Expand Your Commercial Reach With These Tips
As the internet has upturned so many longstanding and traditional modes of doing business, so it has done likewise with marketing and advertising. The days of companies focusing on broadcast, print, and billboard promotion of products and services are long gone, swept away by the digital tsunami of the world wide web.
A New Way of Reaching Consumers
Internet marketing is a massive business, estimated at an astounding $350 billion as of 2020 and expected to rise exponentially year on year to a simply jaw-dropping $786 billion by 2026. So behind all those pop-up and side-panel advertisements you see so often when online is some serious coin!
As the internet has grown in prominence with companies seeking new and ever more innovative ways to increase their market presence, one of the most effective ways to reach consumers is the emerging role and importance of so-called ‘influencer marketing’.
The Basics of Influencer Marketing
What is influencer marketing you might ask? Well, it’s basically, in a nutshell, a product and/or service being promoted by popular figures on social media channels. These figures tend to have large followings and subscribers online and so it’s only natural that companies wish to target that influence and reach by having them use their channels to promote a brand.
And it works too, as influencer marketing has an estimated 2023 value of around $21 billion and 92% of online consumers (according to a Linkedin survey) trust influencers’ promotion of products as opposed to more traditional advertising methods.
How Can Influence Marketing Work For Me?
So for this article, we’ll list 5 reasons why influencer marketing is not only good for your business but essential.
Strap yourself in and let’s go…
1. Awareness
It goes without saying that the lifeblood of any business is brand awareness, the fact of people knowing about your product or service and interested enough in its provision to purchase. Influencer marketing is a proven and highly effective way to increase public awareness of your business.
According to marketing research by Mediakix, those companies who utilize the art of influencer marketing saw their brand awareness increase by an impressive 82% and an increase in sales directly parallel to that advertising campaign.
2. Trust
People are more liable to purchase something from someone they trust or admire, that’s just basic human nature. It’s why political campaigns spend so much time and money on endorsements of candidates and it holds true in business as well.
When an influencer has built up trust with a dedicated audience, their word carries weight to it and for a business that is a fast-track route to a sale. So when an influencer promotes something on social media, there is an inherent trust from a ready audience who believes what they’re saying. Around 63% of consumers will trust promotion of a product by an influencer than from usual advertising.
3. Cost
Every business, of course, wants maximum income for minimum expenditure. You want to be making more money than you are spending, and a significant slice of companies’ expenditure is traditionally spent on P & A (promotion and advertising) and that can be costly.
But with influencer marketing, costs can be less with more reach than traditional print and broadcast media. Although rates for individual influencers can greatly vary, according to popularity, nonetheless it’s been reported that for every dollar spent on influencer marketing, companies see a $6.50 return on investment.
4. Networking
Just like so-called ‘networking’ – making contacts, engaging with potential clients, etc – is good for bricks-and-mortar business, so it is true in the digital realm of influencer marketing.
By engaging with influencers across multiple social media platforms, you reach a far wider audience and increase brand awareness greatly. It’s estimated that a company supplying free products to multiple influencers across a wide range of channels can generate the equivalent of $567,000 in earned media value.
5. Targeting
Popular online influencers have a vast array of niches and interests, and that can be useful to a business in pairing the right product promotion to the right influencer, to the commercial benefit of both parties.
It is estimated that a properly targeted brand campaign tailored to fit a particular niche audience and promoted by a popular influencer with a substantial following in that audience can result in a 154% increase in market engagement.
Conclusions
Influencer Marketing has come a long way from its humble beginnings and is now big business. If harnessed correctly and effectively, your business will undoubtedly see bountiful returns as a result.
