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Let’s be honest with each other - nobody actually clicks on pop-up and banner ads that are displayed on websites, unless it’s on accident. So what kinds of ads actually work? What kind of marketing should your brand be investing in? Well, the answer is simple - influencer marketing! In fact, the influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately $16.4 billion in the next year.
Not sure what influencer marketing is?
When you think about it, influencer marketing is pretty simple. Influencer marketing builds on the idea of celebrity endorsement, which is a marketing tool that has been used by brands all over the world for years. Think of influencers as the new celebrities of our generation, and the brands that are becoming most successful are the ones who have already caught on to this trend.
What differentiates between an influencer and a celebrity is the high level of trust and comfort that we, as viewers and consumers of their content, feel with an influencer. Our favorite influencers are the ones that feel like our closest friends, and so when they mention a brand or service, we are more inclined to believe what they say. We are more inclined to listen to our favorite creator promote a brand than, let’s say, Gal Gadot.
If you are still not convinced about working with influencers, these five reasons may change your mind.
One of the first questions any brand is going to ask is how much influencer marketing can cost. The price of mentioning a brand in one YouTube video can cost anywhere from $20 to $20,000. Of course, this depends on the size of the following an influencer has, the length of the ad, and where the ad is placed.
It’s important to remember that working with micro-influencers can be just as successful, if not more, and won’t cost you as much. Having a smaller audience can mean higher engagement with the viewers, which oftentimes is more important than a high follower count. An audience that is more engaged means that they are more receptive to brands that are being endorsed.
If you want some help calculating how much a YouTube sponsorship placement is worth, be sure to check out our YouTube Sponsorship Calculator!
What’s great about influencer marketing is that there are a number of ways to track the partnership success - for example, number of potential consumers that clicked on influencer’s unique link, total number of views the promotion received, total number of people that actually purchased the promoted item. With traditional marketing, it’s much harder to track the ads success rates - you can’t exactly track how many people saw a billboard ad on the way to work. So, while some brands may be surprised by the price range, it’s pretty safe to say that you get your money’s worth.
The ultimate goal of your brand or service is to sell, and influencers are highly effective in boosting those sales. Content creators are going to be able to get the attention of your target audience and persuade them to give your brand or service a try in a more authentic manner. According to the latest poll from influencer marketplace Tomoson, businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for each $1 invested in influencer marketing, on average. According to these numbers, influencer marketing is definitely worth it. Not to mention, influencer marketing campaigns will help boost the traffic on your various platforms, as all your links will be able to be displayed in the description of a video or podcast episode.
Sometimes all it takes is to just spread awareness and that’s much easier to do with an influencer that has millions of followers/subscribers. Keep in mind that this influencer knows their audience pretty well, so they are highly equipped to promote a brand, product and service in a way that will spark their audience’s interest.
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Anything you can think of, there’s an influencer niche for it. This means that, as a brand, finding an influencer that aligns with your product shouldn’t be too complicated. For example, Book of the Month, a monthly book subscription service, has a plethora of ‘booktubers’, YouTubers who make content about all things books, to choose to sponsor. These bookish content creators genuinely love talking about books, which makes the Book of the Month sponsorships so successful.
However, you can also experiment with the different niches that you’re targeting. There are many content creators that, at first glance, may be partnering with brands that seem a bit, well, random. However, the truly successful ad campaigns will be the ones that are seamlessly integrated into the video, and that all depends on the narrative that the influencer chooses to create in their video. This means that your brand can experiment with the content creators that you choose to collaborate with. Who knows what combinations will end up being the most successful.
With ThoughtLeaders, you can even check out where your competitors are sponsoring - seeing what niches worked for them and checking out how exactly influencers integrated the brand into their content.
Having a friend recommend a service or brand to you makes you more inclined to go along with the purchase, and that’s the same with any content creator and influencer. As viewers, we slowly learn what our favorite YouTubers, podcasters, and gamers love to wear, eat and use in the hours of content that they put out for us. So when they mention a service or brand that they’re loving, we’re going to want to check it out. Oftentimes, we also get to see exactly how the product or service works. For example, when Gabi Fuller, a lifestyle content creator on YouTube, films the process of her making one of HelloFresh’s recipes for dinner, we get a glimpse at just how flexible, versatile and easy the subscription service is.
Let’s be honest, this is much more influential than seeing Chris Hemsworth holding up a perfume bottle. By getting to see your favorite creators actually enjoy the product they are promoting, you are more likely to believe in the brand, its products and its service - ultimately making it almost impossible to not want to give it a try (especially when the creators share their discount code!).
Influencers are the experts in making content that is creative and engaging. These content creators have had to think outside the box and be the ones who create the viral trends and challenges in order to build their following to what it is today. They understand the ins and outs of all the different platforms (reels vs tik toks, challenges vs tags… it can honestly get quite confusing!). So, instead of your brand having to put aside time and energy towards content creation, when you work with an influencer you’re able to delegate that job to the masters of the field.
We have become experts in matching up brands and creators based on the creators content and audience, and the brands requirements. This really saves the brand time because we get to do all the heavy lifting - finding the creators that can best represent and promote your brand - while the brand just has to give the final okay and keep an eye on the success rates.
Influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere in the near future, and we’re here to help you with the process! If you’re eager to get started with working with influencers or simply want to up your influencer marketing game, contact us today to find out how can we help you out!
