Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on leveraging individuals who have influence over potential buyers to drive awareness, engagement, and sales for a brand or product. Unlike traditional celebrity endorsements, influencer marketing utilizes people who have built a reputation for their knowledge, passion, and expertise on a particular topic. Brands collaborate with influencers to create sponsored content that promotes their products to the influencer’s audience.
How does influencer marketing work?
The goal of influencer marketing is to tap into the strong relationships and trust that influencers have built with their followers in order to influence their opinions, behaviors, and purchasing decisions. There are several key elements to how influencer marketing campaigns work:
- Identifying relevant influencers: Brands search for influencers who create content related to their industry or products and have an audience demographic that matches their target market.
- Building relationships: Brands reach out to potential influencer partners and establish a relationship built on trust and transparency regarding sponsored content expectations.
- Negotiating partnership terms: Influencer and brand agree upon partnership terms like content formats, deliverables, timelines, usage rights, and compensation.
- Creating and distributing content: Influencer develops content that organically integrates the brand and speaks to their audience in an authentic way.
- Measuring results: Brand tracks engagement, conversions, impressions, and other metrics to determine the ROI of the influencer campaign.
When done effectively, the sponsored content comes across as an authentic recommendation from someone the audience knows and trusts. This can lend the brand increased credibility and spur audience members into becoming customers.
What are the benefits of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing offers several advantages over traditional advertising for brands:
- Increased trust and credibility: Consumers trust recommendations from influencers more than brand messages. Nanigans found that consumers trust influencer recommendations 4x more than other forms of advertising.
- High engagement rates: Influencers create relevant content that resonates with their audience and elicits higher engagement levels than branded social media posts.
- Targeted reach: Influencers appeal to specific niche audiences, allowing brands to target their ads and reach precise demographics.
- Social peer endorsement: Consumers look to influencers for advice and recommendations on what products and services to buy.
- Brand awareness: Partnering with influencers expands a brand’s reach to new audiences and increases overall brand exposure.
- Sales: Influencer marketing is effective at driving website traffic, online sales, and conversions for brands.
What are the different types of influencer marketing?
There are several tiers of influencer marketing partnerships:
Celebrity Influencers
These are public figures like actors, athletes, musicians, and other A-list stars who have massive, expansive audiences. While they have incredible reach, celebrity influencer partnerships can be pricey and don’t always translate to genuine connections with the brand.
Macro-Influencers
Also known as mega-influencers, these are social media stars, bloggers, and content creators who have follower counts in the millions. They command high prices but can deliver big results.
Mid-Tier Influencers
These influencers have follower counts in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They are experts in their niche who build loyal followers around shared interests and deliver strong engagement.
Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have smaller followings under 100,000 followers. However, their followers are highly targeted and engaged. Micro-influencers provide an affordable way to generate impactful, niche content.
Nano-Influencers
Nano influencers have less than 10,000 followers but also foster more intimate communities with their fans. These hyper-targeted partnerships generate engagement through niche content.
What are some influencer marketing examples?
Here are a few examples of successful influencer marketing campaigns:
Daniel Wellington – Fashion Watch Brand
- Partnered with micro-influencers in photography, fashion, and lifestyle.
- Gifted influencers free branded watches and offered a 15% discount code.
- Influencers styled and featured the watch on their Instagram feeds.
- Campaign generated 4x higher engagement than standard ads.
- Brand saw a rapid rise in global sales and revenue.
SugarBearHair – Hair Vitamin Brand
- Enlisted the Kardashian/Jenner sisters as macro-influencers.
- Sisters shared their routine of taking the vitamins for hair growth.
- Posts earned over 3.1 million likes and 10k comments.
- Drove $300 million in revenue for the company in 2017.
Adidas – Sports Brand
- Partnered with macro-influencer Selena Gomez to design a collection.
- Gomez shared BTS photos from the design process.
- Campaign reached 169 million Instagram users.
- The collection sold out hours after launching.
Tentsile – Hammock Brand
- Sent free hammocks to outdoor adventure micro-influencers.
- Required influencers take striking photos of the product in use.
- User-generated content showed the hammocks in an authentic way.
