Brand promotion can be done in multiple ways. From print to digital, advertisements can be done to generate increased sales for goods and services. Influencer marketing has gained immense popularity owing to its excellent benefits for brands. Research has revealed that 94% of B2B marketers implementing influencer marketing strategies believe it yields highly effective results. Every company should try this method at least once.
Many brands believe that influencer marketing takes a lot of effort and cost. But in reality, using an influencer marketing tool is easy. You only need to choose a reliable program that promises tasks like creating a creators list, drafting and sending personalized emails, reminders and shipping updates, etc. Compared to other techniques, this method is highly cost-effective.
The Benefits
Increases brand credibility
It is essentially a way of having someone else promote your brand’s credibility. Thousands of people might be unaware of your product and service, but collaborating with influencers is a great way to make your target audience aware of what products you offer.
Nowadays, consumers are much more informed and knowledgeable than before. Therefore, firms must establish a strong internet presence and reputation. New consumers are more inclined to believe you if they see well-known influencers endorsing your goods or services.
Higher sales
Influencers can impact positively and motivate the thoughts and actions of their audience. One of the primary uses is the increase in sales. Since people trust influencers, they take CTA seriously (whether asking to sign up for an event or buying a product). This is why brands want to collaborate with influencers with higher engagement on their channel or page.
Valuable insight into the market
Influencers are experts in their fields, and since 77% of consumers depend on their advice, every influencer is inevitably knowledgeable about the most recent trends in their area. Asking an influencer for a recommendation may be incredibly advantageous for your business, whether you are attempting to launch a new product or service or want to increase conversions or engagement.
Cost-effective Option
Brands do not just get video content, but they also get to market their brand through creative content that helps them outperform their rivals. As video content is high in demand, TV ads are expensive for brands. Also, it is not worth the expense. Hence, collaborating with influencers to make short or long videos promoting your product or service is cost-effective. The person will make the video, and you have to pay them for it and keep track of the campaign with the help of any Instagram marketing tool.
Compel Today’s Youth
The younger generation and new-age audience increasingly embrace social media, which boosts its appeal. Using influencer marketing techniques to connect with millennials and members of Generation Z results in a larger audience and a boost in brand value.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is a win-win partnership for both companies and the influencers. In recent years, the strategy has grown at a phenomenal rate. But planning such a campaign calls for a few efforts like finding the right professional, deciding on the budget, and choosing the right influencer marketing tool to help you keep track of your campaign. Collaborating with people is an excellent way for brands to increase trust, raise awareness and drive higher sales without much effort and expense.
Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective strategies for business owners and digital marketers. And as the industry continues to grow, more and more brands are now starting to realize the potential of using it specifically for their content marketing strategy to boost their brand awareness, increase sales, and many more. If you’re looking to tread the same path, but you’re not sure how to get started, then you’ve come to the right place.
In order to integrate influencer marketing into your campaigns, you’ll need to make use of several software tools that match your specific needs. In this article, we narrow down your choices to the best and most essential tools for influencer marketing, and we also take a closer look at the definition of influencer marketing, and its importance in today’s digitally connected world.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy that involves collaborating with a popular influencer who has a significant and dedicated following, and expertise in a particular niche market. In this marketing strategy, the influencer agrees to partner with you to help grow your brand, drive its content for the purpose of stirring up interest among your target audience, and gaining brand recognition.
Today, influencer marketing is becoming the most effective form of a content marketing strategy, because, unlike webinars, ebooks, or whitepapers, it is able to bring the desired human element into your brand. It also works well for most marketers because of the mass influence and high levels of trust that influencers have gained from their followers, and so their suggestions act as a kind of social influence, or evidence of a brand’s potential.
Influencer Marketing Vs. Content Marketing
There’s a close relation between influencer marketing and content marketing, with the former being an integral aspect of the latter. However, the main difference is that influencer marketing is mostly about drawing content, and finding the best way to spread it further. While content marketing is about creating content that can resonate with your target audience, and make a meaningful impression on their minds.
