A modern person sees 4-10 thousand messages from brands daily – on the street, on a smartphone, on TV, in magazines, on the radio. People are increasingly blocking banner ads – special programs are installed in 27-40% of users worldwide. If the banners do not block the technology, then the brain blocks them – there is a “banner blindness”.
We almost no longer notice ads, but still, see people. Especially those who are nice and familiar to us. We perceive the person whom we follow on social networks as a good friend and we are imbued with his recommendations.
84% of people trust online reviews in the same way as friends’ advice, and 71% of users make a purchase decision based on recommendations on social networks.
Influence marketing through opinion leaders is one of the most reliable advertising channels. In 2017, companies spent $ 570 million to work with opinion leaders on Instagram alone, and in 2018, $ 1.6 billion. By 2020, spending on such marketing can grow to $ 10 billion globally.
The essence of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a way to promote products and services through people whom the audience knows: through stars, bloggers, or celebrities in a narrow niche. The main thing is that they have their audience, for which they are the authority.
For consumer impact marketing to work, you must follow the rule of three R:
– reach – the ability to convey a message to the target audience;
– resonance – the ability to influence the audience in the right way;
– relevance – the strength of the relationship between the agent of influence and the audience.
Influence marketing is effective only if a specific audience considers a particular person a leader of opinions and trusts his point of view.
Influence marketing aims to promote your product or service to specific people, not the market as a whole. This is different from traditional marketing when you simply advertise and hope that it’s enough for people to start contacting your company.
Influence marketing involves using the relationship between the agent and the person he is trying to influence. In other words, we are talking about the phenomenon of social evidence.
If everything is done correctly, then influence marketing becomes a powerful tool that helps brands better understand their customers by observing and analyzing their interactions with influence agents. In addition, there are other advantages:
- People trust people –
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Simply put, people tend to trust the recommendations of others. Things like reviews, mentions on social networks, user-generated content is a form of social proof. They signal to the average consumer that others are already using a particular product and are happy with everything.
Influential people are usually trusted even more. They have already spent their time and efforts to develop their brand and win an audience. They value customer relations more than profit. In addition, the audience knows them well.
- You can get insights about the target audience
Influence agents know how to captivate your potential customers. They understand which content they like and which not. By observing and analyzing the interaction of agents and your target audience, you can get valuable information that will help you create a portrait of a client, write better content and create effective advertising campaigns.
- You can get more leads
Thanks to influence agents, you can get more leads. This is achieved due to the word of mouth effect. The audience of social networks is huge. And every time an influence agent places a post about your product, and another person shares it on his page, new people will learn about your company.
What do influence agents do?
It all depends on what marketing goals you pursue. Below you will find a list of things that influencers can do for your brand.
- Links to your product or service
Influence agents may include links to your landing page, profile or website in their posts.
- Text about you
An influence agent can write a review on your product or make a comparison with competitors.
- Post on your website or group in social networks
An influence agent can write a post for your blog or group on social networks. In addition, you can ask him to speak at any event, for example, the presentation of a new company product.
- Promote your brand at events
Influence agents can promote your brand at events. You can do this in a variety of ways. For example, an agent can make a speech or simply appear at an event / shoot a video / take a photo in your company’s branded clothing.
- Reposts on social networks
Most influence agents share information about the promoted company on social networks. Depending on the platform, they may include textual information, images, videos or a link to your site. However, be careful, because paid posts on social networks look a little different than usual.
