Influencer marketing uses individuals with a sizable following to drive a new message to their target industry. Celebrities, athletes, and those with big social media followings are utilized to market services or products. Rather than addressing the customers directly, this strategy depends on people to inspire and get the word from the target marketplace.
Understanding influencer advertising comes as quickly as taking the word apart into both keywords: influencer being someone who affects, and marketing becoming the marketing of services and products.
3 Cases of Influencer Marketing
There are a lot of examples of influencer marketing on the market. We picked three that demonstrate how successful influencer marketing can be when done right. We also contained a few that demonstrate how even businesses with a smaller marketing budget may still succeed with influencer marketing.
Example #1: My Tales of Whiskey
This movie is from My Tales of Whisky–a effort by Lagavulin, a whiskey company. They even won a Shorty Award for Best Influencer & Celebrity Campaign for this video, and it’s clear why!
The movie stars Nick Offerman, otherwise known as his character, Ron Swanson, of Parks and Recreation fame. His persona in said series is significant to the achievement of this video, as Swanson is depicted as a tough, manly, whisky-drinking personality.
The video itself is nearly 45 minutes in length, also reveals Offerman sitting at a large armchair in a rustic room complete with a crackling fireplace, and whisky glass ahead. He stares deeply into the cameradeadpan, while sometimes taking a sip from his glass. That is all it is, for 45 minutes–no words, no nothing, only a guy and his whisky.
The humor in this, combined with the right influencer for the brand, made the campaign go viral. It has nearly 3.2 million views and almost forty million enjoys.
Example #2: The Retree Project from Boxed Water
Another case of a campaign that was exceptionally successful is the Retree Project –a philanthropic campaign in partnership with the National Forest Foundation. The assumption is that: Boxed Water will plant two trees for each Instagram post that comprised Boxed Water and included the hashtag #Retree.
With this endeavor, they sought the help of influencers on Instagram, one of them being Aidan Alexander. Alexander is a societal media star who, like many influencers, is mainly famous for getting a slew of followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
In the time of this campaign, Aidan had over half a million subscribers around Instagram, far more than the 53,000 Boxed Water had. Throughout the effort, Boxed Water managed to increase its reach exponentially, while boosting the preservation of their environment. Ultimately, the effort was able to plant nearly 74,000 trees, and greatly increase their brand recognition.
Example #3:”Frequent Women” Campaign
Another firm benefitting from influencer marketing is the Manhattan-based startup Glossier–recently named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2017.
The attractiveness brand owes its nearly overnight fame to their own network of micro-influencers, as they rely on”regular women” to discuss their skincare and cosmetics lines. Though these women do not have that many followers by themselves, when you put together hundreds of women posting about the product, the potential reach grows exponentially.
They recently launched a referral program to let their bigger-name followers offer discounts on their goods, in addition to other incentives, to their next, thus spreading the word about the brand even further.
Source: Quartz
4 Steps to Getting Started with Influencer Marketing
The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so it is important that to keep on top of the newest marketing trends. Now that you know what influencer marketing is, and how it can help boost your brand, here is how to get started:
Measure #1: Know Your Audience
Before you decide who must carry your message, then you have to fully understand your audience . This will help you pick the right influencers that’ll be able to reach them. By way of instance, if your intended audience is men ages 35-65, you probably wish to go with someone from the sports world versus the beauty industry.
Measure #2: Find the Right Influencers
Find people in your niche who will be great endorsers of your own brand. There are lots of ways to begin it, which range from searching through interpersonal media to going into marketplaces for influencers, such as Tapinfluence and Webfluential.
There is also the choice of using influencer discovery tools, like BuzzSumo. Using this application, you can input words which represent your effort, and the instrument will generate a listing of people already influential on the topic.
This ought to give you a long list you will have to narrow down. Collect information on your top choices and make a checklist of what you’re looking for in an influencer.
Observe how their audiences respond to them, and how they respond to their own audiences. Figure out if they promote any other brands, and if they do, then ask yourself what type of brands they’re. Everything that checks out on this list will help you in finalizing your picks.
Additionally, try not to get too worked up about the number of followers they have. While the amount could be significant, at times it isn’t the quantity so much as it is the quality that is required; if your prospect followers anticipate them, then you are going to be getting great results with your endorsement when it happens!
Step #3: Build a Relationship
Now it is time to actually connect with the influencers! Follow them on social networking, comment on their posts, and share things they create with your followers. Do not stress them out with an immediate pitch. You are attempting to make a fantastic impression– to influence your influencer into enjoying you and your brand.
Feature them in a blog post to boost their following; show your appreciation that they do what they do. This is a great way to get noticed, contributing to you forming a relationship with them. The upcoming steps depend on advertising to your influencer to make them promote for you, which will require some time and consideration.
Step 4: Get Your Campaign Rolling & Measure Results
As soon as you’ve built a relationship, you are able to go into your own pitch. Reach out through social media or email and ask if they would be prepared to post about your product. If they will do it in exchange for a free solution, ask where to ship the sample to. Should they desire payment, then make certain to work out the facts before the campaign starts. We’ll discuss more about prices in the next section.
An advantage of influencer advertising is that you can readily measure involvement, which means that you can merely examine the article to see how many enjoys, comments and shares it obtained. This gives you a good idea of if you want to work with the same influencer again later on.
How Much Can Influencer Marketing Price?
The expense of influencer marketing can vary from $0 to upwards of $200,000 for a single post. The cost generally depends upon how many followers an influencer has, and the number of likes, shares and opinions their posts usually get.
A few small influencers may work for your brand free of charge so as to gain a complimentary product or simply update their portfolio. This sort of influencer marketing is earned. This involves developing relationships with social networking users to get them talking about your own brand.
On the flip side, stars such as the Kardashian sisters can bill $200,000 upfront to get one picture. This is known as paid influencer advertising. It can be quite effective because actors tend to have countless followers, but of course it’s more expensive.
For businesses with smaller advertising budgets, we advocate building a connection with your influencers and get them talking about you. The cost is far more scalable, the outcome signal is more sincere, and even though it may require more time and effort, it’s a true factor that could drive your success in a more permanent fashion.
You can do this by sending them free samples of your product, or perhaps offering to feature the influencer on your site. If you offer something that will raise the influencers recognition, it is more probable that they will post on your behalf at minimal to no cost.
Is Influencer Marketing Right For Your Business?
There is no denying that the favorable ramifications influencer marketing can have in your business. In particular, it provides the following benefits:
- Founded on hope. Trust is a precious money in the realm of marketing. It is possible to benefit from the confidence influencers have made from their constituency to promote your business.
- Penetrates a market. The actual strength of influencer marketing is depth rather than breadth. You want your new to greatly influence a niche market instead of shallowly across a broad market.
- Can be cost-effective. Efforts are now able to get media attention without needing a huge investment of resources — so long as you’re able to form relationships with the influencers.
Perhaps you have determined you to test out influencer advertising yet? It’s time to spread awareness of your brand through influencer advertising!
