What Is Influencer Marketing? How To Create An Effective Strategy?
Influencers, the social media sensations, have transformed the shape of digital marketing in the past decade. With their large and engaged followings, they inspire people to buy a certain product or service and make them feel positive about a particular brand, shaping consumer behaviour and brand perception.
Influencers have got things so easy that companies like Sugar cosmetics and Boat utilises these content creators to inspire their audience through social media personalities.
To know who these subject matter experts are, read our 'who is an influencer' article.
With this authority, Influencer marketing leverages the power influencers carry, allowing brands to reach their target audiences through trusted voices. The expansion of influencer marketing has shown no symptoms of stopping, by the end of 2024, it is estimated to reach over $24 billion and is presumed to follow the trend of going up at a terrific pace. (Statista)
It doesn’t stop there. In 2024, over 60% of brands are planning to increase their influencer marketing budget, which explains the fact vividly that this strategy is a key element of the current marketing mix.
Now that we have gotten a gist of the market landscape and how it’ll continue to thrive, let’s deep dive into what it exactly is and its strategies.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a partnership between brands and social media influencers to advertise the brand’s product or service, aiming to raise brand awareness, increase traffic, boost visibility or promote sales.
In fact, this gives brands an upper hand as it enables them to create consumer trust, life-long relationships, and generate more sales by capitalising on the influencer’s already-gained credibility and reach.
Initially, influencer marketing first emerged in the form of celebrity endorsements. But, in the modern digital era, social content creators with niche-based followings work wonders and provide brands with additional value.
These influencers have the ability to connect with a niche audience that trusts their opinions and recommendations, making their endorsements highly effective. By collaborating with influencers who cater to specific demographics or interest groups, brands can customise their message to resonate more deeply with potential customers.
The result of the directed marketing technique is not only that the engagement is improved but also that the audience, those who are most likely interested in the brand’s products or services, will receive the marketing messages.
Overall, let’s look at some influencer marketing statistics that highlight its growing importance in the digital age.
Important Influencer Marketing Statistics 2024
- 58% of brands are using AI technology for sourcing the right influencers for their campaigns, while 18.6% use it for sourcing and distributing relevant content. (Statista)
- 75% of people use social media for purchasing advice.
- 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations (Matter Communications)
- 60% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget this year
- Influencer marketing campaigns earn $5.78 for every dollar spent.
- 85% of marketers state that influencer marketing is helping them with their customer acquisition efforts.
- About 25% of brands declared to allocate more than 40% of their entire marketing budget for influencer marketing campaigns.
Influencer marketing aims to leverage the trust and credibility that influencers have built with their followers to promote a product or service authentically and engagingly. But how does influencer marketing actually work? Let's learn more about it.
How Does Influencer Marketing Work?
Influencer marketing is among the most effective methods to expand your brand's online visibility and engage with your target demographic. In essence, it is considered a by-product of social media marketing.
A brand, an organisation, or a person can all have an influence. By using these influencers to promote your products or services, you may reach a wide range of audience, increase brand recognition, and improve the lead generation process.
Influencers' wide reach and engagement on social media platforms amplify brand visibility, which helps attract new customers and, most importantly, reinforces brand loyalty among existing ones.
Let’s take an example of a brand to understand how influencer marketing works.
Victoria’s Secret opened new stores in Bangalore and Pune in the Phoenix Mall. Under the supervision of the best Influencer marketing Agency, Grynow, they initiated an awareness campaign to inform people about the new store launch.
They selected influencers from the Fashion category, specifically focusing on individuals from Bangalore and Pune to target the audience of these specific cities.
There were 10 influencers involved in the campaign, which gained an average of 9.2 million views. This highly boosted awareness of the store, attracting visitors, which led to a high increase in footfall.
With this example, we understand the profound impact influencer marketing can have on businesses. By partnering with relevant influencers in the said category, the brand effectively reached and engaged with their target audience which resulted in enhanced brand awareness and increased visibility.
This method of influencer marketing takes advantage of the trust and credibility associated with influencers, leading to higher engagement and a genuine connection with potential customers.
Now that we have understood how exactly influencer marketing works for brands, let's move forward to learning about how to create an effective influencer marketing strategy that will help you achieve your marketing objectives.
How To Create An Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy?
Before we discuss the strategy-making process in detail, let me give you a quick gist about it.
When designing an influencer marketing strategy for brands, you should consider several detailed factors to make sure your strategy is developed effectively.
- Be structured, create a plan, allocate a budget, develop a strategy, and invest time in research.
- Determine your strategy for identifying influencers: look for them organically, join a network, or hire an agency.
- Be kind and compassionate; remember that people are speaking to people, not businesses are talking to businesses.
In addition, an effective influencer marketing strategy is essential for brands to reach and engage with their target audience successfully. It can increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately increase sales.
Now, let’s talk in detail about these core strategies to gain a full-fledged understanding of the process and help you build an influencer marketing strategy.
1. Determine The Objectives Of Your Campaign
You can establish the necessary objectives by articulating your approach's desired outcome and working towards it. To achieve this, brands must set clear goals and KPIs to ensure that campaigns align with the overall marketing objectives.
Your strategy's success metrics will be determined using your objectives as guidelines. They will assist in keeping your campaign on the right path.
The objectives of an influencer marketing campaign are usually context and brand-specific. Nonetheless, your desired objectives should be the focus of your influencer marketing campaign.
