Influencer marketing is a modern advertising technique that leverages the power of word of mouth to drive sales, boost brand awareness, and increase your business’s relevance and credibility.
It involves collaborating with individuals with a large and engaged following on social media. Their followers should include people you’d like to target and who may already be interested in your products and services.
A successful influencer marketing campaign with clearly defined goals and the right influencers on board can drive up to 11 times more ROI than other digital marketing campaigns. Let’s dive into everything you need to know to leverage the power of influencer marketing for your business.
Defining influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is an effective strategy that involves businesses partnering with individuals who have significant and engaged social media followings. These individuals typically have a huge network of followers who trust and value their opinions.
So, as a brand, you stand to gain when you pay them to promote your products and services. You may also need to give or lend them samples to try out and form authentic opinions so they may speak confidently about your offerings on their platforms.
Influencer marketing provides you access to niche target groups and segments of your audience that may typically be out of your reach.
3 types of influencers
Influencers may be categorized by their niche, influence, follower count, and the platforms they use.
The general categories of influencers include:
1. Celebrities
These are well-known public figures in traditional fields, such as sports, acting, or entertainment who leverage their fame and recognition to gain followers on social media.
They have a high level of visibility online and offline and will spark their audience’s interest in your products or services.
2. Social media influencers
These are individuals with a significant and engaged following on social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
They focus on various niches and their individuality makes their audiences value and trust their behaviors, opinions, and purchasing decisions.
3. Industry influencers
These are thought leaders who’ve gained credibility and influence within specific sectors and industries due to their contributions.
They shape trends and drive discussions in their respective fields. Finding ones who are aligned with your brand and perspective means they’ll shape people’s impressions of your business.
Another significant categorization of influencers is by the number of followers they have. Typically, the number of followers an influencer factors in when they’re drafting their rate cards.
The following table highlights the main types of influencers according to the number of followers they have.
| Influencer type | Number of followers |
| Nano influencers | 0 -10,000 |
| Micro influencers | 1000 – 100,000 |
| Macro influencers | 100,000 – 1 Million |
| Mega influencers | Over 1 million |
The benefits of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing boasts a variety of benefits provided you collaborate with the right influencers for your brand and set clear campaign objectives. It should not be used alone. Instead, it should be part of a well-thought-out and defined marketing strategy that aligns with your brand’s goals and values.
In the end, tracking the results ensures you run a successful and ROI-driven campaign.
Some of the key benefits your brand gets to enjoy from a successful influencer marketing campaign include:
- Enhancing brand awareness: Influencers make people who are outside your regular audience and followers aware of your brand and your offerings.
They also persuade audiences that already trust them to pay attention to what you’re offering and build positive associations with your brand.
- Boosting lead generation: Influencers generate leads for your business by giving endorsements and encouraging people to check out your website.
These numbers grow faster thanks to the greater engagement rates of influencer marketing commands. This means more people share and tag their friends who are interested in what you’re offering.
- Growing sales: Partnering with influencers to promote your products or services puts them in front of a wider and highly targeted audience that’s more likely to close sales.
Additionally, they’ll incentivize or create a sense of urgency during product launches or promotions and seasonal sales, which may significantly drive sales.
- Increasing trust and credibility: Buyers trust that their favorite influencers endorse products and services more authentically based on their real-life situations than traditional advertising.
So, when influencers share their experiences with your products or services, this acts as social proof for their audiences. This makes it easier for them to trust you and reduces any hesitation they may have about making the purchase.
- Tracking results easily: It’s easy to track the results driven by an influencer marketing campaign by tracking key ROI metrics such as clicks, conversions, and sales generated from each influencer. This allows you to determine the effectiveness of your investment and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.
The challenges of influencer marketing
While influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy that often performs better than other digital and traditional marketing strategies, there are a few challenges you need to be wary of. These include:
- Finding the right audience: This involves finding influencers who align with your brand values and garner engagement from your target audience. Otherwise, you’ll spend money and time on an unsuccessful campaign.
- Verifying audience authenticity: Before signing a contract with an influencer, you must perform due diligence. This helps ensure their audience is genuinely interested in their content and they’re not purchasing fake followers and engagement.
- Measuring results: Determining the impact and return on investment you’ll attribute to an influencer’s efforts may be difficult.
Boost your influencer marketing campaign success with Inbound Marketing Inc.
With marketing, you have to cast a wide net. But you don’t have to do it all yourself. Delegating to a company with the resources, experience, and expertise delivers a high ROI.
Influencer Marketing Inc. is an influencer marketing company that will help you generate more valuable leads with influencer marketing while saving you time and energy. We’ll help you create custom influencer lists, align your campaign to your marketing goals, and track your KPIs.
Contact us today or chat with one of our strategies by calling 888-675-9886 to learn more about how we’ll help your business scale with influencer marketing.