Influencer marketing utilizes content creators to spark engagement and discussion around a brand or product and stimulate sales. This marketing strategy looks to influential people who already engage potential customers in a brand’s niche. The right product influencer can help you increase your brand awareness, generate sales, and get people talking about your products or services. Here are some reasons why product influencers are an important part of a marketing plan.
Influencer Marketing Is the Future
Online social networks have dramatically changed the way that corporations and consumers interact. E-commerce marketing campaigns that adopt social network resources reach more customers and generate increased response rates.
Influencer marketing generates conversations among people with shared interests. People are more likely to trust influential peers and friends than a commercial or billboard. Today, customers are seeking out product information independently, often through the internet, and from outside sources, such as word of mouth.
To keep up with the trends, 86% of marketers used influencer marketing in 2017. Global spending on influencer marketing has dramatically increased, rising from an estimated $2 billion in 2017 to about $8 billion in 2019.
Influencers Are Seen as Trustworthy
Influencers are seen as having valuable opinions. An audience’s behaviors and opinions will change when they believe they are receiving accurate information from a reputable source. Social media influencers already have a deeply personal connection with their followers built on trust. They share intimate details of their lives with their followers.
Influencer marketing is seen as another aspect of them sharing their lives with their audience. Followers often want to live like influencers and seek to imitate the experiences of their favorite content creators.
Influencers Have Large Social Networks
Your target audience is already engaging with influencers. With an influencer, you can reach audiences instantly on a large scale. Additionally, those followers are likely to share content with their friends, creating even more engagement. People will start talking about your business and your brand recognition will rapidly grow.
For example, the Scotch distillery Lagavulin made a 45-minute video of celebrity Nick Offerman silently sipping whiskey by a fire. The video went viral with millions of views, increasing Lagavulin’s brand recognition.
Influencers Can Advance Your Brand
Influencers cultivate their personal brand and aesthetic. Businesses can enhance their own brand by proximity. In 2016, the shoe company Sperry found micro-influencers to craft engaging content for their Instagram page. They used lifestyle photos that had an aura of sophistication and style. The influencers had already developed a unique visual aesthetic on their pages that transferred to the Sperry brand.
Influencers Create Good Content
Influencers have an incentive to create good content that makes them more money in commissions. They have a demonstrated creative ability. It is hard work to amass followers, build a brand, and create engaging content. They can even help you with developing your own content marketing ideas.
Choosing the right influencer is the key to benefiting your brand and generating sales for your products. There are tools and services to help choose the right influencer. The Intellifluence Discover tool allows brands to find influencers by applying filters to search the entire network. That way, you can find an influencer with the right characteristics for your brand.
