Wondering whether you should invest your top dollars in influencer marketing or not?
Still confused about why millions of brands out there are spending billions of dollars on influencer marketing?
In one of our previous articles we mentioned the four BIG benefits of influencer marketing, which include:
- Helps Build Trust & Credibility
- Drives Conversion
- Helps Avoid Positioning Yourself as Pushy
- Helps Build Winning Partnerships
While we’re familiar with the benefits, it’s important to understand why influencer marketing works as well as it does for some brands.
What’s the BIG WHY behind brands being subject to an average return of $5.78 dollars on every dollar they spend on influencer marketing?
The answer to this question will eventually help you make the decision of whether it’s a wise decision to invest in influencer marketing or not.
So – without further ado, let’s have a look…
The Answer to the BIG WHY
2020 marked the year when both the Covid-19 pandemic and digital transformation established their global dominance. And with businesses forced to tap into digital transformation, we witnessed the staggering rise of influencer marketing.
By the end of this year, influencer marketing has been poised to become a $15B industry. And if the numbers are to be believed, influencer marketing delivers up to 11x better ROI than other forms of marketing and advertising.
We’re witnessing an ever-increasing number of both B2B and B2C brands, including Dell, Coca-Cola, and many more collaborating with influencers to promote their products and services.
But in return, brands are literally paying these influencers millions of dollars. And while this applies to influencers like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian West, you don’t necessarily need to spend millions of dollars to get an influencer onboard.
Instead, you can reach out to nano or mid-tier influencers – depending on your budget and industry.
However, the question is – why exactly are brands paying these influencers so much?
Allow us to explain.
Let’s say you are a C-level executive or board member or marketing head at Samsung – a popular smartphone brand. Now, let’s assume that you are about to roll out a new mobile series – Samsung Warrior.
NOTE – This isn’t a new series, but we are using “Samsung Warrior” as an example.
Now, Samsung already has a huge fan following and can easily sell to millions without collaborating with influencers. But since they are rolling out a new phone series, some of their followers may be hesitant to spend their top dollars on it at the time of launch.
They’ll obviously wait for some kind of review video on YouTube or an article. That’s common. But since your target is to sell as many products as you possibly can, a wise decision is to tap into a tech influencer’s space.
For example, you can always collaborate with Marques Brownlee – a popular tech influencer with over 15.2M YouTube subscribers (as of this writing).
Now, when Marques promotes the Samsung Warrior on his channel, Samsung will be tapping into his subscriber base. And trust me – this guy has some serious fan-following. People genuinely look up to his reviews.
After rolling out a campaign in collaboration with Samsung, Samsung will even be able to reach out to people who didn’t follow them but followed Marques. This means – running an influencer marketing campaign will help you reach out to your target audience who don’t even know about you or don’t keep themselves updated with your announcements.
In this example, collaborating with Marques is a great way to build up the hype.
But let’s say you are a small business owner, then not everyone knows about your brand. Collaborating with influencers in your niche will help you tap into their following. And when they openly promote your brand and its products and services, you’ll be building trust with these people.
At the same time, if the influencer you collaborate with has some serious fan-following and a high engagement rate, you’ll see your conversion rates go up – as recommendations from that influencer will heavily be considered by their followers as personal recommendations.
Running strategic influencer marketing campaigns is a great way to position your brand as trustworthy and credible and, at the same time, promote your products and services without positioning yourself as pushy.
And that’s the reason influencer marketing works as well as it does. That’s the answer to our BIG WHY.
And if you’d like to tap into the well-established following of influencers in your niche, our strategic experts would love to help you out.
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