What You Should Know About Influence Marketing?

As more and more people become smarter about their shopping choices, marketing tactics have definitely been improved upon to accommodate this aspect. Smarter shoppers require smarter tactics and more businesses are exploring different modes of marketing that will allow them to get their products out in the limelight.

Among the various marketing tactics, influence marketing is one that has consistently yielded results. In fact, influence marketing has been able to improve the relationship between consumers and businesses. If you’re considering what influence marketing can do for your business, the following are a few things that you should keep in your mind:

What Is Influence Marketing?

One way through which many businesses tend to get their products out in the market is opting to work with someone who can influence the buyer’s decision to buy certain products. Most buyers now pay more attention to user reviews as well as product recommendations from people who have used it. In influence marketing, this aspect is targeted by deploying marketing tactics that amplify and utilize it.

Businesses rely on the use of various social media platforms, spokespersons and other material that utilize the word of mouth. This is one reason why businesses have also adopted a more personal approach. However, this aspect differs due to the fact that it has a more nuanced approach to it that ensures the success of the product being accepted into the target market.

Influence marketing is also different in the fact that a business has to build a relationship with a person that has considerable influence. In fact, this has become so commonplace now since many celebrities and more have a vast following of fans on different social media platforms and can reach out more easily.

For example: Nike endorses various influencers ranging from celebrities, sports athletes and other individuals it feels identify with their brand. However, when someone is involved in a certain controversy, Nike can choose to avoid affiliating with that particular person since it saves the company from backlash.

Benefits of Influence Marketing

Influence marketing has slowly become more popular over time and many businesses are able to increase their profits and brand awareness by making use of the new marketing technique. Working with the help of influence marketing has plenty of different benefits to yield. If you’re wondering what those are, take a look at the following:

• Better Reach – With influence marketing, it is possible to reach out to bigger and better target markets which can make your product marketing more effective. Many influencers have a huge amount of followers across the globe and on different social media channels. Oftentimes, this is beneficial for your business since you might not have access to such a large target audience that an influencer might have. This also makes it easier to get your hands on a newer target market since the influencers usually have such a large outreach.

Moreover, different influencers have their own strengths and weaknesses. Celebrities are the most popular ones because their fame gives them international access to different markets and they already have a Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat account. With their help, you can magnify your business’s overall reach.

• Enhanced Business Credibility – When businesses collaborate with different influencers, they are able to lend more credence to their product. In many cases, this helps to get rid of a large number of problems such as cynicism, skepticism and more. In such instances, the kind of influencer you are working with can help to improve this aspect.

However, this then means that the influencer is the one providing a guarantee regarding how great the product is. If the product doesn’t deliver on its promise, they are the ones that look bad.  In some cases though, the situation is reversed, in that a business might have to be careful regarding the celebrities they get to endorse their products. If they are involved in a scandal or some other controversial thing, the brand will also be in hot water because of it.

• Improved SEO Usage – As your reach and your credibility enhances, you business will be bound to get more traffic. To successfully convert this new influx of traffic, it is important to capitalize it with the help of better SEO. In this manner, when someone searches for your brand and website, they not only get better results, they will also get relevant ones with their help. With these, you’ll be able to popularly capitalize on the increased targeted traffic that influence marketing is bringing to your brand.

Moreover, you can also consider your images as well as your videos as part of the SEO content that you use since they can also be optimized to ensure that anyone can easily get more information about your brand. Be smart and start creating a link of information by using healthy SEO content that will improve your brand’s visibility on search engines.

• Increased Awareness of Brand – When you want to make sure that your brand reaches a global target audience and becomes more well-known, you need to have an influencer on board with you. In some cases, when there isn’t an obvious influencer around, you can make your own. This is obvious to see in McDonald’s use of a Mascot. Ronald McDonald could definitely be considered a part of their influence marketing strategy. With his help, they appealed to the youngerchildren and made Happy Meals more popular too.

With this, it is obvious to see that influencer marketing has a large number of benefits that it has to offer. The best part is that these benefits aren’t just theoretical or one has to work very hard to see them. You can easily start to experience these benefits when you’re working with influence marketing as well.

Examples of Influence Marketing

Now it’s another thing to read about their benefits and another to see them in action. For this reason, we’ve taken the time to note down some of the most noteworthy examples regarding the positive use of influence marketing.

