Influencer marketing is an effective strategy for businesses looking to increase brand awareness and drive sales. By partnering with social media influencers who have a strong following, businesses can tap into their audience and leverage their influence to promote their products or services. This type of marketing has proven to be particularly effective in reaching younger demographics and can contribute significantly to a company’s overall growth.

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing where businesses partner with individuals who have a significant following on social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook, to promote their products or services. These individuals, known as influencers, have built a loyal following based on their expertise, personality, or other factors. Businesses collaborate with influencers to create content that promotes their products or services to the influencer’s followers.

Influencer marketing is different from traditional advertising because it relies on the influencer’s relationship with their followers. Influencers are seen as trustworthy and authentic, and their recommendations can be more effective than traditional advertising methods. Influencer marketing can also take many forms, including sponsored posts, product reviews, giveaways, and more.

The goal of influencer marketing is to increase brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately, sales. By partnering with an influencer, businesses can tap into the influencer’s loyal following and reach a wider audience. However, it’s important for businesses to carefully choose the right influencers to partner with and to ensure that their promotions align with the business’s values and goals.  

When done correctly, influencer marketing can be an important part of the marketing mix at growth-focused businesses.  Let us take this opportunity to examine influencer marketing in more detail, including its benefits, who it applies to, common misconceptions, and some tactics that nearly all growth-focused businesses, regardless of industry, can focus on. 

Why Influencer Marketing Ought to Be Part of a Growth-Marketing-Focused Playbook

Many organizations ignore influencer marketing, often associating it with celebrity-associated marketing, and thinking it should be limited to industries like fashion, cosmetics, and other aesthetics-oriented industries.    However, this is not the case.   But before we delve into particular uses and cases where influencer marketing can play a role, let us examine some advantages provided by having influencer marketing be a part of your business’ growth marketing mix. 

Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Might Be a Good Part of Your Organization’s Growth Marketing Framework

Now there are a number of reasons why influencer marketing might be something any growth-focused organization might want to consider.   Let’s look at some things that influencer marketing might help your business achieve that can give your growth-focused business the competitive edge or advantages that can help spur revenue growth.

Here are some key goals of influencer marketing:

• Increased Brand Awareness

• Improved Credibility

• Increased Engagement

• Increasing the Number of Influential Relationships

• Increased Customer Base & Improved Sales and Revenue

1. Increased Brand Awareness

One of the key advantages of influencer marketing is increased brand recognition. Businesses can reach a larger audience and increase brand awareness by collaborating with an influencer who has a sizable social media following.

When an influencer promotes a product or service, their followers are likely to see the post and become aware of the brand. This can lead to increased website traffic, social media engagement, and overall brand exposure. The influencer’s followers are also more likely to be interested in the promoted product or service because they already trust the influencer and value their opinion.

Additionally, influencer marketing can help businesses reach a new audience. For example, if a business partners with an influencer in a different industry or with a different demographic than their current customers, they can reach a new audience and increase brand awareness among that group.

2. Improved Credibility

Improved credibility is another benefit of influencer marketing. Influencers have built a loyal following based on their expertise, personality, or other factors, and their followers trust their recommendations.

When an influencer promotes a product or service, their followers are more likely to follow the recommendation because they already trust the influencer. This can lead to increased credibility for the business, as their products or services are being recommended by someone that the influencer’s followers trust.

3. Increased Engagement

Increased engagement is another benefit of influencer marketing. When an influencer promotes a product or service, their followers are likely to engage with the post, ask questions, and provide feedback. This can help businesses to better understand their target audience and improve their products or services based on that feedback.

Influencer marketing can also help businesses to increase engagement on their social media platforms. When an influencer promotes a product or service, they will often tag the business’s social media accounts in the post, which can lead to an increased number of followers. and with time, an improved level of engagement on the business’s own social media accounts.

4. Increasing the Number of Influential Relationships 

Influencer relationships are an important aspect of influencer marketing. Building strong relationships with influencers can help businesses to create effective influencer marketing campaigns and achieve their goals.

To build a strong relationship with an influencer, it’s important for businesses to choose the right influencer who aligns with their brand value and target audience. Once a suitable influencer is identified, the business should communicate clearly and respectfully, and provide them with all the necessary information about the product or service being promoted.

As part of the process of building solid relationships with key influencers, it is important that businesses compensate influencers fairly for their work. This can include paying them for sponsored posts, providing them with free products or services, or offering them other incentives.

