Influencer Marketing Benefits
You get an influencer! You get an influencer! You get an influencer!
In today’s society, influencers come a dime a dozen. Seriously, everyone and their mama believes that they are an influencer.
There is an influencer for every industry.
However, finding the right influencer for your brand is key! Influencer marketing done the right way can take your brand to the next level.
Not sure what influencer marketing is exactly?
Basically, it is when a brand uses an influencer, which are people who have a loyal following on social media platforms and are viewed as experts in their niche, to endorse and mention their products or services.
In other words, through influencer marketing, you can put your product in front of the influencer’s audience — which should align with your brand — to generate new leads and conversions.
Now, for those of you who are worried about ruining your brand with influencers, below are three reasons why they are indeed beneficial to your brand.
However, before we dive into the benefits, please note that you can’t just choose any influencers to represent your brand. Just like any other employee, you must vet your influencers to ensure they align with your brand and target audience.
Three things to keep in mind while researching for influencers are:
- Their values and if they match your brand’s values
- Their engagement rate and not just the number of followers
- The category of influencer that best fits your brand’s needs
Here are three benefits to using influencers:
Boost Brand Awareness
First and foremost, influencers could effortlessly boost your brand’s awareness with just a few posts.
It can play an intricate part in expanding your reach online by sharing your brand on their social media accounts. Once this happens, their followers will begin to notice your brand, understand your purpose, and know who you are as a brand through the influencer.
Basically, introducing your brand to a whole new audience.
The key is to ensure that you select an influencer whose niche aligns with your brand, and as a result, it will help your brand connect to an already engaged audience.
Plus, since influencers are known to start trends and introduce their followers to new brands, aligning your brand with them shows you are an innovative company.
Builds Trust and Credibility
Another benefit of using influencers for your brand is that it builds trust and credibility with your consumers.
Since influencers are typically industry experts and well-known leaders, it adds instant trustworthiness to the brand when they share content about a brand.
In other words, it’s like having a personal cheerleader bragging about your brand. This is beneficial because it means that consumers are more inclined to convert now that an influencer has vetted the company.
Plus, by partnering with an influencer who is trusted by the target market and produces a genuine message, consumers will pay more attention and have confidence in the brand. This will, in turn, result in a positive response from the target market to your brand.
Increase in Sales and Leads
Using an influencer to promote your brand is beneficial because it induces an increase in sales and leads.
Helloooo! That is the overall goal, to bring in revenue.
This is due to the simple fact that followers trust the influencers and pay attention to the brands they promote, which means they are more inclined to buy and engage the brand.
Additionally, utilizing influencers relevant to your brand places you right in front of your target audience interested in your niche, which drives purchasing decisions and new leads.
Plus, using influencers allows you to connect with a new audience where they spend most of their time, resulting in more leads.
Still not sure what to do?
Let’s take the brand Celsius for example.
Celsius is a fitness energy drink brand that promotes living a fit lifestyle. They provide their consumers with a healthy science-based energy drink that will help them meet their fitness goals.
Their voice is fun, friendly, and informational. When it comes to their target audience, they target Millennials and Generation Z, who live or want to live a healthy, fit lifestyle. This includes athletes and everyday people.
An ideal influencer for Celsius would be Ally Love. She would be a perfect fit for the Celsius brand because she has a loyal following that trusts her opinion when it comes to anything related to the fitness industry.
Across her social media, Ally has over 800,000 followers.
According to the standard influencer tiers, this would place Ally in the Macro-Influencer category since she has less than 1 million followers but over 500 thousand followers.
With this in mind, I believe that Ally would be an excellent fit for Celsius because she is attainable and has a niche that works well with the brand. Since Ally is considered an expert in her niche, she has a highly targeted audience that can result in valuable leads for the brand.
Plus, she will be able to quickly increase the brand’s reach to a broader audience and boost engagement rates with content that resonates based on her experience.
I also chose her because she is fun and relatable. She represents the everyday fitness lover who enjoys moving throughout the day, and her followers are similar.
In addition, her average engagement rate is over 11%, which is relatively good for a macro-influencer. With that said, she would be able to actively engage her audience with Celsius content.
The type of content she shares is motivating and encouraging. She inspires her audience to live a healthy lifestyle and get moving daily. This is ideal for Celsius since their slogan is live fit, and their goal is to place their drink in the hands of people who need that extra boost to live a healthy lifestyle.
Not to mention, she is a Peloton instructor, which would open Celsius up to their audience that follows Ally.
As far as audience alignment, Celsius and Ally have similar target audiences. For one, Ally’s audience consists of all levels, from fitness beginners to fitness lovers looking for inspiration and ways to improve their healthy lifestyles.
This is similar to Celsius’ audience, who are fitness individuals of all levels looking for an extra boost to improve their healthy lifestyles.
In addition, Ally’s audience consists of Generation Z and Millennials, which is Celsius’ target audience.
It would be beneficial to both Celsius and Ally Love to form a partnership because they can both accomplish their goals.
For Ally, since she is clearly a busy businesswoman, she may need an energy boost from time to time, especially since her job requires her to be at 100% energy at all times.
Not to mention, it will benefit her because it helps to increase her following and engagement. Plus, she can make money from the partnership and it to her portfolio.
In addition to the benefits listed above, including increasing brand awareness, building brand loyalty and credibility, and boosting sales and leads, Celsius would also benefit from this partnership by being inclusive.
Through diversity and inclusion, the brand would benefit by having an African American woman represent their brand, showing they are involved and open to minorities. It also builds a community of equality and inclusion with consumers.
With that said, you should be running to look for an influencer to take your brand to the next level. What are you waiting for?
Happy Influencing!