• Sugar Bear Hair – A hair vitamin supplement that offered one the chance to look after their hair, nails and skin, Sugar Bear Hair are gummy vitamins. In an already saturated market, how do they make themselves stand out? By collaborating with a large number of influencers from different markets. They’re even endorsed by the Kardashian/Jenner’s which allowed them to enjoy a huge boost in sales as their product received international exposure. Featured on their Instagram as well as on their Snapchat stories, plenty of girls clamored to get their hands on the Sugar Bear Hair vitamins, pushing sales up for them.

• Old Navy – Known for their affordable clothing, Old Navy decided to boost their sales with the help of an influencer, mainly Meghan Rink to market their products for them. Featuring in a number of different posts on Old Navy’s Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, Rinks showed fans how to use various Old Navy items of clothing to style an outfit for any occasion such as holiday parties, corporate events, dinner out and more. Already known for her own lifestyle content and more, Meghan Rink has a total of 1.3 million followers on her Instagram whereas she has around 2 million subscribers on her YouTube Channel.

• Mac – MAC, the makeup brand is renowned for its use of beauty influencers and their network consists of bloggers, vloggers, makeup artists and more. In fact, they also collaborate with celebrities in order to create new products as well as use their influence to garner more attention for their products. One of the biggest ones is when they worked with Rihanna and reinvented ‘Ruby Woo’. The success of this product was so huge that it not only boosted the sales of the new lipstick, it brought Ruby Woo back into the limelight as well.

• PUMA – Fenty – Another brand which makes use of influencers, PUMA is known for their sports goods and accessories much like its other competitors such as Nike and Adidas. However, one of their best-selling collections is their Fenty’s that are made in collaboration with Rihanna. By involving her in the process, PUMA makes use of influencer marketing in a more organic manner. This also allows them to make use of the influence that Rihanna commands on all channels. With favourable reports and consistently selling out of these shoes, it is clear to see that this is working very well for a business. Rihanna’s influence is not only global, it also encompasses the music industry and her fans come from a vast market. With her help, PUMA can easily target a wider audience.

• Adidas – Yeezy – Much like PUMA collaborated with Rihanna, Adidas collaborated with Kanye West who launched his Yeezy collection with their help. Again, Kanye’s large following, as well as his influence, allowed him to boost sales for his Yeezy collection and it has reflected well for Adidas as well. Kanye has gone so far as to offer his shoes to other stars and celebrities of repute so that the buyers get to connect the shoes with people of quality. In this manner, sales for the shoes also get boosted when someone views them being worn by their favourite celebrities.

• Nike – Air Jordans – Nike can be held responsible for truly pushing influence marketing to new heights with the help of their Air Jordans which are still some of their best-selling shoes on the market. Crafted in collaboration with Micheal Jordan, the basketball superstar, the shoes have continued to sell well over the years, even after Jordan has retired from the game. Over the years, these shoes have gotten a fan following of their own with high costs and even higher resale value. Some people even consider them great investment options and their influence has only grown stronger over the years.

3 Factors to Keep an Eye On

You might be convinced to try influence marketing for your brand since it looks so simple and easy but there are a few things that you need to keep your eye on when you’re thinking of opting for it. By doing so, you can ensure that you don’t end up in deep water or in trouble when you’re working with someone else.

• Make Quality Content – Make sure that your content is ready for the sudden influx of people who will come when you’re using influence marketing. This is necessary in order to convert the traffic into viable sales. If you overlook this factor, you might not be able to take full advantage of the full of effect of your influence marketing strategy. In this manner, you won’t have to worry about anything. Trust in your content to yield the results you want.

• Guidelines of Social Media Platforms – Many celebrities have been at fault for posting or promoting a product on their social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook without disclosing that they’re being paid or working as influencers. For this reason, the influencer or the celebrity, as well as the business, have to make it crystal clear. The post should feature a disclaimer or a hashtag (#Ad) in order to disclose that they are actually promoting or selling a product.

• Influence of the Celebrity – Many influencers and celebrities are scrutinized and under the limelight that everything they say and do is always being evaluated. In some cases, this can cause controversy which can force the brands that they’re working with to consider the impact that they’re making. Influence marketing can work in both ways, allowing even negative attention to come on to the business that a celebrity is working with. In many cases, it is a good idea to review the reputation of the influencer properly before you decide to work with them.

Luckily, influence marketing is very simple and easy and you can easily ensure that your product succeeds with its help.