What is Influencer Marketing?

Here’s How Influencer Marketing Works.

What is influencer Marketing? 

According to The Drum, Influencer marketing is expected to become a $15bn industry by 2022. With 65% of marketers saying they will increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year. 

Firstly let’s start by understanding what an influencer is.

An influencer is a person who has built a loyal audience through social media, blogs, and other communities that can influence their audience through content creation. Influencers are people that can educate, engage and influence a large number of people. 

There are two types of influencers; micro-influencers and macro-influencers. Large companies tend to opt for macro-influencers simply because of the reach they have. Macro-influencers can reach more than 20 times the audience of micro-influencers. But having more followers isn’t always better, studies have shown that micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates than macro-influencers, in fact macro-influencers are lucky to get engagement rates around 5%, micro-influencers average double that. 

Now that you know what an influencer is, we can discuss what influencer marketing is. Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that uses influencers to promote a brand to a larger market. Influencers are trendsetters with audiences looking for their recommendations to guide their purchasing decisions. 

Why is Influencer Marketing Important?

Influencers marketing is closely related to social media marketing, as most opinion leaders gather their audience from social platforms. This channel gives you access to an enormous audience - half of the global population uses social networks. 

Better yet, influencer marketing enables you to reach people you can’t attain through traditional advertising channels. 80% of users have purchased something based on an influencer’s recommendation. 

Influencer Marketing is crucial in the age of social media because it helps build trust for your brand and drives impressive results. 

Benefits of Influencer Marketing

Brand Awareness Growth 

40% of marketers use influencer marketing to boost brand awareness. Influencers share your brand’s story, mission, and values with their follower base. It automatically expands your outreach and positioning online. 

Content Strategy Enrichment 

You can repost the influencer’s content or encourage their followers to create user-generated content, as 24% of brands do. You can also use influencer content for advertisements, however, to avoid problems with copyright, include it in the contract.

Quality Lead Generation 

36% of brands use influencer marketing to generate leads. 72% of them believe that this channel brings higher quality leads compared to other channels. People generally feel positive about the brands their favourite blogger advertises. Better yet, some types of content, such as reviews, attract warmer leads in the middle stages of the sales funnel.

Effectively Reaches Your Target Audience

This is a big one. Through relevant influencers, your content is placed in front of social users that are already in your niche. You don’t have to spend additional funds or time finding your audience - the influencer has already done this for you. You will need to look at the influencers insights to ensure your niche is covered.