- Sales increased by $2 million over 6 months.
What results can be expected from influencer marketing?
The results and ROI of an influencer marketing campaign can vary greatly depending on factors like the influencer chosen and call-to-action offered. However, partnering with properly vetted influencers often delivers:
- Increased brand awareness and positive sentiment
- Higher lead and sale conversion rates
- More website traffic from social referrals
- Greater engagement and reach
- Improved SEO rankings
Metrics that brands track to determine the success of influencer campaigns include:
Metric | Definition |
---|---|
Impressions | Number of times audience views content |
Reach | Number of unique users who view content |
Engagement Rate | Likes, comments, shares, divided by total impressions |
Click Through Rate | Users who click from post to site divided by reach |
Conversion Rate | Users who convert to sale or lead divided by reach |
Most marketing experts recommend partnering with micro-influencers over celebrity influencers. Micro-influencers are affordable, can post content frequently, foster high engagement, and clearly show ROI.
What are some best practices for influencer marketing?
Brands can maximize the impact of influencer campaigns by following these best practices:
- Set clear goals and KPIs – Have specific objectives like sales, traffic, impressions so you can track performance.
- Find influencers who genuinely connect with your brand – Don’t just focus on follower numbers, make sure the influencer is an authentic advocate.
- Build relationships don’t just transact – Take time to establish trust and rapport with influencers.
- Allow influencers creative freedom – The content will come across as more genuine if they have flexibility.
- Use influencer content across marketing channels – Repurpose influencer content on your website, social platforms, ads.
- Compensate influencers fairly – Don’t expect free promotions in exchange for “exposure”, pay them appropriately.
- Analyze performance and optimize – Track key metrics and continually refine your influencer strategy.
What do influencers charge?
Influencer rates vary greatly depending on the individual’s follower count, engagement levels, and industry demand. Some typical influencer pricing tiers include:
- Nano-influencer: $35 – $75 per post
- Micro-influencer: $75 – $250 per post
- Mid-tier influencer: $250 – $2,000 per post
- Macro-influencer: $2,000 – $10,000+ per post
- Celebrity influencer: $10,000 – $100,000+ per post
Factors beyond just follower count that impact pricing are content exclusivity, usage rights, platform, and more. Many influencers price packages at tiered rates for non-exclusive content, longer exclusive partnerships, or adding more platforms like Instagram stories, YouTube videos, etc.
There are also influencer marketing platforms like Upfluence, Hypetap, and NeoReach that provide tools for influencer discovery and campaign management, typically taking a 10-30% commission on campaigns run through their software.
How do you find influencers to work with?
Brands can use these strategies to find and vet potential influencer partners:
- Search relevant hashtags and locations – Discover influencers posting content related to your niche.
- Utilize influencer marketing platforms – Use software like Upfluence to filter influencers by audience and engagement.
- Filter by engagement metrics – Prioritize influencers with high engagement over raw follower count.
- Check out competitors – See who relevant brands partner with.
- Join influencer Facebook groups – Connect with influencers interested in collaborations.
- Verify credibility – Thoroughly vet engagement, audience quality, and brand fit.
The ideal influencer has an audience demographic, content topic focus, aesthetic, and brand values that align with your target market and campaign goals.
What are the risks associated with influencer marketing?
When executed poorly, influencer marketing carries some risks for brands, including:
- Lack of authenticity – Content comes across as fake or too promotional.
- Influencer loses audience trust – Through deceptive practices like fake followers.
- Negative brand associations – Influencer has a major scandal or controversy.
- Low engagement – Influencers with fake or disengaged followers.
- Ineffective tracking – Makes determining ROI difficult.
- Steep costs – Big celebrity influencers charge enormous sums.
Brands can mitigate these risks by thoroughly vetting potential influencer partners, setting clear expectations, monitoring campaign performance, and maintaining a diverse influencer network.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing can deliver huge value for brands in terms of reach, engagement, conversions, and sales. Partnering with the right influencers allows brands to tap into their follower base and credibility to drive awareness and interest in products authentically and effectively. With proper execution and optimization, influencer marketing can become a core channel in a brand’s digital marketing strategy.