With that said, they both work together, rather than separately, and are like two sides of the same thing. You can include influencer marketing into your content marketing campaigns to reach your audience more effectively, raise your brand awareness, quickly build trust, and provide the best value for your audience. Remember, even if you’re able to come up with eye-catching content, you still need to find the right channel to disseminate it.
Why Influencer Marketing Is Worth Your Time and Effort?
Image source: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Many brands are now starting to invest more of their time and resources in creating successful influencer-driven content marketing campaigns, because of the many benefits that they offer. In order to understand why influencer marketing is becoming more popular, let’s take a closer look at what it can do for your business or brand:
- Improve your content marketing strategy
- Reach your target audience more effectively
- Establish credibility in your niche market
- Create social conversations around your brand
- Gain and improve brand awareness
- Build trust faster
- Improve your search engine rankings
- Drive traffic to your business
- Increase conversions, leads, and sales
- Provide value to your audience
In addition to the benefits, let’s also take a look at some of the actual experiences of today’s brands. According to Forbes, influencer marketing has been growing faster than digital ads since 2017, with emphasis placed on leveraging the reach of an existing influencer or industry leader’s following to foster growth for business.
- 27.5% of brands found pain campaign to be the most effective collaboration type
- 10.9% of brands measured success by looking at unique impressions
- 13.2% of brands measured success by looking at total reach
- 89% of marketers indicated that ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels
- Over ⅔ of marketers intend to spend the most on Instagram
- Instagram is the most important social media channel for influencer marketing, followed by YouTube and Facebook
Businesses are making $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing
Now that you know what influencer marketing is, and the tremendous benefits it offers for brands and marketers, let’s dive right into the best and most essential influencer marketing tools on the market.
7 Essential Tools For Influencer-Driven Content Marketing Campaigns
When it comes to creating successful influencer-driven content marketing campaigns, you have at your disposal numerous software tools to choose from. Most of them allow you to do very useful things, like finding the best influencer to promote your brand, creating and running outreach campaigns, and managing your social media networks, among many other features.
Here are seven of the best and most essential influencer marketing tools you’ll find on the market, so you can succeed on the path.
#1. BuzzSumo
The very first thing you want to do to create a successful influencer-driven content marketing campaign is to find and choose the perfect influencer who can promote your brand, products, or services. The best and fastest way to do this is to use BuzzSumo.
BuzzSumo is a powerful influencer marketing tool that can help you find writers, bloggers, and creators who have gained enough traction in your target niche, and draw up a shortlist of them all. You can use the tool to zoom in on the influencers who have gathered the most shares, links, and likes, locate them with any language, or enter a domain to discover the most successful among them.
On top of that, you can also use the platform to come up with great content ideas by browsing topics, forums and trends, or perform content research, by running through the “world’s largest index of social engagement data,” and gain deeper insights into industry updates, as well as your competitors.
#2. BuzzStream
Another great way to find the right influencer in your niche, but with more useful collaborative features, is to use BuzzStream. Not only can this influencer marketing tool help you research your opportunities, and quickly create qualified lists of relevant influencers, but it can also help you run effective outreach campaigns, and collaborate more effectively with your contacts.
Additionally, BuzzStream can also help you manage your relationships, monitor your projects with your team, and keep track of the status of your campaigns. You can monitor what your team is currently working on, and set notifications when your contacts respond to your outreach.
#3. AgoraPulse
If you’re looking for an influencer marketing tool that not only lets you manage all of your social media networks in one place, but also helps you create content, and monitor and benchmark your performance effectively, then AgoraPulse is your top choice.
AgoraPulse is a social media management software that allows you to reach your target prospects, create genuine relationships, and drive engagement. It is designed to make it easier for you to craft your content, publish it on multiple social media channels, and increase your sales.
#4. FameBit
FameBit is an online marketing platform that enables you to post offers to advertise your products or services on specific social media channels, and content creators can sign in to accept your offer and negotiate your prices.