6. Higher Conversions

Higher conversions are another benefit of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing can help businesses to drive more sales by promoting their products or services to a wider audience and increasing brand awareness, credibility, and engagement.

When an influencer promotes a product or service, their followers are more likely to consider purchasing it, as they already trust the influencer’s opinion. This can lead to a higher conversion rate, as the influencer’s followers are more likely to make a purchase than someone who has never heard of the brand before.

Moreover, by consistently promoting a brand’s products or services through influencer marketing, businesses can generate more backlinks to their website, which can improve their search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic to their site (resulting in improved sales).

Common Misperceptions As to Why Influencer Marketing Is Not Widely Considered to Be an Effective Growth Marketing Tactic

Influencer marketing is a widely-used marketing tool everyone is looking to experiment with. There’s a lot to discuss before deciding if influencer marketing is the right path for you and your organization to pursue – and a lot of myths to debunk along the way.

Don’t think it’s for you? Here are some 5 common misconceptions about the strategy that might change your opinion:

1. You have to spend large amounts of money to get results

There is a common belief that in order to get the most out of influencer marketing, you need to be spending like a huge company. The reality is that a lot of businesses don’t have those resources – and that’s okay! There are influencers all over the price spectrum and as long as you are giving the influencer something in return, there is a lot of room for flexibility.

2. They’re hard to get a hold of

Many people think that because some influencers have such a massive following, they’re unreachable. For the most part, that’s not true – sure, the top 1% or 5% might be difficult to get ahold of, but most influencers are very quick to respond to requests and feedback, so you should expect a fairly quick response if they’re interested in what you are offering.

3. The influencer has to have a certain number of followers to be effective

When it comes to influencer marketing, you want to go for quality over quantity – it’s not all about the follower count. . Take some time, do some digging and don’t put as much emphasis on the number of followers. You’d be surprised how much you can achieve with an influencer who is of great quality and really gets your brand.

4. There aren’t any influencers in your market

Just like every business is different, so is every influencer. You don’t want to go after an influencer just because they’re seemingly everywhere – think about if they really fit in with your brand. Would they be the best possible person to help your business and spread the word? Do they understand your vision and jive with your overall message? If yes, then that’s already a better relationship than with an influencer who may seemingly “be everywhere” but not understand your brand or your vision.

5. You need an influencer marketing expert on hand

Influencer marketing is actually a tactic that you do not need a lot of holding to at least get started with.

Start with something as easy as a keyword search for the type of influencer you’re looking for. Once you’ve found some key people for your brand or campaign, make sure to keep monitoring their activity, create a posting schedule, and share their content.

In addition, there are sites where you can find influencers based on industry.  An example of this Fashion GPS Radar, the curated community where brands can connect with influencers. 

These are good places to start with  However, an influencer marketing consultant or agency, can definitely help you take the next step in terms of using influencers to level up your growth, through their connections, as well as via strategies that they might have used in the past with other clients that might apply similarly to your business.

Industries that Can Truly Benefit From Influencer Marketing as a Growth Marketing Tactic

Almost any industry could profit from a well-targeted influencer marketing campaign, but there are certain industries that seem to be tailor-made—among them, fashion (pun intended)—for the Influencer marketing medium.

While it is very likely that the influencer marketing portion of your campaign will steadily become the most important focus, no matter the industry, at this particular point there are a few industries that seem better adapted to influencer marketing.

Let’s look at some of the industries that can currently benefit the most from Influencer marketing as a prominent part of the overall marketing strategy.

1) Fashion and Beauty:

Topping the list is of great industries for influencer marketing is Fashion and beauty. These brands have a staggering number of influencers with whom they can form partnerships. By 2017, the 10 top fashion influencers had a robust reach of approximately 23.3 million followers.

Fashion and beauty are such popular categories for influencers that brands have only to niche down to find the very best representatives for their specific products or services.

Influencer vetting platforms like socialbook.io can be immensely helpful in narrowing the search for perfect industry-specific partners. Brands can simplify their searching process by specifying categories like industry, age group, what brands the influencers have worked with before, engagement levels and many other helpful metrics that greatly facilitate the search for influencers.

Platforms that allow marketers to search and vet make it far easier to find precisely what is needed in an influencer. For example, is your brand an anti-aging cream? Nineteen-year-old model and vlogger Amanda Steele may not be your best choice for promoting this product.

