Influencer Marketing
Sometimes you get so entangled in jargon that you forget what it must sound like to outsiders. This is also the case with FirstOnline. We often talk about influencer marketing and how this marketing tool should become an elementary part of your brand strategy. Every day we use influencer marketing so that we almost forget that not everyone what it means!
That’s why I wrote this article today in which I define influencer marketing and explain to you how it differs from other marketing tools. I also want to make you think about how we can make influencer marketing work for your brand by describing its unique characteristics.
Table of Content
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a marketing tool that focuses on deploying leaders to promote your brand in a wider market. Instead of directly targeting a large group of consumers, you inspire, hire or pay influencers to tell your story to his or their target audience, which is or will also be your target audience. Influencer marketing is seen as the new advertising. We no longer trust advertising, bloggers do.
Influencer marketing often goes hand in hand with other forms of marketing such as social media marketing and content marketing. Most influencer campaigns usually also have a social media component where we expect influencers to tell your story through their own social channels. Many influencer campaigns also involve creating content that is either self-provided or specifically realized by the influencer himself. Although social media and content marketing are often part of influencer campaigns, they are not synonyms.
Influencer marketing is good for an 11 times higher ROI compared to other forms of digital advertising.
Influencer Marketing is fastest growing and most cost effective marketing channel
What is the difference between the word of mouth and influencer marketing?
Although some people interchange word-of-mouth and influencer marketing as a term, there is a huge difference between the two disciplines. While influencer marketing on a conceptual level means motivating key figures to share their influence with friends and family, word of mouth is the actual route through which communication will flow. Influencer marketing, therefore, uses word-of-mouth by definition. However, not all word-of-mouth campaigns are driven by influencer marketing.
Is advocacy marketing the same as influencer marketing?
Advocacy marketing should not be confused with influencer marketing. Advocacy marketing is a marketing strategy that involves employees, satisfied customers, fans, and partners in your marketing plan. For example, a brand can turn its most satisfied customers into a social sales force to drive growth. Sharing can take place via, for example, product reviews or customer references.
With influencer marketing, you are more focused on finding influencers, not necessarily customers, who tell your story. Another distinguishing factor between influencer marketing and advocacy marketing is that influencers are usually paid either in euros or in free products. Advocacy marketing focuses less on compensating or paying but more on exploiting existing brand / brand loyalty in order to increase the number of fans.
What are the core components of influencer marketing?
Because influencer marketing is a field in itself, there are a number of unique components to building a campaign. Below I describe a number of steps that we take when using this tool with our clients.
- Identify the leading brand or product influencers, be it through desk research or use self-service platforms such as Linkpizza or Hulc looking for bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, and Facebookers who understand how to present sponsored content;
- develop a marketing campaign aimed at these influencers;
- develop a second marketing campaign to increase reach;
- record data regarding reach, sales, and brand identity.
