The Power of Influencer Marketing
Secret’s out: We’re living in a digital-first age and some of the ways we’ve done marketing are changing fast. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for brands to get and keep the attention of their target audience on the internet. With businesses large and small fighting for screen time and brain share comes the challenge of being able to stand out and cut through the noise.
But how? Two words: Influencer marketing.
Investing time and the proper resources into executing successful influencer marketing campaigns just might be the key to getting unstuck in your business.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is the collaboration between social media users who are relevant to a brand’s niche to promote their products or services. This partnership leverages the popularity and credibility of social media users with loyal followers to generate content that influences purchasing decisions.
One of the key advantages of influencer marketing is its ability to reach a specific target audience high and wide in a way that doesn’t feel pushy or salesy. It allows your target audience to hear from someone who has tried, liked, and can now speak truthfully about your product or service. This helps build brand credibility in an authentic, less intrusive way, unlike some traditional advertising methods.
Take, for example, Daniel Wellington—a Swedish luxury watch brand. In 2011, founder Filip Tysander decided to ditch traditional celebrity endorsements and enter the influencer marketing arena. Tysander’s simple-yet-ingenious strategy was to select relevant influencers on Instagram, gift them with DW watches, and encourage them to post on their profiles. Not only did he harness the power of word-of-mouth (the best marketing there is), he now had access to hundreds of user-generated content.
What DW did right:
Chose influencers relevant to the DW brand
Prioritized reach and engagement over follower count (many of them were micro-influencers)
Eliminated the pushback of purchase by gifting the product
Amplified brand awareness through WOM and UGC
And as a result? The brand attracted 1 million Instagram followers within the first year–totaling 4.5 million and counting today.
How to choose the right influencer(s) for your brand
When choosing the right influencers for your brand, it’s important to consider a few things:
Define your goals: Before you start looking for influencers, understand what you want to achieve through influencer marketing. Is it brand awareness? Driving sales? Reaching a new audience? Having clear objectives will help you choose the right people to work with.
Authenticity matters: If an influencer’s interests and values don’t align with your brand’s identity, their loyal audience (and the influencers themselves) may feel the disconnect.
Fair negotiation: Influencer marketing is a two-way street. Building a successful partnership with an influencer requires more than just paying them to endorse your products or services. Having open and transparent conversations about goals, deliverables, and compensation fosters the brand-to-influencer relationship, helps prevent misunderstandings, and protects both the influencer and the business.
Influencer marketing has the power to significantly impact consumer behavior and drive brand awareness. Selecting the right influencers and nurturing those partnerships can push your business to new heights, reaching new audiences and building credibility one campaign at a time.
Creative Copywriter
Paisley is a details-first creative with a passion for storytelling. With 5+ years of experience in digital marketing, she has spanned industries, working with businesses large and small to give a compelling voice to their products and services.
Connect with Paisley on LinkedIn.