Influencer marketing has been all the rage recently. We’ve seen influencers like PewDiePie and Michelle Phan build empires with their abilities to influence others. Influencers like them have been making waves in the world of digital marketing, helping brands market their latest products and services.
As a digital marketing consultant and influencer marketing expert, I've seen firsthand how influencers can deliver a six-times-higher ROI than other digital marketing channels. I've also found that influencer marketing is the most effective way to produce more authentic content and reach a more relevant and engaged audience for myself and my clients.
Despite all of the hype, some marketers may still be wondering why exactly influencers are so important. To answer that question, here are some of the unique benefits that influencers can offer your business:
1. Put a human face to your brand.
The first and most important benefit of working with influencers is that they are real people. Being more relatable than celebrities, they help connect your brand with your audience on a more personal level. Instead of marketing yourself through a generic marketing message, you can now relay your message through real people. And these people will add their own touch to the message to make it unique and engaging.
2. Reach more niche audiences.
Online banner ads are facing a setback because of the rise of technologies like AdBlock, which lets users block ads from showing up on their browsers. According to PageFair, the use of AdBlock increased by 30% in 2016 alone, and now 11% of worldwide internet users are blocking ads on their devices.
If more and more people are blocking ads on their browsers, it’s obvious that brands will have a more difficult time reaching their target audience. In the case of influencers, people specifically follow them and subscribe to their content, which means your promotional content in partnership with influencers can reach your target audience effectively. That audience size will likely be at least a few thousand — or even millions — which can be significant for your campaign.
Additionally, influencers tend to specialize in specific niches such as gaming and tech, makeup and skincare, fashion and style, food and lifestyle, and more. The people who subscribe to their feeds do so because they have an interest in those subjects. So if you promote your products through relevant influencers, you’ll be able to reach a massive and relevant audience.
3. Make your brand content more authentic.
Influencers are excellent content creators. In fact, it’s because they’re so good at creating content that they’ve reached an influential position. The content they create tends to be original and authentic, even if it’s supposed to be promotional content. This keeps their audience engaged regardless of whether the content is organic or paid for by a brand.
A Linqia study found that this was the biggest benefit of working with influencers. Eighty-nine percent of marketers in the study felt that influencer marketing is beneficial because it helps to create authentic content for their brand. With more authentic content comes the ability for brands to win the trust of their target audiences.
However, brands need to be careful so as not to hold back their influencers from showcasing their creativity. Some marketers tend to be too restrictive about what the influencer creates, causing the content to lose authenticity. This is one of the biggest influencer marketing mistakes.
4. Increase engagement rates.
It’s likely because of this authentic and engaging content that influencers tend to drive high engagement rates. In fact, they tend to drive much better engagement than the average online ad.
Smart Insights used Google Doubleclick’s Display Benchmarking Tool to discover the latest benchmarks in global ad click-through rates (CTRs). They discovered that the average ad CTR across all formats and placements is only 0.05%. And the engagement rate for the average influencer marketing campaign is much higher than that. RhythmOne conducted a study on 76 influencer programs involving 8,700 influencers. The average engagement rate across all programs was 2.01%.
Additionally, NewsWhip found that paid posts created for brands by influencers tend to have a much higher engagement rate than the brand’s regular posts. For brands such as JetBlue, their influencer paid posts had an engagement rate 102 times higher than that of their owned posts.
This higher engagement is most likely due to the fact that influencers have the ability to thoroughly engage an audience. They are entertainers of sorts who can infuse an entertaining element even to the most promotional of posts. They can use their unique voice to create compelling stories around the brands and products they’re promoting.
5. Earn your target audience's trust.
As mentioned earlier, the authentic content created by influencers can help establish trust with your target audience. Twitter and Annalect even found that users rely on influencer recommendations almost as much as they rely on recommendations from friends.
So it’s safe to say that if an influencer recommends your brand or products to their followers, there’s a good chance a large portion of that audience will be swayed. A lot of them will try to look for more information about you, and many of them will end up making a purchase, which brings us to the next point.
6. Get better ROI.
Another benefit of influencers is that they drive a much higher ROI than traditional channels. According to Tomoson, influencer marketing, along with email marketing, is the most affordable channel for acquiring new customers. Marketers generate about $6.5 on average for every dollar they spend on influencers.
The previously-cited RhythmOne study, however, found that influencer marketing programs in 2016 were able to generate $11.69 in earned media value (EMV) for every dollar spent.
TapInfluence and Nielsen Catalina Solutions also partnered with each other to determine how influencer marketing drives revenue for a Fortune 500 food company. In their study, they found that the ROI of influencer marketing was 11 times higher than the ROI of traditional advertising.
These are six of the most unique benefits of working with influencers. Although some of the benefits aren’t exactly offered only by influencers, they tend to deliver better results in those aspects than any other form of advertising.