An influencer platform means you’ll be able to more easily cut to the chase and find someone who is a likely more appropriate match for your brand.

2) Travel:

No need to wonder why travel influencers enjoy substantial followings on social media. Until it’s time to take that dream trip, would-be travelers can satisfy their wanderlust in the comfort of their own homes, on their commutes, or during their lunch breaks, sightseeing vicariously through any number of globetrotting traveler influencers.

Hotels that offer budget-friendly accommodations for money-conscious travelers can partner with influencers such as budget travel expert Rachel Hill of Rachel Travels.

Adventure travel companies may want to partner with an influencer like an intrepid outdoor adventurer and cliff diving aficionado Hope Lane, while those businesses offering a more high-end experience may prefer someone like travel journalist Kim-Marie Evans, the Luxury Travel Mom.

3) Food and Beverage:

The immediacy of the food industry makes this an influencer-marketing niche where timeliness is everything. The food industry lends itself well to influencer marketing since it’s especially important for foodies to stay in the know about openings and closings, pop-ups, or changes to the kitchen leadership at their favorite eating spots.

Those who hold dear all things culinary cannot possibly keep abreast of all of this latest news without the help and advice of influencer experts who make it their raison d’être to vet as many chefs, restaurants, food trucks, markets, and favorite foodie haunts as possible so that those who wish to indulge consciously can plan their excursions with confidence.

After all, there is only so much one person can eat in any given outing so it helps to have the guidance of experts so that foodies can be more gourmet than gourmand when out on tasting tours—and enjoy minimal recovery time after their gastronomic adventures.

4) Toys:

YouTube videos that feature toy reviews by those most in the know—the kids who play with the the toys—have a growing audience, and there always seems to be room for one more child influencer.

One of the most popular toy influencers on YouTube, 8-year old Ryan, earned a reported $11 million in 2016 with his channel Ryan ToysReview, and the niche keeps growing to include more wanna-be toy macro-influencers. His “Huge Eggs Surprise Toys Challenge” video has been viewed over 1 billion times.

With hundreds of popular toy reviewers to choose from, toy brands can make like the proverbial kid in a candy shop when selecting toy influencers with whom to partner. No need to go for the most popular and expensive (the Ryans of the bunch), there are enough eager young toy reviewers that you are sure to find one whose fee fits within your budget.

5) Tech:

The tech world has been steadily producing more influencers over the last several years, and increasingly technology marketers are turning to these gadget gurus to endorse their products and focus their advertising campaigns.

In addition to seeking out influencers with large, engaged audiences, tech marketers today want partnerships with influencers who have in-depth and industry-specific knowledge of particular technology niches.

Instead, technology enthusiasts—and the brands that hope to have them as customers—are looking for influencers who can provide product reviews and specialized knowledge that will help them make informed purchasing decisions.

Popular influencers in this arena include micro-influencer Laura Medalia aka Codergirl, a software engineer with a tech- and business-focused Instagram feed, and Kevin Nether(Kevin the Tech Ninja), whose YouTube channel provides product reviews and tutorials for programs like Norton.

Influencer Marketing Tactics that Can Help to Grease the Growth Marketing Funnel

An influencer marketing strategy leverages digital creators who strongly influence specific industries or target audiences to make purchase decisions. With a successful strategy, you can partner with these individuals to promote your brand, products, and services through curated messaging.

Before promoting your brand with influencers, you need to develop a strategy that allows you to maximize exposure, optimize your campaign performance, and track progress every step of the way, while respecting your budget and constantly working to improve your CPA and other key growth marketing metrics.

Regardless,  you need to have a solid understanding of your target audience and buyer personas, you need to determine what type of campaigns you want to run. While what this entails differs from business to business and varies based on the nature of your specific business, here are 6 influencer marketing tactics that can definitely help to spur growth in your business.

1) Use influencers for product launches:  Influencers are perceived as subject matter experts in their niches. So their messages are more credible. Also, their followers are people who have a keen interest in that niche.

So their endorsements are likely to be heard by your target audiences resulting in greater chances of conversions.

In fact:

• 30% of people are more likely to purchase a product that has been endorsed by a non-celebrity than a celebrity,

• 70% of millennials prefer non-celebrity influencers for endorsements.

Influencer endorsements are one of the best influencer marketing tactics to get people to trust your products.

