Why is influence Marketing trending and how to use it effectively?
As an educational program. Influence Marketing is a tool for promoting a product with the help of opinion leaders (stars, bloggers, public figures).
Back in 2017, Internet advertising budgets around the world exceeded the turnover of television advertising. And every year the gap increases. It is understandable. Videos that show happy owners of cars, watches, or dumpling eaters are catching the audience less and less.
People are tired of intrusive offers and trust those they know.
According to the Institute of Public Opinion, a pollster, 60% of the audience trust the information received from bloggers. Such integrations do not look like advertising in the usual way. Rather, as a recommendation, a friendly advice from a person you trust.
Therefore, influence marketing is becoming more and more popular.
I share five life hacks on how you can effectively use influence marketing in your business
Don’t prioritize the number of subscribers
It is not necessary to go to Dudu or Timati. Work with so-called micro-influencers (10-20 thousand subscribers) and influencers (up to 100 thousand). They usually have an active and loyal audience. With the right selection, they will give a very cool result. The age, interests and social indicators of his CA should coincide with yours.
Make sure that the blogger has a lot of comments and reposts. Don’t be lazy and read them. If there are the same reactions, or comments from bots, then the account is screwed up. Ask the blogger for statistics. Use the LiveDune service, it provides good social network analytics.
Start with those who are willing to work for free
There are a huge number of bloggers with an audience of about 5,000 subscribers who will advertise to you for free.
A couple of months ago, our client, who has a chain of pizzerias in Ukraine, opened an institution in Uman. We found 15 such local bloggers, invited them with friends and promised to treat them to three pizzas and drinks. All 15 gladly agreed, filmed a story and made a post that a cool pizzeria had opened in Uman. The client received +1200 local followers on his Instagram.
Local “stars” are not spoiled by attention. Treat them, give them something, surprise them. They will be very pleased and they will easily agree to advertise your product.
By the way, such gifts work great with celebrities. But here it is important to beat everything beautifully. So that it doesn’t look like, “here’s a gift for you, and you advertise.” Surprise them, make pleasant surprises for them without any obligations and they will tell you about your product themselves. But this is not accurate :)))
Make your integration native
Top opinion leaders have a whole team that participates in the process of preparing advertising. Screenwriter, director, copywriter, cameraman, editor, etc. All of them are working hard to fit your advertising as organically as possible, to do it in an original and not stressful way.
But 95% of other bloggers do not have such an opportunity. And most of them don’t care at all how your advertisement comes in.
Therefore, you have to come up with everything yourself. A cool idea that will grow into a detailed scenario. Adjust the material to the needs of a specific audience (terminology, phrases, jokes, manner). The main goal of native advertising is to give the user really high—quality and useful information that will not prevent him from spending time on the Internet as he wants.
Then your advertising will bring the most cool effect.
Let your customers promote your business
Attract your customers to advertise your product. Give them a discount or a gift for a review on the site (google, yandex, otzovik, irecommend, etc.). Let them write about you in their social networks. networks. Conduct various promotions, referral programs, etc.
And if you tie gamification here, there will be a super result.
For example, we have been doing all the launches for Ready to Race for three years. This year, as part of their drifting festival, Drift Expo, we launched an interesting activity.
To take part in it, it was necessary to leave more comments and likes to all our posts. We have developed a points system. For a comment — 1 point, for a like 5 points, for a like among the first 15 people — 20 points, etc. Every week we summarize. The winners will receive a free ticket to the event. We gave 12 tickets for the whole time. As a result, coverage and engagement increased by 30% compared to last year.
Go beyond social networks
Instagram Facebook and Youtube are good, of course. But there are other sites. Especially if you have a highly specialized product.
For example, forums, blogs, sites. But there you can find your direct audience who is ready to buy. If you have a local business, be active on the forum of your city. Women’s, Financial, Legal, Medical, Construction, Automotive… All these are platforms where you can and should work.
Create branches, work with opinion leaders, buy advertising, etc. To find the best forums on your topic, use forumrate. There are excellent analytics and statistics.
Influence marketing is a great tool to attract new customers and retain old ones.
As you understand, there are many different formats and features here. Experiment, make creative integrations, look for promising sites and you will be surprised how effective this type of promotion is.
Maybe you have an interesting experience, or vice versa, mistakes that you made when working with bloggers. Share it in the comments — it will be valuable!