The Beginner’s Guide to Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is projected to become a $15 billion market by 2022. If you haven’t evaluated influencer marketing as part of your larger marketing strategy yet, now is a great time to start. Influencers can be used to share your brand’s story in a powerful way — by reaching millions of people who have yet to connect with your brand. Brands with existing influencer marketing partnerships generate success through customer acquisition, brand awareness, and significant ROI.

Influencer marketing builds brand credibility, benefits your SEO strategy, and most importantly, drives conversions. This guide will give you a deeper look at whether influencer marketing is right for you.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of word-of-mouth advertising, one of the most powerful forms of advertising to date. According to Forrester research, 65% of marketers said their online influencer budget would grow by 10% to 100% in the coming 12 months. ROI is one of the biggest factors for why brands are incorporating influencer marketing into their budget.

Every successful marketer factors in how to maximize ROI when investing in marketing spend. Influencer marketing yields 11 times the ROI of online display ads, it’s no surprise that more marketers are investing in influencer marketing. The customer lifetime value (CLV) of an influencer is what contributes to the success of influencer marketing. Influencers like to work with brands who align with their style and personality. When brands enter into partnerships with influencers, that influencer becomes either a new or more frequent customer.

When calculating the CLV of an influencer, you also have to factor in the value of the customers they bring in. If an influencer with one million followers generates interest in your product to just 1% of their followers, that’s 10,000 purchases from a single influencer. This creates a domino effect. That 1% of your influencer’s audience will now share your brand to friends and family, generating even more customers. Just a small investment into an influencer can have major returns – no wonder influencer marketing is growing exponentially.

Is Influencer Marketing Right for your Brand?

Although influencer marketing is proven to have a great ROI, it’s still important to evaluate whether it’s right for your brand. If you answer yes to two or more of the questions below, influencer marketing might be a good fit for your brand in 2020.

• Do you need to generate more brand awareness?
• Do you want to create a community of brand loyalists?
• Are there influencers in your target market?
• Do you have a way of actively monitoring your social media presence?
• Do you need to develop more content?

The proper influencer strategy can help you build a larger community of brand loyalists. Understanding the evolution of influencer marketing can help you execute influencer campaigns successfully.

A New Era of Influencer Marketing in 2020

Influencer marketing originated from businesses using celebrities or well-known figures to promote their brand. In fact, Santa is considered to be one of the first influencers in 1931 when he was featured for the Coca-Cola campaign! Nowadays, the landscape of influencer marketing has grown to become very complex. This has led to a change in how brands want consumers to view influencers.

Consumers now view authenticity and credibility as one of the most important factors in their buying process. Consumers want to connect with brands that use genuine and relatable influencers. This has set the stage to where now anyone can be utilized as an influencer. This includes macro-influencers, micro-influencers, and non-influencers.

Which Type of Influencer is Right For You?

• Micro-influencers –  Micro-influencers are people with 10,000 or more followers. Micro-influencers can generate more engagement than influencers with large followings. Consumers can easily relate to micro-influencers. 61% of people find information from ‘a person like me’ to be credible or very credible. Implementing a micro-influencer marketing strategy is cost-effective and builds brand credibility with specific audiences.
• Macro-influencers – Macro-influencers have a following of 500,000 or more followers. One of the largest benefits to using macro-influencers for your campaign is that they reach a broad audience. In comparison to micro-influencers, macro-influencers reach 22 times as many people. Because macro-influencers are experienced, you can expect to receive higher-quality content and professionalism. If your main goal is to maximize brand visibility and awareness, enlisting macro-influencers for your campaign is the way to go.
• Non-influencers – Many brands are diversifying their brand ambassadors with non-influencers, who have 10,000 or less followers. Similar to micro-influencers, these smaller influencers provide high engagement and are credible. Non-influencers give you the option to work with more influencers and are also flexible with compensation. They’re more likely to provide and post content for your brand in exchange for free products. Non-influencers are an affordable way to start the beginning stages of an influencer marketing strategy.

The connection between brands and influencers is evolving into long-term relationships. Brands want consumers to view their influencers as brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors are your brand’s personal cheerleaders. They are passionate about your brand, love your products, and want to help spread the word for you. Long-term relationships give your brand the ability to build a stronger connection with influencers, in comparison to using influencers on a per-campaign basis. Genuine relationships with your influencers are the building blocks to success. This creates a foundation for meaningful content, brand loyalty, and consistent engagement.

Along with long-term relationships, brands are carefully evaluating their choice of influencers. Consumers will not interact with influencer content if it’s perceived as inauthentic. It’s important to think of whether the influencer you choose aligns with your brand, messaging, and values. If your brand is in the fitness industry, it’s important to look for influencers who are passionate about health and fitness.

This is not to say brands can’t partner with influencers who may be out of their industry. It just needs to be done right. Stride Gum partnered with hip-hop artist DJ Khaled, also known as the “King of Snapchat” to promote its “Mad Intense Gum”. DJ Khaled’s Snapchat videos each generate over 3 million views on average. A well thought out influencer marketing strategy that’s creative results in boosted brand awareness to new audiences.

The Benefits of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing can take your brand’s content marketing strategy to the next level. Consumers engage with content through various channels including Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and Tik-Tok. Each social media platform has different forms of content that consumers interact with, whether it’s video or pictures. By collaborating with influencers who can provide valuable social media content, your in-house marketing team can save time and money. By enlisting influencers throughout these different platforms, you can efficiently reach a wider audience. In addition to social media, influencer content can be repurposed for other marketing collateral. Leverage your content market strategy by repurposing influencer content for advertisements, website content, emails, and more.

Influencer marketing can elevate your SEO strategy through building authority and more content. Link-building is one of the most valuable factors for a strong SEO strategy. Working with credible influencers who publish content that links back to your site will directly increase your rankings. Your brand can consistently use influencer marketing to generate unique and relevant content, which is critical for a strong SEO strategy.

Tips for a Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy

1. Proper execution is key to a successful influencer marketing strategy. Once you’ve done the research to find the right influencers for your brand, it’s time to reach out. Whether it’s through email or their social media profile, it’s best to have a standard template that can be adjusted to each influencer. Give them a brief introduction to your brand, explain why they’re a great fit, and discuss your proposal.
2. Next, it’s important to track and measure your influencer marketing campaign. It’s vital to make sure that you’re monitoring all content on every social media platform. This can be tricky, especially if you’re using multiple influencers. Using an automation tool is a simple way to manage all your campaigns. Chatmeter’s Social Suite gives your brand oversight on social media platforms to measure campaign success. Our Social Suite provides access to all conversations happening around your brand in one centralized dashboard. Engaging with your influencers and audience generates more social impressions and strengthens relationships.
3. By now you’ve gone through all this effort to enlist influencers. It’s important to make them feel valued by engaging with them online. Through Chatmeter’s media tracking tools, you can ensure that all content posted from your influencer campaigns are on brand. Whether it’s an Instagram post or a Google image, all visual content related to your brand can be seen with Chatmeter’s Media tracking tools. Analyzing your influencer marketing campaign is easy with a tool like Chatmeter’s Social Suite.

Influencer marketing can generate thousands of new customers to your business. Now that you have a better understanding of the value of influencer marketing, it’s time to put together your own influencer marketing plan. Don’t forget to check out how Chatmeter’s Social Suite can take your brand’s influencer marketing strategy to the next level with our free demo.