Importance of Influencer Marketing
With the dynamic shift in social media marketing and methodologies and upraising of e-commerce, Influencer marketing has become an essential form of marketing brands cannot ignore.
In a recent 2019 survey conducted by The Influencer Marketing Hub, it is known that for every $1 spent on Influencer marketing, businesses are making $5.20.
Given the appealing ROI made in engaging influencer marketing, marketers are trying to understand the mechanics of influencer marketing to effectively utilize this form of marketing.
In this article, we are going to share with you what are the Effective Influencer Marketing Methods Brands Should Know!
Product Review
One great way to provide a credible preview of your targeted or newly launch product is through a product review, unboxing or pre-release by a Mega Influencer or a group of micro-influencers that is relevant to your brand image or relatable to your target audience.
Some companies may invite Influencers to a PR media event to share the product details and disseminate the product and some companies may just directly delivery the product to the influencer under a PR package with the product details included.
The few ways of engaging Influencer to work on this is either by directly hiring the shortlisted Influencer through a paid job partnership which will ensure a confirmation job done under a sponsored content model. The branding message may vary based on the pre-agreed terms of such collaboration, which generally come in the form of product placement in their videos or storyline, a product shoutout or simply using(or wearing) the product with the brand logo reflected etc.
Another alternative will be gifting the influencer or influencer platform through the above mentioned PR package, hoping that they create a product review video or post under a editorial basis which will be determine fully based on the intent of the influencer since it is mandatory.
Such boxing or review can be done in the form of videos shared on YouTube channel or images with details on the product review through the caption shared on Instagram, Facebook, blogs or any other suitable social media platform.
To further spread the reach, hash-tagging or tagging of multiple friends in the post can be done.
Sponsored Content
Similar to the Product Review mentioned previously, brands will hire (pay) the Influencer to post specific content determined by the brands.
Such collaboration may come in the form of professional curated content in relation to the product may be provided by the brands or Influencer curated content that includes specific key points requested by the collaborating brands.
The key difference between Sponsored Content option and Product Review option will the nature of the content.
Sponsored Content approach may require the Influencer to weave the brand into their storyline instead of directly going into the product features.
Contest and Giveaway
No one dislike freebies, so depending on the price point of your product, a budget could be allocated to allocate free product giveaways through social media contest conducted by the collaborating Influencer to provide excitement, induce hype/buzz and promote engagement about the product or services.
Some examples of contest dynamics formulated can come in the form of
- Incentivizing engagement by selecting a number of winners out of the best comment of product or services use as contest winner.
- Incentivizing product or USP knowledge sharing by selecting a number of winners that are able to answer product or product UPS oriented questions
- Incentivizing contest sharing by selecting a number of winners that fulfill the task of posting predetermine content, sharing and tagging a certain number of friends.
Selling or auctioning of products live on social media platforms
Due to the restriction of on site activities resulted from the Covid19 pandemic, Companies' active exploration and adoption of alternative selling platforms has indirectly resulted in a massive spike in sale activities on live social media platforms.
Live steaming has also become the preferred platform for Influencer to showcase their talents, engagement or acquisition of their fans/followers and also promoting of products from brands or companies they collaborate with.
Integrating the needs of companies and expertise of Influencers, it is no rocket science to understand reason why there has been increasing collaboration between companies and Influencers to Sell or Auction of collaborated products live on social media.
Discount Code Tracking and Conversions
Through the engagement of Influencer to either represent a brand or directly sell a product via social media, a unique discount code extended by the brands tagged backend to the Influencer can be used as a promotional perk to the engaged Influencer's followers and track the effectiveness of such collaboration through successful conversion upon utilization of such discount code.
Return of investment of the sale or sponsored post can be easily calculated through this method.