You don’t understand why influencer marketing is now everywhere or don’t see its value? This article provides the four main benefits of this new digital marketing strategy.

In the last past few years, influencer marketing emerged on every social media. The budget allocated for this strategy keeps growing. In 2019, the influencer market was valued at $8 billion,. It is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2022 (Schomer, 2019).  Solomon describes influencers as the “cool kids” in high school. They initiate trends and are followed. It seems that companies want more and more to collaborate with “cool kids”.

1. A new way to engage with consumers

With 45% of the current population using social media (Emarsys, 2019), a lot of companies invest in social media paid ads. However, a lot of users are upset with those and use adblockers. We count 763,51 million adblockers users worldwide in 2019 (Statista, 2021). Influencer marketing is a way to turn away from that. It is also a way to be present on social media by making “less noise” than a traditional ad. It is not the brand promoting itself but someone they follow and trust instead.

Influencers are the third most trustworthy source of information after friends and family (Solomon, 2020).

Moreover, collaborating with influencers is a way to communicate with the perfect target. For example, a beauty influencer will probably be followed by make-up lovers. Therefore, sponsoring this influencer would be a good opportunity for a cosmetic brand to increase awareness from the right segment.

2. A high efficiency

Influencer marketing works like Word of Mouth, we talk of eWOM. Influencers have a high social power which means that they have “the capacity to alter the actions of others.” (Solomon, 2020). They are followed and sometimes considered as experts in their field. This social power gives them opinion leadership. In marketing, WOM is very important.

92% of consumers believe in recommendations from family and friends rather than all types of advertising. (Nielsen, 2012) 

It also influences up to 50 per cent of consumers’ purchases. (Solomon, 2020).

3. A high Return On Investment

The ROI of this strategy is very interesting. We count 11 times more return on investment than other forms of traditional advertising annually (Kirkpatrick, 2016). In France, 44% of internet users already used a promotion code of an influencer. 75% of influencers’ followers already bought a product after having been exposed to it via an influencer (Ouahi, 2020).

4. A brand identity

Partnering with influencers is also a way to differentiate itself from competitors and to create a real brand identity. We can take the example of Lacoste, which is actually being represented by numerous influencers around the world for the campaign Crocodiles play collective. They are all young and talented in different creative fields (acting, dancing,…). It brings a fresh feeling to the brand.

To conclude…

Working with influencers brings a lot of positive to companies. To make it work it must be well done. Indeed, as an influencer can make a brand, he can also break it by being at the heart of a scandal or by not having the right audience. The good management of this strategy starts with the choice of the influencer to work with.

According to the co-founder of Tapinfluence, Holly Hamann, there are five factors that need to be considered: Relevance, Engagement, Reach, Frequency and Authenticity.

You will be able to learn more about the good tips to success with influencer marketing in this article: Influencer Marketing: 5 Top Tips to Influence Success.

References

Emarsys, 2019. Top 5 Social Media Predictions for 2019. Available at: https://emarsys.com/learn/blog/top-5-social-media-predictions-2019/

Kirkpatrick, 1016. Influencer Marketing Spurs 11 times the ROI over Traditional Tactics: Study. Marketing Dive.

Nielsen, 2012. Consumer trust in online, social and mobile advertising grows

Ouahi, L., 2020. Empirical study on the role of digital influencers in digital marketing strategy, s.l.: Revue Internationale des Sciences de Gestion.

Schomer, A., 2019. Influencer Marketing Report. Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/influencer-marketing-report?IR=T

Solomon, M. R., 2020. Consumer Behavior – Buying, Having and Being. Thirteenth Edition éd. s.l.:Pearson.

Statista, 2021. Number of adblock users worldwide from 2013 to 2019. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/435252/adblock-users-worldwide/