What a time to be alive for marketers. Whereas 20 years ago TV and radio commercials were about as good as it got, now we have 19-year-old Instagram stars making millions with sponsorship deals from brands.
It might be a new and crazy trend for you, but influencer marketing is incredibly effective if done right. By finding influencers — bloggers, Instagram models, etc. — that have an audience that directly fits your brand, you can access a whole new group of people.
Here’s a few of the benefits that influencers have and what they can do for your company.
Awareness and traffic
This is probably the biggest reason to employ an influencer. Simply put, influencers are dealing with today’s most valuable currency: attention. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it well enough so that hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of people are tuning in to see what they have to say. With a paid marketing campaign, they can get all of those eyes on your brand.
Content generation
Businesses aren’t so great at creating content sometimes. Corporate-sounding blog posts and inauthentic Tweets easily sour people’s appetite for your brand. But independent influencers are great at creating content, because that’s what they do.
Put your products in the hands of the influencers and let them create. As long as you have a clear brief and contract, influencers can be like an in-house production team for a fraction of the cost.
Lead generation
What’s the goal of all this? To drive sales and lead people to your business.
It’s important to realise that influencers are only at the top of your sales funnel. They can help you access new audiences and get more recognition and clicks. But if your product isn’t that great, or your own website or social media pages aren’t up to par, it can be an entirely wasted effort.
That’s your fault. Make sure you have a clear sales funnel so that the influencer can hand the traffic off to you so you can generate leads.
Social media growth
Investing in the growth of your social media platforms is expensive and time consuming. But with influencers, it’s something that become much easier. When they tag your handle or hashtag, they’re going to bring more traffic to your social media profiles. It might be up to you to continue connecting and engaging with your new followers, but influencers can get them there in the first place.
Some businesses have seen massive returns on money invested in influencer marketing campaigns. But plenty others have flopped. Make sure you’re carefully choosing your influencer and finding one that aligns with your brand and vision.
Listen to my entire conversation with Danielle Lewis here.
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Author: Ronsley Vaz
Ronsley is the founder & chief day dreamer at AMPLIFY. He is an author, speaker & serial entrepreneur.
He has a Masters’ degree in Software Engineering and an MBA in Psychology and Leadership. He is known as the creator of We Are Podcast – the first Podcasting Conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and the host of The Bond Appetit Podcast and Should I Start a Podcast. He has an audience of over 3 million in 133 countries.