stay. Why Not Use It?
Let’s repeat it for those who doubt it Influencer marketing will be around for the long haul. Be it you like it or not is a component of the digital web.
Utilizing influencer marketing’s influence doesn’t require abandoning everything else and accumulating the tens of thousands of faithful followers. You don’t even require an Instagram account for yourself, as long as you employ marketing professionals who know how it works and locate (or let them locate) influencers with audiences that coincide with your personal.
As we’ve seen, one of the advantages in influencer-based marketing is it’s easy to handle. Finding the best influencers requires time but they also perform a lot of tasks that other strategies need to be handled within the company.
Time to get rolling up your sleeves. There are people to influence.
