4 Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Influencer Marketing

At Lustic Media we strongly believe in the power of influencer marketing to help establish your brand, grow your audience and connect with your customers. In fact, our entire business was built on the success of influencer marketing through our lifestyle brand Lustic Life, and so we like to think we know a thing or two about the power of influencer marketing.

Using influencer marketing can be a fantastic way to bolster your next campaign and we’re here to help make sure you get it right. But before we get into that, you might be asking yourself what exactly is influencer marketing and why should I care?

The Who, What And Why Of Influencer Marketing

In today’s world, influencer marketing typically stands for a form of social media marketing where brands will work with “people of influence”, AKA influencers, to promote their brand in order to reach new customers and build brand awareness, ultimately, generating new business.

Essentially an influencer is anybody with a strong influence. This can seem unhelpfully broad but it’s important to remember that influence can come in many forms. You might be surprised to learn that the first influencers in the history of influencer marketing can be traced back to the early 20th century. Any guess who might be the most popular figure in the history of influencer marketing.

(Hint: He’s making a list and checking it twice.)

That’s right, Santa Claus! Good old Father Christmas is considered to be the most popular figure in the history of influencer marketing (at least in western countries) and we all know the power of influence he holds!

Influencer marketing is nothing new - actors, politicians, sports stars and celebrities have all used their influence to endorse brands to increase sales and land themselves a healthy pay-check. And it’s safe to say we can all recount the name of a brand or product we know of, purely down to the marketing of an influencer.

Most commonly in today’s world, influencer marketing comes from social media influencers. Social media influencers typically have a strong following and good engagement to be of value to your brand or business. But it’s not all in the numbers, as we’ll find out in a moment.

To help you find ways to capitalise on influencer marketing (without giving freebies out left right and centre) we’ve broken it down into 4 helpful tips to bring maximum impact to your bottom-line through influencer marketing:

1. Boost Your Brands Engagement (with your current audience)

As a brand it’s often hard to put a “face” to your business or service let alone find one that also connects with your audience. As attractive as your CEO might be, perhaps he or she isn’t really the target demographic.

It’s no secret to learn people buy from people but there’s actual science behind it as Forbes breaks down here.

By partnering with an influencer who has the same values as your business and a similar potential demographic, your audience will be more inclined to connect with your brand through them. Influencer marketing provides one-to-one connection with your audience and allows you to diversify your brand voice, reaching and resonating with a greater variety of audiences.

Pro Tip:

First understand your existing audience, then find an influencer to match it. Consider things like age, gender, interests and location of your current audience when choosing an influencer to work with. Also consider the style of their content and the quality. Ill-fitting content will have the exact opposite effect and can devalue your brand and put your reputation on the line, so choose wisely.

2. Reach New Audiences

If you’re looking to reach new audiences or expand your current audience, influencer marketing could be your golden ticket. One of the key benefits of having an influencer promote your brand is that they carry authority. Their audiences trust them and listen to what they have to say and in turn will pay attention to and trust your brand. Choose your influencer well and they can provide you with a brand new, loyal, audience.

Pro Tip:

Make sure your research your desired audience demographics and find an influencer that aligns with them well. It’s not necessary for the influencer you choose to have a huge following, but ensure that their following matches your desired demographic and that they engage with them well.

3. Drive Sales

Using influencer marketing to drive sales to your business will of course depend on many different variables including your product, the price, the location etc. Driving immediate sales is marketing gold dust and harder to produce, but if you're prepared to be patient, the payout from influencer marketing can be big. With any type of marketing, timing is key, employ influencer marketing before the launch of a new product to gain hype or during a sale or promotion to draw attention.

Pro Tip:

Figure out what part of your sales funnel you’d like support with and find an influencer based on that. For example, if you need more brand awareness and loyalty, partner with someone who might produce more creative, editorial content on a longer term basis. If you need immediate sales, perhaps work with someone with a faster content turn-over with who’s chatty and will quickly be able to push content for your brand.

4. Add Credibility

The trust of your consumers is your most important marketing tool. If people don’t trust and believe in your brand, they will easily move to a competitor. The right influencers validation of your product can do wonders for your brand - it’s basically a referral, but on a much, much larger scale.

Make sure any influencer you partner with has good credibility and that their opinion matters to their audience. Neither a business nor an influencer should partner with someone that doesn't match their values or brand, it will ultimately have the reverse effect and could be damaging in the long run.

Pro Tip:

Make sure any influencer you plan to work with has both account credibility and well as thematic credibility. Micro-influencers (with followers of less than 10,000) can be perfect for this as they tend to have genuine and authentic connections with their following. This will mean the influencer’s audience is well-engaged and real (not to be underestimated) and that the influencer holds some real-life pull power when it comes to your desired audience.

Ultimately influencer marketing can be a huge asset to your marketing campaigns when done well. If you still have questions about how best you can implement influencer marketing into your marketing strategy, get in touch, we’d be happy to help!