Whether you like it or not, every brand is constantly on the mission of increasing their brand awareness, it’s just one of the many costs of doing business. Luckily, money aside, this can be one of the more fun things you can get involved with, in contrast to all the behind the scenes work you do. It’s certainly one of the most visible aspects of your company.
The eternal question is always, how do you get more well-known and recognized? Additionally, how can you make sure it’s organic and feels authentic.
Enter influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is kind of all the rage nowadays. Brands big and small look to collaborate with experts, celebrities and noisemakers in their niche to lend an air of authenticity to and legitimacy to their marketing. Something that feels a little less corporatized, so to speak, and therefore a little easier to trust.
What Exactly Is an Influencer?
An influencer is someone with the power to persuade and impact an audience and the rise of influencers has coincided with the rise of social media itself. That’s not to say they didn’t exist before, influencers have sort of always been around, back in the day it would’ve been word of mouth from a reputable and trusted source. Now the messaging gets amplified.
It’s big business too with brands looking to spend up to $15 billion (with a “b”) on influencer marketing by 2022.
And the moniker “influencer” isn’t just reserved for the Kardashians of the world anymore, whereas before it was thought that a massive audience is all that mattered, we’ve been seeing the growth and emergence of micro-influencers as a real force. In fact, those with 10,000 followers or less have higher engagement rates and are markedly more affordable to work with than the big dawgs/dawgettes with millions of followers.
There is also a wealth of options in between for all niches and within all industries. From celebrities to athletes to thought leaders and content creators, there’s someone for every brand, it’s just a matter of doing the research.
Why Influencer Marketing Strategies Are Important for Your Business
Simple: it’s effective.
Moving on.
Just kidding, we’ll tell you a few of the reasons why it’s important to incorporate influencer marketing into your overall marketing strategy. A few
Targeting
This is were doing your research and due diligence comes into play, collaborating with the right influencer is so incredibly important. You want to make sure your target and their audience overlap as much as possible otherwise you’re not going to get the impact and ROI you were hoping for.
More importantly, influencers have already done this research to find their audience so those exploratory conversations with them go a long way in initially feeling out the fit.
Content
These folks are heavy content creators, that’s their business after all. That opens up a world of new content for you and your brand that they’re creating. The key is to let them continue to be themselves and keep creating the content they know their audience loves and engages with.
That’s the only way it works because people can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.
Trust
That all leads to increased trust.
You trust the influencer you partner with to create content for an audience that trusts them and therefore rubs off on you. Your brand awareness increases, sales and conversions increase and so does your credibility.
How to Create an Influencer Strategy
There are a lot more great reasons for your company to dive into influencer marketing and at The Snow Agency we’ve been in the game since before “influencer” was even a term. Creating an effective influencer strategy isn’t done overnight. Our strategy is a robust, data-driven which boils down to 4 key steps:
- Analyze.
- Strategize.
- Find the influencer and platform.
- Optimize.
It looks easy but the backend of each step is where the magic happens. Get in touch with us and we’d be happy to walk you through it in more detail and get you in the game.