The platform is one of the best influencer tools of 2020, and has incredible features to help you carry out successful influencer-driven content marketing campaigns. The tool can enable you to get in touch with programmers, writers, and digital distributors, easily find paid sponsorships, and set your budget.
If you’re searching for YouTube influencers to promote your brand, then FameBit should be one of your top choices. Recently, the platform was rebranded as YouTube BrandConnect, and will stay available to YouTube influencers that have more than 25,000 followers.
#5. NinjaOutreach
NinjaOutreach is a powerful influencer marketing and blogging outreach software tool that allows you to find the best social media influencers, from Instagram or Twitter, in your niche. You can use the tool to create influencer marketing campaigns by filtering through numerous profiles to find the perfect match.
Moreover, you can also manage all of your marketing and outreach campaigns, organize your leads, and monitor your conversations, history, and even check email addresses to make sure no outreach is wasted. NinjaOutreach is without a doubt the right tool for marketing agencies, marketers, and small businesses.
#6. PitchBox
PitchBox is an influencer outreach and link building software tool that allows you to streamline your outreach campaigns, and find the best influencers and bloggers in your niche in a very short amount of time, by using keyword search, and multiple profiles.
On top of that, PitchBox also lets you personalize your emails, send them out, and create automated follow-ups. If you’re in the business of digital marketing, or you work with an in-house marketing team for a large brand, then PitchBox is the right influencer marketing tool for you.
#7. UpFluence
If you’re in search of a smart influencer marketing tool that can do most of the things you need to create successful campaigns, then UpFluence is your best bet. This influencer marketing platform allows you to look for and pick the best influencer for your brand, initiate contact at scale, and track your performance.
With UpFluence, you can use Live Capture to determine your organic influencers, bring your current users on-board as ambassadors, or choose from more than 3 million influencers. What’s more, you can also optimize your selection process with AI, compare influencer profiles to one another, analyze your engagement rate, and import your existing lists of influencers, so you can make your integration process much smoother.
Final Words
As a business owner or marketer, now is the perfect time for you to recognize the importance of influencer marketing, take advantage of it to promote your brand, and create the online buzz you need to flourish in today’s digitally connected world. By using influencer marketing in your content marketing strategy, you’ll be able to reach your target audience effectively, establish credibility in the market, quickly build trust, strengthen your brand’s awareness, and increase conversions, and sales.
Author bio: Aaron Chichioco is the chief content officer (CCO) and one of the web designers of Design Doxa. Aside from his expertise on web/mobile design and development, he also has years of experience in digital marketing, branding, customer service, eCommerce and business management as well. For more information about Aaron, visit http://designdoxa.com/
Even in the digital world, not everyone’s word carries the same weight. Local celebrities, niche experts and figures of authority speak with the words that not just reach, but also move people and serve as highly efficient calls to action. Some would say that as a species, we tend to look for leaders, but can this phenomenon be turned to benefit a small business? Let’s find out!
1. Finding most adequate influencers
First things first, you need to be aware of the fact that each demographic has its own favorite medium. You may get the greatest Twitter influencer to endorse you, but what effect will this have if you primarily target baby boomers, a demographic with low attendance on this social network. For them, you need to take a different approach. This means that you need to determine the channel you will focus on first and then look for those who have influence there; not the other way around.
Another thing you need to look at is the profession or a field of expertise of an influencer. Sure, having a Hollywood A-list actor back you, is always a great thing (although not something likely to happen to a small local company), however, you might want to look for someone a bit more niche-specific. For example, if you are selling medical supplies, wouldn’t you rather that a reputable local physician backs you up than a local football star. These are all just some of the things you need to look out for when looking for influencers.
2. Reach out to them
Next thing you need to worry about is the way you approach these influencers. Earlier on, we mentioned low chances of having someone universally famous to endorse you, why is this so? Well, because like anything else, influencer marketing is a business. Of course, not everything is necessarily about the money. Some influencers are willing to trade a favor for favor and this is something you need to set clear from the very start. It is only natural that everyone values their own time the most, which is why you need to set it clear from the beginning what you can do for them (what they can do for you is more or less obvious by this point).
