Influencer Marketing

The Rise of Influencer Marketing

Posted on in Small Business Tips, Social Media

What do you know about Influencer Marketing and is it really worth you spending time and energy on?

In a recent study (The State of Influencer Marketing 2017) 94% of respondents said that using influencer marketing made for an effective campaign strategy. But is it possible to get an accurate ROI (return on investment) on influencer marketing to ensure this is the case?

There are many benefits to influencer marketing – a ready-made target audience, credibility etc – but being able to measure its success accurately isn’t one of them.

If you’re unsure what influencer marketing even is – let us sum it up for you. It’s the use of those who are already seen as experts/early adopters in a niche area – for example bloggers and vloggers with an already established social media following, who are already seen as credible experts in their field.

Although some of these social media gurus do in turn become celebrities, this differs from the usual celebrity endorsement because the influencer is seen as having expert knowledge and experience in the market – unlike an actress endorsing perfume for instance. She might like it – and be happy to advertise it – but her say-so is not based on any in-depth expertise.

One big name to embrace the idea of influencer marketing is clothing retail giant GAP, which created its styled.by campaign around lifestyle and fashion journalists, photographers, bloggers and other creatives putting together outfits and then writing about their choices.

Estée Lauder may be more than 70 years old as a company, but it too understands the power of social media and the need to connect with a younger audience. To make this happen it took on board Kendall Jenner, the youngest of the Kardashian family, for its spin-off brand the Estée Edit. As well as helping to put together the new collection, Jenner then used her Instagram – with 75.1m followers – to help to promote it.

Cards and gift giant Hallmark used a number of family-friendly influencers to help plug its 2016 keepsake ornament collection, for which they shared their family moments over the Christmas holidays.

An interesting example comes from WH Smith, which used teen sensation Zoella – well known for her beauty vlogs – to create a kind of book club for teens. Her first video, entitled My Book Club Picks – plugged a number of books in the young adult genre – perfect for her following of girls aged 13-18. So perfect, in fact, that in the first day, sales of each book she mentioned rose by between 1,817% and 11,164%.

Football content creators, meanwhile, were the focus of a campaign from sportswear/shoes brand Adidas. The company launched Tango Squads, groups of between 100 and 250 16- to 19-year-old football content creators which operated on messaging apps. It gave the sports giant an opportunity to both produce content and communicate directly with its target audience.

You don’t have to be a giant like Adidas or Gap to have your own marketing campaign. If you would like to have a chat about your marketing requirements, please call Alison Page on tel: 07963 002065 or email: hello@alisonpagemarketing.co.uk. You can of course browse our website to see what our existing clients have to say about our work .