Determining the objectives will pave the way to:
- Create brand awareness
- Establish brand identity
- Build Brand Authority
- Build interaction and engagement
- Assisting in lead generation
- Gaining & Retaining new customers
2. Determine Your Target Audience
For implementing a successful influencer marketing strategy, it is necessary to determine who your target audience is! To use influencer marketing effectively, you must talk to the appropriate audiences while utilising the appropriate tools and influencers.
You may determine the success and efficiency of any influencer campaign by accurately categorising and recognizing your audience. After you have established your marketing objectives, you need to know your target audience. Conduct market research to understand your audience’s preferences, interests, demographics, pain points, sentiments, etc.
Making sure you know who you are attempting to target is simple by creating audience personas. Whether your goal is to connect with more of your present audience or a whole new one, develop a set of influencer personalities that correspond after you have chosen your target demographic. It will assist you in understanding the attributes you seek in your influencers.
3. Identify The Relevant Influencers
Identifying relevant influencers for your campaign is extremely important—emphasis on extremely. You need to conduct thorough research and have the perfect influencer; otherwise, your campaign will collapse in no time.
If you desire to develop an effective influencer marketing campaign, you must find out who has the respect and attention of your target audience. But that’s just not it. There are numerous things to keep in mind when you are scouting for influencers.
You need to consider the influencer’s values, ethics, and style and ensure that they align with your brand’s values. A wrong move from a wrong influencer can ruin your brand’s reputation.
Additionally, brands must assess the quality of influencers' content to make sure it’s engaging as well as authentic. A high interaction rate indicates a dedicated following instead of an exaggerated follower count boosted by bots and fraudulent accounts.
Therefore, it’s essential to conduct fake followers and bot assessment to ensure genuine audience engagement. While you are at it, be sure to evaluate influencers' previous campaign performance to measure effectiveness.
4. Select a Campaign Type
Choosing the campaign type that fits best for your audience and influencers is an important aspect of the success of your influencer marketing campaign. Note that different types of campaigns are designed for specific goals.
For example, Sponsored content, where influencers create and share content that features your brand, is great for raising brand awareness and introducing your product to the audience as the influencers’ followers follow them for some reasons.
Product reviews and unboxing help create trust through influencers’ honest opinions, and giveaways and contests are great for boosting engagement and getting in front of the audience’s eyes all the time.
Event coverage allows you to take your live event’s reach to a broader audience, and social media takeover helps get fresh perspectives by allowing influencers to directly communicate with your audience.
Aligning the campaign type with your marketing goals and the influencer's strengths ensures maximum impact and return on investment (ROI).
5. Set A Reasonable Budget For The Campaign
Setting a budget is crucial since it informs your content creation and distribution choices. For instance, if you have a tight budget, you can work with an individual influencer rather than an agency.
Moreover, choosing how you will pay your influencers is a fantastic time. Some influencers are okay with getting paid for complimentary services and products. Each influencer marketing campaign is unique based on how you will pay for the campaign and the resources needed.
Establishing this budget for the campaign will help you identify how much you can allocate towards influencer marketing.
6. Create a Content Plan
Once you are done with finalising the topic by considering the choice of your target audience, the next step is to create a practical content plan.
You should create a well-coordinated content sequence that will appeal to your intended audience. Building a content calendar is a wonderful idea as you establish what content you need to produce by what dates.
Carefully consider the content areas you wish to address. You may identify the finest influencers to use for distributing specific kinds of content at this time. In some circumstances, you can hire individual influencers to produce tailored content they can distribute at predetermined moments during your campaign.
Your content may be planned and coordinated using a content calendar. Moreover, it enables you to fit content production and editing around the calendars of your influencers and anybody else you might collaborate with. Make an effort to guarantee that you plan for at least a month.
7. Choose The Social Networking Platform That You Wish To Utilise
The use of all social media platforms increased during the epidemic, which is a positive development. However, you might have witnessed the rise in usage of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc.
Each platform has its own unique audience demographics, content formats, and engagement styles. Consider where your target audience spends their time and how they interact with content. Align the platform's strengths with your campaign goals to ensure your message reaches the right people in the most engaging way.
The appropriate platform depends on your target audience and the type of content you are advertising. For instance, LinkedIn would continue to be your finest platform if you advertise a product or service for professionals, while Instagram is ideal for visual content and reaching younger audiences.
8. Write Compelling Content For Your Campaign
The next step is to develop engaging content after choosing the platform and campaign type. Consumers will get uninterested if your messaging or content fails to pique their attention, regardless of how fantastic your campaign or product-market fit is.
Make communicating your message with your influencer as simple as you can. Your influencer can easily promote your business to your audience if your messaging aligns better with your audience.
9. Monitor Your Success
Monitoring the performance of your collaboration is essential to ensuring that all expectations have been fulfilled and determining the campaign's success. Monitor website traffic, user interaction, conversions, and any other metrics you choose while deciding on your marketing objectives and optimise it if necessary.
Based on the nature of your campaign, you can verify the statistics weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Evaluate your original objectives to see what worked well and how to replicate it.
Influencer collaborations have much room to grow for a high return on investment (ROI). Thus, monitoring whether and how your influencer content outperforms your non-influencer content is crucial.
After your campaign, you should contrast your actual ROI with your goal. After achieving your goal, it is time to reassess everything and launch a new campaign with a greater goal. If you didn't achieve your goal, carefully examine the situation to identify what went wrong. Consider your options and alter your upcoming campaign to see if you can boost your performance.
Wrapping Up
Influencer marketing will not lose its appeal anytime soon. So, if you’re a brand looking for an affordable and efficient way of online marketing to win new customers, the idea of influencer marketing is worth attempting.