Here’s a list of tools that can help:
- http://traackr.com/
- http://www.linkdex.com/
- http://getlittlebird.com/
- https://followerwonk.com/
- https://www.brandwatch.com
- http://buzzsumo.com/
- http://keyhole.co/
- http://kred.com/
- https://klout.com/
3. Bringing value to your audience
In most cases, your audience will be mostly interested in those influencers who can bring some value to them. For example, if you take the aforementioned doctor into question, your viewers will tune in to get some free medical advice. The second influencer type we mentioned ‘the football player’ may be there to offer them a tip or two about fitness, or give them an invaluable insight into the life of a professional athlete. Finally, there are those who can teach your audience about starting their own business, opening a one-person startup or even teach them how to get paid online. Still, in order for this to have the maximum effect, you need to identify which of these would interest your target market the most.
4. Trust goes both ways
Like any other relationship, the bond between the influencer and your audience relies on trust. Trust, however, goes both ways. First of all, it is vital that the influencer that is currently promoting you is seen using your product or services. Imagine a scenario where your line of work is the retail of sport’s gear and your influencer is buying their own equipment from someone else. What kind of a message does this send? “Sure, this gear is good enough for you folks, but for me… not so much?” Still, in order to avoid sending this kind of message, the service you are providing or the product you are selling needs to be good enough. So good in fact, that the influencer won’t mind putting their name next to it.
You see, the name of your brand is not the only thing that is on the line here. If you are an influencer, the last thing you want is to get associated with a company that has a negative business reputation. In this way, you start losing credibility and it becomes more than apparent that you are in it just for the money. Needless to say, this is not something your followers want to see.
5. Cost-efficiency
Probably the main reason why influencer marketing is so great for small business is its cost-efficiency. As we already mentioned, sometimes you won’t even have to use the cash (which you don’t have), but can pay your influencer with favors such as free products. Sure, this can be quite expensive, as well, but when you consider what you gain in return, it usually turns out to be more than worth your while. Minimum investment, maximum return, this is basically the term cost-efficiency in a nutshell.
6. A part of the larger picture
Finally, even though pulling off the influencer marketing in the right way can be game-changing, it is vital that you put it into perspective and take a larger picture into account. It is still a part of your overall marketing strategy and it works best when combined with some additional methods. Add an inspiring user testimonial, a review, a tutorial or even some discount offers into the mix and only then will you give a serious boost to your ROI. One more thing, the more you reveal about your product, the less intriguing it will appear, which is not something you want to deal with. Sometimes less is more and shrouding your product in the veil of mystery may only make your target audience to want it more.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is not just about finding the right influencer. It is also about the way you reach out to them, the deal you make and the favors you promise in exchange for their endorsement. Furthermore, the way in which your product is promoted matters almost as much as who is promoting it, which is something you need to be extra careful about. Finally, keep in mind that although vital, influencer marketing is still a small segment of your overall digital marketing strategy.
Author
Emma Miller is a Sydney based writer with a degree in marketing. Interested in digital marketing, social media, start-ups and latest trends. She’s a contributor at BizzMark Blog.
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing whereby you use key leaders to convey your brand’s message to potential customers. The key leaders are influencers that you hire to market your brand on your behalf. Key leaders are influencers who have gained the trust of your target audience.They are called influencers since they are respected by people. The social media influencers open ways for brands to connect with consumers who have greatly shifted to social media.
Why it is set to dominate in 2017
1. They value quality over quantity
Influencer marketing experts believe that the best influencer should have a range of 10 to 100 thousand followers. This will allow for quality engagement and broad reach with high rates of comments and likes. This is in comparison to those with a higher number of followers. Studies show that the rate of engagement of influencers with followers decreases with the increase in a number of their follower. It is important to ensure that you team up with the right influencer for improved business results.
