There’s no doubt that influencer marketing is absolutely all the rage these days.

If you’ve noticed, just about everywhere you look, all kinds of different social media personalities are pitching different products and services to their followers. But how does it help you? What are the top benefits of influencer marketing?

Many marketers and their clients are still baffled by all of this, and still have questions about the importance of this form of marketing. So let’s break it down and explain this a bit further. Without further ado, let’s talk about…

The Top Benefits of Influencer Marketing

They Improve Brand Awareness

Without a doubt, influencer marketing is going to expand your reach and positioning in the market. Social media users can learn more about your brand, your story, and the all products or services that your business offers.

The contributions that influencers make in growing your brand awareness are easily one of the most prominent benefits of social media marketing these days. Additionally, partnering with an influencer who is capable of moving the needle will broadcast to people that your brand is a leader in your industry.

For smaller companies, and those breaking into a new market, brand awareness especially plays a critical role in sales. Don’t ignore this major benefit!

They Can Provide Massive Visibility & Reach

The use of influencer marketing helps brands overcome many of the obstacles that other marketing mediums face today.

As ad blockers become more common, in addition to people disliking obvious adverts, influencer marketing provides organizations a way to engage with consumers without being intrusive.

Marketers can create highly-effective influencer campaigns that reach millions of consumers by partnering with the right influencers. Tactfully vetting influencers based on both qualitative and quantitative factors helps brands select the ideal candidates for their campaigns.

Influencers allow you to market your products to everyone who follows them. You can find them within or even outside of an industry. However, you should know that some followers in industries that are similar to yours might not be as active in forum posts, but they may need to buy products from companies in your industry from time to time.

Influencers Help Brand Build Trust 

While it may seem complicated, influencer endorsements are based on a fairly simple ideology. By sharing content about a brand on social media, a celebrity, social media personality, or industry expert gives the brand instant credibility.

If an organization gets an influencer to mention and recognize its brand, it fosters a perception that the brand is trustworthy and an industry leader, based on the endorsement and sentiment of the influencer. Today’s business landscape requires building trust and authority.

Whatever industry you are in, there will always be competition. As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to get ahead. Of course, one of the problems is that buyers don’t always know which brands to trust. Whether you’re selling to businesses or consumers, it’s imperative to establish your brand as the one everyone can rely on. Unfortunately, trust develops slowly.

Influencers, however, have already been trusted by their followers. In order to build trust, you should only promote items that the influencer has deemed worthy of buying and using. In addition, the influencer spends time creating content that shows off the features of a product or service. Fashion, for example, involves simply showing how good it looks on them. Other cases require extended use trials.

You see, these influencers have a willing audience, regardless of how they test and advertise a product. Because the influencer is often someone just like them, they tend to engage heavily with their content. By sharing a common interest, people are able to form connections that can’t be created by a corporate marketing department alone.

Influencers Connect to “The Young” Consumers

Digital media is becoming increasingly popular among millennials, contributing to its popularity- and in a digital-first world, influencer marketing is a must if you want to appeal to the millennial or Gen-Z market. By attracting consumers from these audience segments, you gain access to one of the most profitable demographics and tremendous value to your brand.

Simply Put… Influencers Set Trends

You can create a campaign around an influencer’s review of your cool new product to put your brand in the spotlight. In their industry, influencers are the go-to source for information on new products. Audiences respect and often idolize influencers’ opinions in all fields, whether it is fashion, gaming, beauty, or fitness. Influencer marketing has this advantage, and this is one reason why it is so powerful and successful.

Influencers Can Reach Your Target Audience 

One of the problems brands have with traditional advertising is that they have to pay for it continuously. If you want to reach people through Google keyword search promotions, for instance, you have to compete with other brands. It’s basically an auction, and auctions are expensive. Like really expensive. When someone clicks on your ad, whether they buy something or not, you’ll pay.

An influencer, however, generally charges you a flat fee per post. There are times when you can even post something for the cost of a product or service. Everyone loves free stuff, right? Influencers may also be compensated by affiliate links and promotional codes that result in direct commissions.

Although there are many ways to compensate an influencer, they tend to either be a fixed payment or pay for actual conversions. As such, you generally do not pay for individual eyeballs that land on your site. Furthermore, when social media posts are shared, they reach beyond the influencer’s normal sphere of influence.

Quite simply, mentions on social media by influencers drive sales. Consumers are increasingly looking to influencers for advice on what products or services to buy. With the popularity of social media, you have increased your chances of reaching your target audience. We mean it when we say that influencer marketing can help you significantly grow your sales (and what company isn’t looking to increase sales?)

They Drive Conversions

Influencers have a natural ability to guide their followers toward a brand’s products or services. Consumers are increasingly turning to influencers to get recommendations on which products or services they should invest in.

More than 50% of today’s consumers look for recommendations from ‘influencers’, and 40% said they bought something after seeing it promoted or endorsed on Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter.

Improve Your SEO

Influencers can also help you improve your search engine optimization.

When your brand engages influencers, your website and social media profiles will receive more backlinks. Influencers, for instance, may have their own websites. They may place links to products they endorse on these websites. A social media post may include an affiliate link as another way to use backlinks. Alternatively, backlinks may point to websites operated by followers. There is no limit to the possibilities.

Influencers Help You Be Seen in the Organic Feed

It’s no secret that social networks prioritize material from individuals over business pages. Facebook, in particular, is terrible about this because it wants brands to buy advertising.

It is possible to bypass this problem by working with influencers. People are interested in influencers’ content because it is generally posted on personal social media accounts. In that case, branded content can appear alongside other content in their feed.

Clearly, influencer marketing is highly effective and desirable for marketers as a result of the benefits it offers. Even though it does require some extra work in cultivating and maintaining relationships, it has proven extremely effective for many companies.

Provides You with Fresh and Relevant Content

Despite the fact that marketers are generally creative, sometimes it can be difficult to understand your target audience. Furthermore, it is easy to get stuck in a rut and be afraid of trying new things, even when it is warranted.

With little effort from you, influencers create great content for your brand. In general, the content is created in the influencer’s unique style, allowing their audience to view your brand in a new light. You can’t beat that.

The impact of influencer marketing continues to grow as more marketers realize the power of influencer-generated content.

It’s All About Trust In The End

Marketing through influencers is a long-term strategy. A single influencer post will not significantly increase your sales figures (unless the influencer is Kylie Jenner). Influencer marketing should be viewed as a long-term strategy based on relationships, not just as a one-off promotion. It takes time to build trust between your brand and consumers, and the same holds true for influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing isn’t just about numbers; it’s also about building long-term relationships. By developing a strong relationship with an influencer, you can build a lasting partnership that can benefit both the influencer and the brand. In fact, approximately 37% of influencers work long-term with brands instead of partnering with them only one time.

Now, that’s something worth pursuing, as this crazy world of social media continues to grow and change.

We here are Dalex Design would love to help you with any and all of your social media and marketing needs. Learn more at www.dalexdesign.com or www.dalexsocials.com