Influencer marketing is working well for countless brands around the world.
In 2019 for example, 93% of brands leveraged influencer marketing, according to this research. Impressively, this number includes brands from all types of domains including ecommerce, B2B, B2C, SaaS, and brick-and-mortar stores. Clearly, influencers have become an asset for entrepreneurs globally.
But why is this?
The short answer is that consumers find influencers both relatable and trustworthy. First, influencers build their reputation and goodwill by sharing engaging and valuable content. They put effort into building authentic relationships with followers absent of any vested interests.
When influencers endorse a brand, the brand wins customer trust. In fact, 63% of customers believe what influencers have to say about a brand much more than what a brand says about itself. That’s why influencer marketing is effective as a brand-building strategy.
Sound interesting?
Then read on for real examples of how influencers are currently boosting brand value, and how you can apply these same lessons in your own business!
Let’s get started.
How can influencers boost your brand’s value?
Before we dive in, I need to share an important bit of information with you:
While influencer marketing is no doubt very effective, it’s no magic wand. In order for you to see a skyrocketing effect on your brand’s value, there are a few details you’ll need to be aware of.
The first thing is to select the right influencers for collaboration. When I say “right influencers,” I mean influencers who have similar audience demographics, target platforms, niche, and values as you. The right influencer-brand match is crucial to make your collaboration both natural and productive.
So how should you approach this? Manually searching through thousands of influencer profiles can be tedious and less-than-effective. Luckily, there are numerous automated platforms for influencer marketing that can help you find your best-fit influencers in minutes. Whew!
Once this step is completed, you simply need to reach out to shortlisted influencers so that you can work out an effective business model with them. To begin this process, let’s take a look at the top four ways you can put your influencers to work at building your brand.
Most influencers are active on social media. They can help by growing your brand’s presence, engagement, and conversions on the social platforms you are targeting.
Influencers are expert content creators, and their content speaks for itself. If they create sponsored posts for your brand, you can absolutely shine on saturated social networks.
Influencers also have loyal and engaged communities of followers who avidly track and read their posts. As a result, your influencer-generated posts are bound to garner a lot of attention. Since their audiences match your own buyer personas, you will be attracting exactly the right people.
Social influence means different things to different people. It could mean social currency (likes, comments, and shares), for example, or it could mean reach (number of followers), domain authority, or social sales. Influencers can amplify your brand’s influence in all of these departments.
Don’t believe me?
Check out this stat from the Edelman survey cited earlier:
This means influencers on social media can earn your brand new leads, brand advocates, and loyal customers.
Want an extra pro tip?
Your brand-influencer team needs to be sure to make a place on Facebook-owned social apps. Trust me: they control the lion’s share of social users, and they’ll be important for ensuring an effective online presence.
That said, Instagram is flooded with superb influencer content, which makes it tough ground on which to compete. Facebook, however, has fewer influencers and an unbeatable user base. So if your influencers create engaging Facebook posts, you have a solid chance of beating the competition. Another plus: you get insider access to the platform’s huge audience.
Need an example?
Australian brands, for example, are embracing influencer marketing as consumers become over-exposed and weary of traditional ads. Dental brand, HiSmile, for example, had a great product: A teeth-whitening solution that gave real results.
Unfortunately, the brand was lost in the crowd… until they partnered with micro-influencers. That’s when entrepreneur duo, Alex Tomic and Nik Mirkovic from the Gold Coast, invested their entire $20K marketing budget in the effort, signing up Instagram influencers in the health and hygiene niche.
The result?
HiSmile’s young target audience quickly sat up and took notice of the brand. Their male customer base grew by 90% and the brand reached 14 million people through the efforts of their influencer, Conor McGregor.
2. Drive traffic to your website
Influencers can redirect traffic from their own social pages to your branded websites. They can easily include your website links in their posts, and encourage people to check out your website.
Since the visitors that influencers send your way are already engaged with your brand, they will spend more time on your website. As a result, Google will take this as a positive sign and may rank your website higher. In this way, influencers improve both your on-site conversions as well as your SEO.
Is that it?
No… not by a long shot. Influencer-led visitors can directly impact your website revenue. Since these people are emotionally invested in your brand, they are likely to explore your product pages and may even buy something.
Australian beauty influencer, Marcia Fahim, for example, regularly recommends hair products from her brand partner, Mason James.
In her post below, she first narrates how the brand’s products have helped maintain her own hair. Then, she shares an exclusive discount code with her followers that they can redeem on the brand’s website.
And that, my friends, is a mighty powerful incentive for people to both visit the website and share the post with their friends. Through her post, the influencer produced targeted traffic and impressive reach for the brand’s website in one masterstroke.
3. Grow your revenue as affiliates
Remember, brands can (and should) launch a formal affiliate marketing program for their influencers. Using this strategy, a brand teams up with influencers to carry out aggressive marketing campaigns. In return, they compensate influencers with commissions on the revenue they generate.
The affiliate marketing model is a win-win for both stakeholders. For brands, it means exclusive access to an influencer’s services. That also translates into better-motivated influencers since more sales result in more commissions. And for influencers, this means fair compensation for their efforts.
That’s what makes affiliate marketing a smart way to generate online revenue.
Sound good?
Great. Then let’s move on: take a look at this sample affiliate program by ecommerce brand, Revolve. They provide a 5% commission to content creators who share branded shopping links and promo codes with their followers.
As you can see, the brand provides a dedicated product catalog for influencers to choose from. After that, influencers simply upload their catalog to social feeds and start promoting them. Then, tracking cookies allows you to keep tabs on the sales and helps you calculate payable commission.
Simple, isn’t it?
It is. Just be sure to keep in mind the FTC’s regulations regarding affiliate disclosures. Once you’ve got that out of the way, watch the affiliate model do wonders for your brand’s value.
4. Write favorable reviews and testimonials
The power of reviews cannot be denied. A full 97% of customers consult reviews before making purchase decisions.
And when reviews come from influencers, their impact increases exponentially, as influencer-generated reviews tend to be incredibly genuine.
How do we know this?
In a survey of micro-influencers, 99.2% of respondents said they only endorse products that they believe in.
In the same survey, the largest number of influencers (32%) said that their authenticity is the biggest reason for their success. So because influencers are true to their word, people trust and respect them.
Last but not least, let’s look at one more reason that influencer reviews build brand equity: influencers have reputable personal brands that they build with consistent effort. They have already done the work to establish authority in their domain.
If influencers write glowing reviews about your brand, its value can hit the roof. You’ll gain new followers, increased engagement, and, of course, sales.
And that’s not all. Remember too that you can repurpose influencer reviews into testimonials for your website and newsletters. This is a great way for you to impress contacts that are outside of your social reach.
The best part?
Influencers can leverage their relationships with their followers to amass user-generated reviews for your brand. If your influencers are transparent about sponsorships, all relevant customer reviews become your intellectual property that you can use as you see fit.
Are You Ready to Ace Influence Marketing?
For all kinds of brands, influencer marketing has countless benefits. Apart from the recommendations mentioned in this post, influencers can help your brand tell their stories, reinforce their messaging, and improve your industry positioning. It’s no wonder that influencers have become valuable brand partners.
Do you have questions about any of the tactics in this post? Leave them in the comments below. I’m always happy to answer.