Influencer Marketing vs Paid Advertising: How do they differ from each other?
Marketing has stayed with us for a long time, however, it’s evolving!
There was a time when seeing your favourite celebrity in the TV ads worked the magic and now we have influencers opting for brand promotions. Things have changed, but the concept, idea and the execution remain pretty much the same.
Digital marketing came into the picture in the 1990s. Well, the digital space has been evolving from ‘getting your website found’ to ‘improving user experience, online presence’. It was October 27 1994 when the first online ad was posted!
We have come a long way!
So, how paid advertising is different from influencer marketing?
Brief Definition: Paid Advertising is where brands pay some amount to the platform where they are promoting content. Whereas Influencer Marketing is the one where brands pay a content creator for promoting their service.
Which one is better for your business? Let’s find it out!
Influencer Marketing vs Paid Advertising: The Complete Story
Marketing is an inevitable part of branding, and with the advent of digital marketing the competition has got more fierce and interesting.
There was a time when only the traditional form of advertising via radio, newspaper or television reached the viewers. But now we have ample possibilities to market a service or brand with a way more personalised and targeted content.
If you want to learn the evolution of advertising, then you must check out this article!
You will understand how the advertising world was formed, with the first mobile ad ever sent via SMS in 2000!
Now we have Influencer Marketing which has taken the advertising world to a new level. This form of marketing can be both free or paid; free when a user like you and me like a product and share online feedback, paid in the case of influencer marketing where the influencers get paid for the product promotion.
Which form of marketing is good? Should you choose the Influencer marketing or Paid Ads? We shall firstly check out the advantages and disadvantages of both the platforms and know what works best for you.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers are those creative and hardworking people who curate content surrounding the brand and publish it on their social media or the brand’s social media. This form of promotion is one among the trending and liked marketing methods. You can adopt this for improving the overall reach of your brand, improve brand awareness, focus on customer satisfaction, and show the consumers how much you care about them.
Find out the latest Influencer Marketing Trends ruling in 2021!
Advantages
- It’s your favourite content
- Builds brand awareness and authority
- Wins the trust among the audience
- Improves the SEO
- Creating content gets easy
- Focusing on your target audience
Disadvantages
- Finding the right influencer
- Measuring the effectiveness of the campaign
- Influencers with fake audience
- May be costly?
Spreadd helps you eliminate all the influencer marketing disadvantages so that you can know who is the real influencer, select them according to your niche and calculate the campaign effectiveness instantly. There are algorithms, that will provide you with the best suitable influencer options, along with the data that matches your goals. This way you can understand your customers well and create a strong brand loyalty!
Paid Advertising
Paid advertisements require the brand to pay a certain amount of money to the owner of the ad space which you are utilising for your promotion. Examples of paid advertising include the PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns, display ads, retargeting ads, social media ads, influencer marketing etc.
Yes, Influencer Marketing is one form of paid advertising where you are paying an influencer for increasing brand recognition.
Advantages
- Flexible campaigns
- Builds brand awareness
- Paid Ads are multipurpose
- Real-time results
Disadvantages
- Spamming can lead to blocking
- Costly
- High competition
- Could be skipped
- Fails to target a niche audience
What We Learned?
Both, influencer marketing and paid advertising have their own benefits.
Influencers create engaging content which is realistic, and since it is coming from a known identity whom you are following, makes the content attractive. People love the influencers they are following and would love to try something that is reviewed by their favourite influencer.
On the other hand, advertising is an effective method for targeting the specific audience. If you are looking to single out only a specific set of audience, then you can opt for paid advertising.
Therefore, both the marketing methods are effective depending on your need.
Can we adopt both the marketing methods?
Surely, you can keep your paid advertising like social media campaigns active along with the ongoing influencer marketing program. To do this, you can get in touch with the influencers and run a social media campaign along with them. This way you stay in touch with your actual target audience and also give the chance for new people to join in your community.
For Long-Term Planning & Execution
Influencer marketing wins here! It’s the best option to consider for long term planning and content marketing. Also, long-term branding gives the brand an authentic feel and makes it memorable for your audience as well.
