You might have purchased something in your life at least once, just because your favorite celebrity or influencer on social media promoted or talked about the product. Rings a bell? Well, in a nutshell, this is called influencer marketing.,

Today, influencer marketing has become one of the best marketing strategies to grow a business and is practically one of the best marketing methods. In the last few years, this type of marketing has grown immensely popular and has become an essential part of the marketing world. Let’s have a look at all this marketing strategy.

What is Influencer Marketing?

When a brand collaborates with an online influencer to market one of its products or services, it is known as influencer marketing. It is a powerful marketing approach that helps businesses reach their target audience in the most unique and authentic way.

But who are these “Influencers”? Influencers are not particularly celebrities (could be celebrities as well) or people who just say good things about your product or services. These are people who have spent a lot of time developing their own brand and identity and creating their own audience base.

What do influencers do?

Influencers use creative marketing techniques to reach people your brand or business cannot possibly reach through traditional advertising methods. Brands that have already employed influencer marketing and continue to do so know well about its effectiveness. It helps immensely in building trust for your brand and drives impressive sales results.

Many marketers say that the ROI generated from influencer marketing is quite better than the ROI results of other marketing channels. There are different types of influencer marketing such as Affiliate marketing, social media takeover, unboxing, sponsored content, brand ambassador programs, etc. Now that we have understood what influencer marketing is all about let us have a look at its benefits.

Types of Influencers Marketing

Influencers vary in niches, followers, and other different aspects. Here are four types of influencer marketing you should know about.

● Mega Influencers

Mega influencers are more than just content creators on social media who have millions of followers. They are often referred to as “celebrity influencers who have earned the status of celebrities beyond social media, such as performers, musicians, actors, etc. They have massive reach, become the top brand ambassadors, and also possess high authority. They do not connect with individual followers and are difficult to reach out to.

● Marco Influencers

Marco influencers are also called mid-tier influencers and have followers ranging from 50K to 1 million. These influencers work on particular areas and topics, because of which they are somewhat capable of reaching the masses in the niches they work in. Fashion, fitness, home decor, etc. are some popular niches into which the macro influencers fall. Moreover, macro-influencers offer professional services as they have experience in those areas and are dedicated to managing their services.

● Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers’ audiences range from around 10K to 50K. They have a bigger follower base than nano influencers. These influencers also have a specific niche in which they work and are not considered celebrities. Micro-influencers are strongly able to connect with their audiences and provide solutions at the individual level. These influencers are very passionate about the niche that they have chosen.

● Nano Influencers

Nano influencers are the budding and newest group of influencers who have fewer followers (less than a thousand followers). These influencers work at the grassroots level and try to influence people locally and within their communities. Nano influencers strongly believe in their niche and achieve higher engagement rates. They connect with their audiences on a regular basis. The work of nano-influencers is cost-effective, and they are eager to collaborate with brands.

Top 4 Benefits of Influencer Marketing

There are numerous benefits to influencer marketing. Below are the top four benefits of influencer marketing.

● Helps in growing brand awareness

Marketers worldwide have reported that the use of influencer marketing has drastically boosted their brand awareness. When influencers share your brand’s story and mission with their follower base, it increases brand awareness, automatically expanding a business’s outreach and positioning online. Gaining brand awareness is not that easy, you need to reach the target audience who truly connects with you and relates to your brand as an influencer. Instagram influencer marketing has taken digital marketing to another level altogether. As Instagram has different features in which the influencers can creatively showcase the brand ideas. Hence, this platform majorly helps in brand awareness in an innovative way.

●  Enhances content strategy

It brings liveliness to your social media posts as it allows you to repost the influencer’s content and also reach out to their followers. This added number of followers can further help in creating user-generated content for you.

In terms of content strategy, having clear goals for reaching the right influencers for your brand is necessary. Only after making concrete goals does defining your target audience comes into being. For instance, take the example of Tinder, which hired influencers aged 18–25 to promote their app.

While strategizing the content, choosing campaigns tends to become important. Influencer marketing campaigns will include sponsored campaigns, guest posting, co-creation, discount codes, etc.

● Quality lead generation

The primary reason for brands to opt for influencer marketing is to generate leads. Marketers believe that this marketing channel helps majorly in scoring higher quality leads. As people are more confident and comfortable with the brands advertised by their favorite bloggers, it makes lead generation pretty easy. In order to generate quality leads, the best influencer marketing platforms are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.

●     Cost-effectiveness

What marketing technique is good without being cost-effective? None. It is a great way to drive better results at lower costs. Unlike other marketing channels, it does not come with repeated expenditure.

Influencer marketing is not just the “trend” anymore. It has now become very important in the marketing landscape more than ever. The way it helps in transforming the way people interact with brands and significantly grow their business makes it worthy of giving a shot.

Wrapping it up

Influencer marketing is a tested and proven tool to market any business. In this type of marketing, people create content and reach out to their potential consumers by adding value via content. On the other hand, even consumers can truly connect to their influencers and use the products and services that are being used by the influencers. This type of marketing helps both influencers and consumers have transparent communication about the product and services. In this way, the credibility of the brand increases, and customers feel secure and satisfied with the products.