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Influencer Marketing is not a completely new strategy – it has been around for a while. But this marketing strategy is gaining more and more popularity in the world of business these days. The most important reason for this recognition is that advertising your business online is not easy nowadays. Modern people pay less attention to the traditional ways of advertisement. As a result, to sell their products, contemporary companies need alternative ways of reaching their prospective clients.
The idea which lies behind the influencer marketing is very simple - directing the influence of some active individuals on the social web to your own web project. Both influencers and business have potential benefit in this case, so both are interested in this relationship.
You have to work hard to win the trust of your customers. But why not use the trust that already exists? By using influencer marketing you introduce your product with the help of the people who have already won the trust of their community.
So, instead of advertising your product yourself, let a person people trust speak on your behalf. Moreover, according to contemporary market researchers, consumers are more likely to believe the third party but not to the producer. With influencers at your side, you can get really good results.
One of the most important challenges for modern businesses is to get noticed among the competitors. With influencer marketing, it is possible to solve this problem one hundred percent. Your brand gets more attention as your influencers make it stand out. Your prospective customers are likely to pay attention to your brand because they get this reference from the source they really trust. A good example a celebrity influencer is Keira Knightley who has become the face of Chanel.
The information you need to share spreads really quickly with influencers’ assistance. Of course, the speed depends on how big the influencer’s audience is. But if you have the right influencer and a lot of people who subscribe to his/her blog or social media accounts, the results may be incredible.
Besides that, do not forget that the subscribers of your influencer have their own profiles in social media. They tend to share the information they are interested in and it may also help your business. On the top of that, being popular on the web, an influencer can make your product site more popular by driving more traffic to it.
The reference to your brand or product in the influencers’ posts and videos is the easiest way of sharing brand-related content. One more option is to share photos (e.g. on Instagram) and add inspiring comments to them. It is also a good idea to announce your product updates this way.
Offering discounts or affiliate links accompanied by an effective call to action is always a good decision. Consumers always react to the word ‘discount’ and there is a great chance that they will make up their mind to follow the link. The effect may be even better if the influencer writes some encouraging words of his/her own alongside.
If you have found a particular influencer who fully answers the needs of your company and feels the target customers, to take him/her as a leader for your brand campaign may be an excellent idea. You make him/her an ‘Ambassador’ of your brand or offer your influencer to take over your company official blog. You should definitely give a try to one of these ideas.
Your customers are your best ‘micro’ influencers as influencing and purchasing goes hand in hand. Moreover, consumers tend to trust peer recommendations. Using the testimonials of your loyal clients at your site main page is an excellent idea because your prospective customers will see it as soon as they visit it.
This information may push them to give more attention to the services and products your company offers. This great example is a MotoCMS home page with a collection of video testimonials. The website builder company shares the experiences of existing clients to attract newcomers.
When promoting your brand, think about this option as well. This variant may work in different ways. First of all, you can start the blog for your company and train people to write the content which promotes your brand directly. Also, you can offer sponsorship to the existing popular blogs. Why not produce content, which does not necessary speak about your brand, but attracts a lot of attention and drives more traffic to your site?
A great example of this approach is the Red Bull official website. These guys know that they produce an energy drink, so their blog content promotes an energetic lifestyle.
You are also welcome to establish a reverse connection. By integrating the content made by your influencers you can achieve two goals at the same time: show the influencers that you appreciate their efforts and enlarge the audience of these posts by introducing this material to your other clients.
People like to compete and love free stuff. Use this to make your brand popular among the audience of your influencer. Of course, this way of marketing requires some expenses. But this is the case when it is wise to be generous.
As a result, you get new customers, generate top-line sales and drive more traffic. Do not forget about the usefulness of hashtags.
Share the information about upcoming events with the influencers. Use the event hashtag when posting on the web. Encourage your influencers to write about the upcoming event in their blogs, tweet about it to their audience. Invite your influencers to participate in the event personally and write about it in detail afterward.
You should realize that you should not expect a high rise in the sales the very day you start your influencer marketing strategy. This is a long process which takes some time to bring considerable results. But if you are patient enough you will certainly admire the effect of it.
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Julia Blake is an experienced writer of many articles related to web design and development, usability, trends, inspiration, etc. She likes learning and sharing her knowledge with others. Follow her on Twitter.