2)Guest posting:  This involves creating guest posts and blog articles on different websites and blogs in the niche, which you’re targeting. Having your name associated with niche-specific advice is a brilliant first move for putting your personal brand and message out there. In addition, backlinks from different blogs to your website provide domain and search authority for your website, which improves your search ranking and the number of search-generated visits to your business website.  In the same way, appearing as a guest in an industry-specific or role-specific podcast is one of the most effective influencer strategies for getting your name out there.  

3) Sponsored Posts or Content: In this type of sponsored post, advertisers pay a specific user, usually an influencer, to promote their brand in a post. These influencers offer access to their audience of engaged followers.

An influencer’s opinions and endorsements carry weight with their followers, so these posts are a great way to generate social proof. Your brand can work with influencers to access a powerful source of “word-of-mouth”-style marketing.

An influencer ad can be tricky to spot because it usually looks like their regular content. To help with transparency, most social media platforms make it mandatory for influencers to label their paid post

4) Launch Contests and giveaways:  Who doesn’t like contests and prizes? When the right influencer asks you to sponsor a competition or a contest, don’t hesitate to jump right in. Better yet, plan one with the partner-influencer. Given the competition landscape, earmarking some amount for sponsored prizes and rewards in the annual budget has become a marketing imperative anyway.

Exciting contests and attractive giveaways are great ways to spur conversation and drive awareness and engagement for your brand. If you are a B2C company, rewarding influencers with your product can initiate an unboxing video. Running tough competitions that feature your product as the ultimate prize can also be a powerful brand awareness tactic. On the other hand, B2B companies in the SaaS space can work out deals with influencers to demo their products while game developers can certainly partner with an avid player to film a walkthrough.

Guest appearances on podcasts or webinars:  Video-based marketing via webcasts is a formidable tactic for driving brand awareness, given the exploding popularity of the medium and the advances in streaming technologies. Sound-only podcasts aren’t too far behind either, with podcast consumption also experiencing an exponential rise. No wonder smart marketers already have podcasts, webinars, and video outreach as favorite staples in their digital marketing toolbox. For most ambitious companies, it wouldn’t be a stretch to mix influencer marketing with their media streaming apparatus. Besides, a good number of proactive influencers already use video to send their message across and keep their followers delighted.

Webinars, podcasts, and Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) sessions with an influencer can provide exposure benefits and drive deeper engagement for your brand.

In an arena where authenticity is treasured, followers actually seeing and hearing their favorite influencers is gold. Audio-visual communication generally trumps text-based branding when it comes to driving awareness, engagement, and sales. That means you should not shy away from sponsoring influencers’ live feeds when the right conditions are present. AMAs, unboxing,  webinars, filmed reviews, and podcasts are just some possible streamed media collaborations that can propel brand awareness.

Affiliates:  Invite influencers to become affiliates. In this case, they will receive a percentage of sales. Opinion leaders will be directly interested in the sales drive, so they will advertise your brand more often and diligently.

Discount codes:  Exclusive promos and large discounts to premium online courses, ebooks, consumer products, services, and onsite events are often used as magnets for generating new leads and driving sales. But promo codes and exclusive coupons can do a lot more.

They might seem simple and modest but unique discounts and exclusive promo codes are excellent marketing tools that can help you:

1. Keep audiences engaged

2. Reward committed followers

3. Generate new leads

4. Drive actual purchases

5. Assist and compensate influencers

6. Track the impact and effectiveness of a campaign

In fact, many affiliates and influencer marketing partnerships thrive by offering discount coupons and promo codes associated with custom landing pages where lead generation and different types of conversions can be orchestrated. This tactic is best used in tandem with podcasts or live video streams by which influencers can better articulate your message and convince their followers to join the fun.

Influencer Marketing as a Key Part of Your Growth Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing can be a powerful way to drive revenue growth and progress for your business, but it requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing optimization. 

  Whether you're new to influencer marketing or extremely experienced regarding sponsored posts, live feeds, or sponsored stories, this article hopefully provides some guidelines for getting started, or how to improve.

If you believe that influencer marketing might be a driver for your business, but are not sure about how to get started, or about your existing strategy, please feel free to reach out today to our influencer marketing consultants or for a general free, no-obligation growth marketing consultation. A session with our growth marketing consultants can help you gain an experienced outside perspective that will serve your business well