Alexis Kestler
After managing over 50 brand influencer campaigns, I‘ve seen firsthand the immense value influencers bring to a marketing strategy when done right.
Let me walk you through 14 compelling reasons every business should tap into influencer marketing.
A Quick Intro to Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing involves collaborating with influential social media users to promote your products. Also called "people-based marketing," it‘s the modern take on celebrity sponsorships.
There are several tiers of influencers based on their following size:
- Mega: 1M+ followers
- Macro: 100K-1M followers
- Micro: 5K-100K followers
- Nano: <5K highly engaged followers
While mega influencers have reach, micro and nano influencers often drive higher engagement and conversions due to their niche focus and connection with followers. To identify and manage campaigns, brands use influencer marketing platforms like Ainfluencer.
Now let‘s get into the multifaceted ways influencers positively impact brands…
1. Expands Brand Awareness and Reach
In my experience running influencer campaigns, the expanded awareness is unmatched. Influencers provide brands an amplified organic reach through highly relevant audiences and communities.
Even a single mention by a mid-tier influencer introduces your brand to tens of thousands of warm, targeted followers. Harnessing multiple strategically chosen influencers catapults your total reach as each tap into their own networks – compounding your growth.
2. Builds Trust and Credibility with Consumers
Consumers place much higher confidence in influencer recommendations over traditional ads. As an influencer marketing manager, I use this to position brands as trustworthy experts.
Survey data shows 92% of consumers trust an influencer over an ad or celebrity endorsement. The recommendations feel authentic coming from someone influential they admire.
That trust transfers onto endorsed brands, elevating consumer opinions.
3. Directly Drives Conversions and Sales
While trust is harder to quantify, sales should speak for themselves when it comes to ROI. Based on my influencer program experience, returns typically exceed 6X.
Data backs this up as well, with influencer marketing generating $6.50 on average for every $1 spent. The conversion value comes from influencers directly showcasing products to hyper-targeted followers ready to purchase.
4. A Natural, Cost-Efficient Alternative to Traditional Advertising
Today‘s consumer largely ignores disruptive ads while consciously shifting focus onto value-driven content from influential figures.
In fact, over 25% leverage ad blockers just to avoid ads. This directly destroys conversion potential.
Alternatively, influencer-created content earns attention rather than disrupting. And their cost per impressions runs cheaper than digital ads. Talk about a value-add.
5. Turnkey High-Quality Content Marketing
Micro and macro influencers are content creation engines. I‘ve seen firsthand how one influencer partnership gives a brand months worth of assets, spanning posts, Stories, Reels and more.
This creative content also outperforms branded content shared directly. When integrated within their profiles, the content feels native rather than intrusive.
6. Built-in Affiliate and Ambassador Programs
Rewarding influencers through custom affiliate links or promo codes tracks sales while incentivizing continued partnership.
After a few initial collaborations, micro influencers often happily become brand ambassadors – promoting launches, discounts and products to their loyal followers.
7. Increased Web Traffic and Conversions
Influencer content converts. Simple as that. When I analyze campaign performance, website traffic and sales consistently spike in conjunction with influencer posts going live.
In fact, influencers deliver over 11X more site traffic than standard digital ads according to one study. Traffic quality stands strong as well, driving conversions.
The below chart demonstrates the conversion growth from an example beauty influencer campaign driving traffic to the brand‘s online shop.
Chart showing 3X website traffic increase during influencer campaign
8. Expanded Social Media Community
Curating your own organic social media community takes serious time and resources. Influencers hand over followers by the thousands.
Any nano or micro influencer simply mentioning your brand or profile racks up follows and impressions from their audience. This expands your potential reach for future marketing efforts.
9. A Cost-Efficient Marketing Channel
Brands spend 28% of their annual marketing budget on influencer campaigns according to HubSpot. Compared to other channels, influencer marketing provides strong ROI at modest investment levels.
Nano-influencers cost just $10-25 per Instagram post as one example. The targeting, trust and conversions generated at that price is unmatched through other options.
10. Zone in on Target Audiences
Influencers attract hyper-targeted niche audiences that precisely align with partner brands. For example, a keto food influencer has honed in on followers specifically interested in high-fat, low-carb products rather than a broad foodie demographic.
Narrowing focus through targeted influencer partnerships directly improves campaign resonance and conversions. I constantly guide clients in aligning selected influencers with ideal buyer personas.
11. Predict Expected Campaign Performance
When vetting influencer partners, historical engagement levels forecast potential reach. Platforms like Ainfluencer even quantify expected campaign results based on performance data.
I analyze factors like engagement rate, clicks, conversions and audience feedback to set campaign benchmarks and optimize partnerships for maximum ROI.
12. Cultivate authentic Influencer Relationships
The most successful brand/influencer partnerships transform into long-standing relationships driving awareness, trust and sales over years not months.
Brands that inspire influencers through values-based messaging and ambassador programs nurture genuine connections with these micro-celebrities and their networks.
13. Earn High-Quality Backlinks Improving SEO
Most influencer-created content links back to your site as the source or offers additional context. Each backlink signals search engines like Google to elevate your authority and content rankings.
The high-quality sites, keywords and context of influencer backlinks perfectly optimize search visibility.
By collaborating with bloggers and content-first influencers you attract links that can directly improve SEO positioning.
14. Leverage Niche Influencer Expertise
Vetted influencers deeply understand the wants, needs and interests of their dedicated followers better than anyone. They know which messaging and content resonates.
Tapping into their expertise through co-creation and thought partnerships generates content with the highest engagement and conversion potential compared to branded creative.
Start Driving Results with Influencers
As you can see, influencer marketing ticks all the boxes when it comes to expanding awareness, generating conversions and elevating authority. Compared to traditional ads and organic posting, collaborating with niche influencers wins in terms of return on investment and overall performance.
For any modern brand marketing strategy, influencer partnerships should play a key role.
The hardest aspect comes in identifying and building relationships with the ideal influencers for your business. That‘s where platforms like Ainfluencer come in. They enable brands to efficiently discover vetted influencers in any niche, understand their audience and past performance then directly contact them to establish partnerships.
I highly recommend exploring influencer marketing this year to maximize your marketing budget and expand your consumer base. The profits and expanded brand visibility are well worth initial upfront investment.
Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions on running successful influencer campaigns!
