Digital Influencer Marketing, 10 Reasons Why You Should Consider It

Digital Influencer marketing is definitely the hottest trend in marketing right now. Put simply, it’s a collaboration between a brand and an influencer – people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. They make regular posts about that topic on their social media channels generating large followings of enthusiastic engaged consumers who pay close attention to their views. By accessing a digital influencer’s fanbase, your brand is exposed to more consumers, especially if your brand’s target includes Millennials and Gen Z. Here’s 10 reasons for you to consider hopping on the “influencer marketing” bandwagon in order to attract Millennials and Gen Z, the rising force in US purchase power.

#1 BOOST YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING

Influencer marketing help increase brand awareness and following. An influencer marketing campaign puts your content in front of a new audience, therefore expanding your reach and opportunity to capture more followers. Influencer campaigns can boost up to a 250%+ increase in Instagram followers, and therefore more engagement for your brand.

#2 INCREASE YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING ROI

Influencer marketing is the fastest growing aspect of marketing largely due to the high return rate, making it a great investment for brands. Every dollar spent on influencer marketing campaigns generates on average $6.50 in sales, with the top 13% of influencers producing $20 or more. It produces on average a ROI 11x higher than traditional forms of digital marketing.

#3 USE IT IN YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY TO INCREASE YOUR ENGAGEMENT

Many brands have realized that influencer marketing is more effective than traditional blogging and sharing posts on social media as there is more engagement between the influencers and their followers. In some industries, competition is fierce. 89% of CPG marketers already use influencer marketing as part of their content marketing strategy. This means that many of your competitors are influencing new customers. If you’re not on it, you’re losing out!

#4 SPICE UP YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT

By their very nature, influencers have proven to have engaging content. You can re-post or re-gram their content on your platform to engage your followers. The majority, about 79%, use Instagram as the predominant channel for influencer marketing. This should be no surprise since Instagram usage has grown 10x in the past 5 years.

#5 ACQUIRE NEW CUSTOMERS

49% of consumers now depend on influencer recommendations for their purchases. When people are looking for a product, they start by looking online. 40% of consumers claim that they have purchased a product after seeing it on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Your brand could be the one!

#6 INCREASE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

Some brands have active social media presence, but are missing out on actually engaging their audience and compelling them to action unlike an influencer campaign. An effective influencer marketing campaign can increase sales by 18.5%. Influencers promote their sponsors through their social media and blogs which can generate engagements in the form of likes, comments, and shares during the campaign.

#7 GIVE CUSTOMERS A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR BRAND

Influencer marketing allows your target consumers to learn more about a brand from a voice they find credible. For example, potential college applicants often look through colleges’ current students and alumni’ social media accounts to get a feel of what the school is like, especially through vlogs and dorm tours on YouTube. According to a survey conducted by ACT, 80% of high school students say influencers on social media are somewhat, very, or extremely useful in their college search with YouTube being the #1 platform.

#8 LOW OUT OF POCKET COST TO START

Infuencer marketing is affordable! Although influencer marketing is more widespread and brands are expanding their budgets, the cost is still cheaper than traditional advertising. 22% of marketers say influencer marketing is the most cost-effective method of acquiring and retaining customers. 84% of micro-influencers charge less than $250 per post and 97% of influencers charge a maximum of $500.

#9 RAISE YOUR CUSTOMERS’ PURCHASE INTENT

For considered purchases, influencer marketing makes your product more desirable, pushing consumers along the buyer journey. Purchase intent increases by 5.2x when products are being promoted by influencers on Twitter. A study has proven that when users are exposed to just brand advertisements on Twitter, their purchase intents have only increased by 2.7x but when they are exposed to both brand and influencers’ tweets about the product, their purchase intents increase to 5.2x.

#10 ENHANCE YOUR BRAND’S CREDIBILITY

People trust advice and product recommendations by influencers because their background in the industry make their words a reliable source of information. 94% of consumers buy food ingredients and products because of recipes and photos shared by influencers on social media. Similarly, 60% of social media users claim that they are most likely to trust healthcare information posted by doctors over any other group (organizations, companies etc.).

Hopefully, this list helped you learn more about influencer marketing trends and why you should adopt influencer marketing to improve your sales. This post kicks off a series delving deeper into this tactic for each of Steel’s industry specialties. In the meantime, you can read more about our specialties here: Education, Healthcare, CPG/specialty food, and toys/games/family entertainment. Contact us if you would like to develop a influencer campaign for your brand.

Based in Austin, Texas, Steel is a full-service integrated ad agency that uses a deep understanding of how families make purchase decisions to deliver brands that families love. In close partnership with our clients, Steel unites data, technology, creativity and influence to produce more stunning growth for brands in health, education, food and fun that serve the American family.

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Sources: ACT, Digital Marketing Institute, InfluencerMarketingHub, Infographics Archive, Linqia, ShaneBarker, TapInfluence

By: Helen Goh and Cheryl Habbe