At DMA Solutions, rely equally on the value of influencer marketing as compared to social media marketing and email marketing. Our belief in the power of influencer marketing is so strong, that we highlighted it in our most recent Marketing Matters webinar: Insider Tips for Successful Influencer Marketing.
Do you include influencers as a part of your marketing strategy? We think you should.
There are a variety of ways to leverage influencers to drive success and achieve key marketing objectives. Several factors impact how an influencer campaign functions, but instead of focusing on those factors up front, we recommend creating your strategy based on your desired outcome(s).
Here are the outcomes we experience most often when we include Influencers into our marketing plan on behalf of our clients:
1. Earned trust and authority
When we’re shopping for something, a personal reference or a word-of-mouth recommendation is instantly more credible than an advertisement. Influencers earn that credibility. In fact, nearly two out of every three consumers say that they trust influencer messages about a brand more than a company’s advertising about their own brand. This aversion to brand messaging is rooted in distrust around traditional methods of advertising.
2. Buzz for your brand
Influencers are trend spotters and sharers. Influencers’ followers are expecting to be introduced to what’s “in”and what’s “new”. By aligning your brand with a trendsetting influencer, you position your brand as an innovative leader. Often, once we have an influencer post on behalf of one of our clients, we receive messages from other influencers and recipe developers on social media requesting potential partnerships. This interest further proves the value of influencer partners to reach larger audiences. AND it proves consumer interest in the products and brands that are being promoted.
3. Drives purchasing decisions
Depending on how you distribute your products, influencers can be beneficial in driving sales. More influencer campaigns today are aimed at driving tangible sales, which can be clearly tracked using custom links, landing pages and redemption codes. According to an Edelman Trust Barometer study, 58% of participants said they have actually purchased a product because of an influencer recommendation, in just the past six months. If you leverage influencers in this capacity, we’d love to hear how!
4. More authentic than a banner ad
Influencer marketing outweighs other advertising options. Audiences have become “blind” to standard ad placements as proven through an average click-through rate for display ads of 0.06%, which we found from Hubspot. Influencer marketing places your brand/product where audiences notice it – in authentic “user-generated” content.
5. Reaches audiences where they are
We know from our State of Social Media Marketing Matters presentation, that people spend an average of three hours on social media each day. When influencers promote a product or brand in their content, it allows for your brand to connect with audiences where they are – on social media.
6. High ROI
In a study by MediaKix, 89% say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. We see, at DMA, cost per impressions as low as $0.0002 per impression (“a fraction of a penny”)! And up to 25M+ impressions/month for some clients.
Starting with your goal in mind is crucial in creating and executing effective influencer campaigns. Do you leverage influencer marketing? If so, we’d like to hear how. If not, we’d love to hop on a free consultation call to discuss the benefits of leveraging this marketing resource for your brand!
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