Influencer marketing is a 13.8 Billion U.S. Dollar industry. It is, as the name suggests, marketing that is carried out by influencers. This marketing method was not a thing some years back. But with the widespread use of the internet, people realized how famous people could promote a product and service, which would result in a business earning more profits.
First, let’s tell you who an Influencer is. An influencer is a person who can influence people with their knowledge and expertise in a field. They don’t necessarily have to have millions of followers. When this marketing channel was in its initial stages, brands & businesses preferred to promote their products and services by celebrities. Thankfully, that is changing now.
Influencer marketing is growing and is expected to grow a whole lot more in the coming years as more brands and businesses start having an online presence.
If you’re not familiar with Influencer marketing and how it can positively impact your business, then this blog is for you because we’ll highlight the benefits of Influencer marketing & how to find the right influencer. It is crucial to find the right influencer because otherwise, your business will bear serious consequences.
First, we’ll talk about the benefits, and then we’ll talk about how you can find the right influencer. When you know the benefits, only then will you want to make it a part of your marketing strategy.
So, without any delay, let’s begin.
Benefits Of Influencer Marketing
Builds Trust
When businesses decide they want to do marketing through influencers, it opens up various opportunities for them. The most prominent out of them all is trust. Many companies build consumer trust through different marketing channels, but we believe influencer marketing is the best way to do it.
Influencers affect their audience with their knowledge and authority in a niche. And when people feel they get some value from someone, they tend to trust them. The trust that influencers build from their audience gets transferred in everything they do.
So when they promote your products/services, their audience is more likely to believe the influencers and consider your products/services.
Not Forced
No one likes when a company tries too hard to promote their product. This pushy behavior by businesses can put off people who’d actually be interested in their products/services. Businesses that believe forcing their products and services on users is a good way are failing miserably.
But with Influencer marketing, the scenario is entirely different because people follow influencers by their own choice. No one forces them to follow an influencer. They do it because they get something valuable from influencers. The value could be in the form of information or entertainment.
So, when they promote your product, their audiences will happily check it out without feeling they are being forced into it.
Reaches your Target Audience
When you decide to promote your business through Influencer marketing, you first have to choose an influencer.
But how can you know which influencer to choose?
The process of choosing an influencer is totally dependent on your brand’s niche. You want to choose an influencer with authority in your niche (we’ll talk about this later in the blog). That will help you reach your target audience easily because the influencers would do the work for you.
And when the target audience comes to your website, the probability of them getting converted into customers would be higher than people who wouldn’t be interested in your niche. Also, only relevant people will land on your website. We recommend everyone to aim for quality over quantity.
More Traffic on your Website
We highlighted in the previous point that people would land on your website after seeing their favorite influencer promoting your product/service. Influencer marketing is an excellent way to drive more traffic to your website.
When you get more traffic on your website, search engines will identify that people are landing and spending time on your website. If you offer excellent products/services, people would non-hesitantly buy them.
We recommend you ask influencers to promote your best product/service. Then when users come to your website, they’ll have a choice to look at other products/services as well.
The audience that will land on your website will be in large numbers if you give some offer to the first 100 or 1000 people. Ask the influencer to tell people about the discount so that more people can visit your website in hopes of getting a deal.
Excellent for Small Businesses
Although there’s no rule as to which type and size of business can use Influencer marketing, it is beneficial for small businesses because of the massive boost they can get.
Today’s competition in almost every field is challenging, and audiences don’t want the second best. They only want the best. When you’re a small business, competing with established companies can become extremely tough.
If you’re a small business and want people to know about you, you can choose Influencer marketing because of the various benefits highlighted in the above points.
Let’s explain this with an example.
You’re a Skincare brand that is in its initial phases. You’ve seen the existing skincare products that are full of chemicals. And you want to bring a change to that by offering organic products made from natural ingredients. Although your business idea is excellent, it won’t gather much attention if people won’t know about it.
In the above example, influencer marketing will be a perfect choice for you as it will help you reach a broad audience.
How To Find The Right Influencer?
Now that you know the benefits of Influencer marketing, it is time to familiarize yourself with how you can find the right influencer. The influencer you choose for your brand must be competent because it determines how well your business will benefit.
Choose Platforms
The first step in finding an influencer is to narrow down the platforms you want to focus on. Obviously, an Instagram influencer that has a large audience may not necessarily have a presence on YouTube. So, choosing them for YouTube would be a bad option.
Moreover, some niches work best on certain platforms. For example, a brand in the gaming niche should find influencers on Twitch and YouTube rather than Facebook and Instagram. Knowing these small details like which niche works best on which platform is the key to excelling in this marketing method.
Know Your Budget
Once you’ve identified and chosen a platform, you have to identify and analyze how much you can spend on an influencer. It is crucial because you can’t choose an influencer that charges thousands of dollars per post, and the total budget you have for an entire month is nowhere near that number.
Doing this step is a must, and if you skip it, the influencer may abandon your business or brand midway. It will affect your marketing calendar and may even affect your reputation in the industry because influencers don’t work under anyone, so they’re quite vocal about the issues they face.
Decide Your Brand’s Goals
Do you want to sell your products directly or first engage the users with information and then sell? Do you want to target a younger or older audience? Do you want to reach a specific country or the whole world?
You must ask yourself these questions because an influencer won’t decide these things. You’re the one who’ll tell them to tailor their content a certain way that matches your brand’s goals.
Apart from the above questions, you also have to know the tone you want to use for your brand. If it’s a formal tone, the influencer will have to do some preparation, but if it’s informal, they can be themselves that people love and admire.
Analyze Influencer’s Previous Work
After completing the above three steps, you have to look at the influencers’ profiles. After all, you want them to represent your brand. You can’t pick someone who hasn’t worked in a similar industry in the past.
So, the best way is to check their feed and look for brand endorsements. Observe every post in which they promoted a similar brand to yours. You have to look at how they carry themselves and how they present the information. Does the brand endorsement look like it's forced, and does the influencer seem uninterested? If that’s the case, you have to choose someone else who loves doing their work.
We know this step can be time-consuming, but it’ll be worth the time and effort because if you rush the process, you’ll regret your choices later in the future.
Find How To Approach Them
You’ve chosen two to three influencers, and now what? The obvious step now is to know how you can approach them. Find out if you can directly approach them through Facebook & Instagram or their website (considering they have one).
Some influencers even have managers. If that’s the case with an influencer you want to choose, you’ll have to communicate with the manager and tell them all about your brand, frequency of posts, and the price.
Measure The Results
You’ve been working with an influencer for quite a while now. Like with every other marketing method, you have to analyze your brand's progress until now. If you don’t, it will be very hard to know the positives and negatives.
If you’re satisfied with the results, carry on with the same influencer. If not, you can choose a different one because there is no shortage of influencers. But remember, you will have to do some steps again.
Conclusion
With these amazing benefits & how to find the right influencer, we’re certain brands and businesses can now decide whether they want to choose Influencer marketing or not.
We know this is a rather new marketing method that not every brand is focusing on. But that doesn’t stop it from being good. Many big brands like Nike, Red Bull, and others rely heavily on Influencer Marketing. And we guess we don’t have to tell you how popular and trusted such brands are.
So, even if you’re skeptical now, we recommend you consider Influencer marketing for once because even you don’t know how it can change your brand’s position in the market.
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