Macro Influence vs. Relevance, What’s Wrong with Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns?
In 2017, Influencer Marketing Hub conducted a study on the state of Influencer Marketing and it was discovered that, for every business spending an average of $1 on Influencer marketing, $7.65 was received as profit.
Those in the top 15% tier earned higher than $20 on average for each $1 they spend on Influencer marketing.
This study also showed that the term “Influencer marketing” had a 325% increase in searches per month. In the first quarter of 2017, Influencer marketing was responsible for 28% of online customer-acquisition. 67% of businesses also said they planned to increase their Influencer marketing budget over the next 12 months.
Many business have taken this study to heart and have thrown a huge percentage of their earnings into Influencer marketing resulting in an audience that tunes out once they see ‘#ad #spon #Sponsored #collab’. Those who remain averse to the Influencer marketing trend are still on the edge, believing it to be a complex landscape to navigate.
Both parties hold valid points as it requires a very strategic plan and optimization so it can work effectively.
First you need to understand:
Influencers Exist For Every Niche
Think of any category/niche — food, video games, beauty, business, finance, entrepreneurship — there is at least one Influencer in these niches. These niches go on further to have sub-niches and Influencers, exist as authorities or thought leaders whose following is keen to hear their thoughts on a particular event.
Take for instance, the most followed influencers of 2018: Logan Paul, actor and video gamer, Huda Kattan, makeup artist and beauty blogger; Zach King, a social media magician; Josh Ostrovsky, comedian, actor and entrepreneur.
All have taken advantage of the rise of the social media inclined generation and are thus, using their platforms not to just to entertain but to help smaller (and even bigger brands) reach their target market.
Visibility vs. Authenticity
Now because of the large following some of these Influencers have, content shared on their channels usually get high visibility and this makes it ‘easy’ to equate Campaign Reach with the success of the campaign.
You would discover that a lot of marketers are constantly chasing the ‘numbers’ seeing that it is typically more affordable to leverage Influencer audience than it is to buy exposure in the traditional media space (TV, Radio, Billboards etc).
Then again, the successful Influencer already has everything brands will like their brands to be associated with — youthfulness, visual style, approachability, uniqueness — and then they try to translate this to Ad Revenue.
In some cases, these collaborations are not perfectly matched but because of the potential reach that the Influencer has, some brands are willing to do away with relevance and authenticity.
How to Properly Leverage Influencer Marketing
Thankfully, brands and marketers alike have begun to realize that indeed not all of the reach generated by these macro-influencers translates into actual measurable revenue. Again, this is backed up by research as an Influencer marketing company Collective Bias, found that non-celebrity Influencers are 10 times more likely to drive in-store purchases than their celebrity counterparts.
The closer an influencer or referrer is to the audience, the more powerful the recommendation.
This mean there needs to be a shift to Niche Content Creators aka Micro influencers - whose audience is considerably smaller yet, with a significantly higher conversion rate than would be observed when a collaboration is done with an Influencer with a larger following.
Micro-influencers have more authority and relevance in a specific area and because of the “relatability” to their normal day-to-day lives, your audience (your market) feels more connected than they would have been with macro-influencers.
For example, you don’t expect a video game influencer to convince anyone to buy lipstick. In the end you may be connecting to a significantly smaller audience, but you can be sure of higher engagement since it’s an area that will be of interest to your prospective consumers.
The Most Relevant Micro Influencer of them all
If you want to really pursue Influencer marketing, there is one micro-Influencer you can’t afford to neglect and that is The Customer that refers others in their sphere of influence.
We mentioned before that you need to make it easy for your current customers (who love your brand), to recommend it.
Map out loyalty schemes, referral programs discount codes and other retention programmes that stem from referring others, for your current customers.
Remember, the most important Micro-influencers are right in front of you — customers, employees, contractors, vendors — and their experience matters a whole lot.
In conclusion, it is very important for businesses, startups inclusive, to take advantage of the power of the Micro Influencer and their place in a wholesome marketing strategy.
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