2. Powerful way of conveying your information
Sales are more driven by a word of mouth recommendation more efficiently than sales of paid advertising. Influencers are in a position of winning more audience to your brand than other marketing strategies. This is because they integrate and create unique stories from your brand’s information without skipping any detail. They treat your every post with care since they are aware that their audiences are fickle and can quickly leave. Customers acquired through word of mouth have a higher retention rate. Influencers offer you an opportunity to leverage word of mouth through personalities who are followed and admired by many.
3. They carry out the targeting work for you
Influencer marketing has the ability to do the targeting work for you. The influencers have the ability for the audience to have been highly targeted self-selected already. You do not have to create audience profiles for campaigns within social media, reach out with traditional media tools, or comb a database for a target group. They establish the outreach channels for you. Thus it is necessary to ensure that the influencer has the desired reach and relevance before hiring them. Ensure that you are aware of how and why they communicate and also their tone of voice and style.
4. Influencer outreach strategy
This is a strategy that is beneficial for link building, content promotion, and relationship development. You can increase your response rate by 80% for your top Influencers outreach campaign. You can achieve this by outreaching your blog or post to several top influencers in marketing. For you to achieve the best, you can engage them by sharing their blogs and commenting on their blogs before outreaching your campaign. You can feature them as experts on your blog and let them know via email or other means.Leave it upon them to share, ignore or link to it. A high chance is that they will not ignore. However, the challenge is that most of the top influencers are flooded with many requests and message which can disadvantage you.
5. It is trackable and targetable
The new strategy allows you to store and analyze every social like, picture posted online, and website visit. This helps to yield data, which turns into valuable insights about your advertising performance and target market.
6. The influencer marketing technique is more social
The social influencers exist in all primary social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. They hold the attention of most of the potential customers. This helps to convey your information about your services and products to a large group of the audience on social media. This also benefits consumers in that they are in a position to share with others via social media. This leads to better purchasing decision as their share their experiences with the service or product.Traditionally, most of the customers made their purchase decisions following the advertisement they heard or saw.
7. Consumers are tired of Paid Ads
Consumers are exposed to too many ads to a point that they are unconsciously tuning them out. Only a few number of customers who are concerned with the ads and what is being promoted.People will tend to opt for influencer marketers such as Netflix, AdBlock, and Spotify Premium, where there are no advertisements to interrupt them.
8. Influencer marketing is native advertising
Native advertising places products and brands within the organic content. This helps to create a more powerful marketing solution for brands. It also creates a pleasurable experience for consumers. Traditional advertising, on the other hand, interrupts the consumer experience. A high percent of internet users prefer to learn about a product through content. This will raise the purchase intent with over 50 percent.
9. Influencer marketing helps you SEO
This technique contributes greatly to your search engine ranking. Thus it does not only improve your sales number and build your brand name. The more people comment about your product or brand on the social media the more relevant and popular you will be on the search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc.
10. Prices are rising faster in influencer marketing
Currently, the strategy is an arbitrage due to high numbers of influencers and few entrepreneurs running the influencer campaigns. This means that the influencer promotion is below its real value. The arbitrages will not last long as many people are learning about them. As a result, people will invest in that good closing the arbitrage and raising the prices thus increasing your profit.
Conclusion
The mentioned information shows why influencer marketing has high chances of dominating in the year 2017. However, it being new, many entrepreneurs are still hesitant of employing the strategy. The marketing strategy has numerous benefits to your business such harnessing online narrative to boost influence, cultivate trust among your target customers, and spread positive words about your brand. It has an impact on the customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue. There is need to embrace the new strategy which has a great impact on your business. It requires investment and time but it is worthy. However, before approaching an influencer, it is important to carry out more research to ensure that they have the desired relevance and reach.
Author Bio:
Vivian Michaels is a huge tech enthusiast, who likes to write articles on evolving technology. He is a Computer Science graduate from East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania, and has written for various website like ProvenSEO, VentureBeat, etc.