5 Ways Influencer Marketing Benefits Your Business {Updated}
According to Nielsen’s study, 83% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than they trust brands. Discover how influencer marketing can boost your brand’s awareness, reputation, backlinks, and ROI.
Overly promotional marketing tactics don’t work anymore. Customers now expect honest, raw, and relevant experiences. This is exactly where influencer marketing comes into play.
For the most part, an influencer acts as a mutual friend. They connect brands and customers and help build a relationship between the two.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Your Business
Building a Diverse Backlink Portfolio
Influencer marketing can be a powerful link-earning tactic. The idea is to connect with an authoritative person in your niche and encourage them to link back to your content.
Influencers pour their hearts and souls into delivering value to their users and building their authority. Therefore, they only promote brands that are relevant to them and valuable to their audiences.
To earn a backlink, you need to offer something valuable and authentic. Conduct research, write an innovative eBook, or create an ultimate guide. Then, ask an influencer to link back to it as a valuable source of information.
You could also interview an industry player or cite their work. Then, ask if they’re interested in sharing it. Another approach is to send them your products. You can ask them to share their thoughts through a blog post, video content, or social media.
Backlinks are still one of Google’s most important ranking factors. Gaining a link from a highly authoritative site will boost your rankings. It will also improve your domain authority.
Increasing Reach and Brand Awareness
The top 50 Instagram influencers have over 2.5 billion followers combined. As of August 2019, Cristiano Ronaldo is the most followed individual on Instagram with 179 million followers.
Influencers already have an established audience. Being mentioned by a relevant influencer means you’re putting your brand in front of their audience.
Increased brand reach leads to greater awareness. Being endorsed by an influencer grabs their audience’s attention and makes them remember your brand. This can increase your website traffic, generate leads, and boost conversions.
To target the right audience, connect with the right influencer. Choose people who specialize in your industry. For example, if you’re a healthcare brand, connecting with a makeup artist won’t help. You need to target the same audience segments.
Here are some tips to find the right influencer:
- Conduct a simple Google search using advanced search operators like
inurl
,intitle
, orintext
. - Search for trending topics in your niche using tools like BuzzSumo.
- Move your research to social networks. Use hashtag tools like Hashtagify to identify the most relevant hashtags and who uses them.
Boosting Brand Reputation
Building your online presence is crucial, especially with so many similar brands. To stay competitive, you need to stand out and build trust.
Influencer marketing is highly customizable. Every aspect can be tailored to your needs, from creating content to tracking KPIs. This approach ensures greater brand consistency.
Influencers also care about credibility. They value the quality of the brands they promote, and their audience trusts this. Every mention of your brand will help build trust. It creates a perception of your brand as an industry leader.
Building Buzz Around Your Products and Improving Sales
Influencers are seen as trendsetters. They share the latest news and review new brands. Many brands send influencers products before they are available to the public.
By providing influencers with exclusive access, you can create buzz before launching a product. This increases awareness and helps boost sales.
Consumers idolize influencers’ opinions. Research shows that 22% of consumers shape purchasing decisions based on influencer endorsements. Moreover, 82% of customers follow micro-influencer recommendations.
Generating Greater ROI
Influencer marketing is more affordable than traditional ads, like TV commercials or print. It is also highly flexible. Campaigns can be customized to meet marketing goals and budgets.
Many businesses spend between $1,000 and $10,000 yearly on influencer marketing. Some even allocate up to $500,000 annually. This suggests influencer marketing is accessible for both small businesses and global brands.
The ROI is impressive. For every $1 spent on influencer marketing, companies earn $5.20 in media value. According to the 2019 State of Influencer Marketing, 90% of marketers say influencer marketing’s ROI is better than other channels.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool. It increases brand awareness, boosts backlinks, and builds authority. When used strategically, it saves money and generates a higher ROI.