Does Influencer Marketing Work in 2021?

The success of many companies proves that influencer marketing is a powerful tool. Motorola has generated over 11 million views and over 38 million impressions promoting its new series of phones via 13 influencers on Youtube – over 122,000 users visited the official page of the website thanks to that. H&M has used influencer marketing strategies since 2017 has partnered with fashion blogger Julie Sariñana and model Ela Velden, and n9t it has the largest Instagram following out of all fashion brands.

These are only a couple of examples of efficient influencer marketing work, but how brands and companies manage to achieve these great results? Here are some things to consider.

Does Influencer Marketing Actually Work?

94% of all brands and companies agree that influencer marketing (IM) is a good investment that does bring about its revenue. Moreover, every year, the sum of money planned to be spent on IM strategies grows and it will reach $10 billion in 2021. This fact confirms that this marketing trend is still hot and will only getting pace to take the leading positions in the future.

If you still doubt the IM effectiveness, consider the following statistics:

1. 80% of people working in the marketing agree that IM is effective (35% consider it very effective, 45% – effective, and 15% – neutral);
2. 71% of advertisers believe that both traffic and customer quality received from IM is much better than one from other marketing channels;
3. 89% of marketing experts admit that IM return on investment (ROI) is the same high or even higher than from other ad sources;
4. 70% of marketers will increase their budgets to spend on IM in 2021.

The main reason why marketers prefer IM to other marketing directions is KPIs achieved by companies thanks to it. The two most important ones are brand awareness and conversion. As a result, the effectiveness of such campaigns is explained in the following way:

• Brands build trust and expand their reach to a wider audience;
• Brand messaging is getting stronger;
• They impact the buying decisions of potential consumers;
• Their target audience more engaged and better-qualified one.

Someone may wonder whether there is any sense to exchange paid media to a digital one. However, the revenue you get from paid advertising on TV, radio, paper, AdWords allows returning only twice more ROI. When it comes to IM, these figures are much higher: every dollar spent on digital marketing brings about 11x higher ROI. Unbelievable influencer marketing statistics, isn’t it?

Why Influencer Marketing Works?

Billions of users visit social media platforms on a daily basis. They follow the lives of other people who share snapshots or videos. By doing so, they let followers believe that become an indispensable part of their lives and these people are worth their trust. Moreover, usually, a social influencer is a person who considers himself an expert in a certain sphere.

Most of the followers who subscribe to the account of this person share his vision of fashion, lifestyle, or healthy eating too. As a result, it gradually becomes an example to follow and a person to trust. The authentic feature allows influencer marketing to work in three different ways and to bring about benefits to businesses.

Your Trusted Friend

It is not a secret that teenagers and grown-up people turn to their close friends for advice, first of all. However, not each of us has the best friends to trust fully but there is still a necessity to get a recommendation from an expert.

When a user decides to follow one or another account, shares this person’s interests, communicates with him or her in the comments, the level of trust of this user grows every day.

As a result, this person has some impact on you and you would be more likely to follow his or her advice than someone else’s. Moreover, when a person is constantly sharing posts on a certain topic, it is clear that he or she is much more knowledgeable in this sphere, so these pieces of advice are supported by personal experience, deep knowledge of the market, professional testing, etc.

Look at the example of digital magician and influencer Zach King. He has recorded a video of how to collect an Easter bag quickly and easily suggesting an example of the way he does that. As a result, he advertises TargetStyle brand giving simple advice to his online friends.

View this post on Instagram

Who else does this to speed up their shopping? My friend @taza and I just figured out the fastest way to unload your cart! We're getting ready to celebrate an awesome Easter, all thanks to @TargetStyle. #ad

A post shared by Zach King (@zachking) on Mar 31, 2017 at 2:00pm PDT

Content Authenticity

The main reason why IM is at the top of modern marketing strategies is its authentic character. When we look at printed brochures, online banners or TV ads, most of us have doubts about the effectiveness of the product or service sold. With IM, the percentage of doubt is minimal since these posts are perceived as natural pieces of advice rather than advertising.

If earlier it was necessary to browse hundreds of reviews from experts or ask friends if their experience was successful to understand whether business or its product is worth your attention and trust. Now, such experts are among your social media friends and you can reach them at the click of a button or a couple of taps.

Modern influencers have learned how to keep their content real, so their promotional posts can be hardly distinguished from regular ones. They make certain products and services a part of their lifestyle and their followers believe that being ready to do the same.

Consider an example of several popular influencers who made their trip to a music festival a kind of promotion to BMW company. They shared their own experience of driving a car adding a couple of tags including #RoadToCoachella.

Brand Awareness

IM is a great solution for local brands and companies who want to increase the number of people who are aware of them. This approach works perfectly in influencer posts since it is enough to add a hashtag or/and mention a brand using @ to increase the number of people who will learn about it.

When a customer is able to recall or at least recognize a brand, there are high chances that he or she might once become a client of this business. The stronger brand awareness there is, the more successful this business will be according to experts. It means that IM makes a great job making brands go viral.

An example of the Tinder dating platform is great when it comes to the efficiency of IN in brand promotion. This new website was not known to a big number of people until several memes and comedians were invited to use their accounts and create a favorable reputation for a company.

How Effective is Influencer Marketing?

It is difficult to argue about the effectiveness of IM since hundreds of companies have developed successful strategies and achieved the goals set.

Have you heard of a popular TikTok platform? Not everyone knows that it was originally created in China and gained popularity in Asia, first of all. European and US markets were an unachievable goal for it until influencers were invited for this purpose. The company has built several local campaigns attractive over 100 influencers with the total campaign reach of 179 million users. As a result, people have not only learned about the platform providing 3.2 million engagements but also let the platform achieve unbelievable success. Naturally, the company has spent a 7-figure amount of money on 170 posts about TikTok, but ROI is 6 times higher.

It is not a secret that modern gamers and video fans no longer buy discs – they prefer digital versions of games and movies. However, Wal-Mart managed to complete an unbelievable mission to sell their gold disc with Star Wars Force VII: Force Awakens movie and room makeover thanks to a powerful IM campaign. The team had only 3 months before the release of the movie, so they developed a special hashtag and provided a link to a full movie collection by inviting 10 macro and mid-influencers (163 posts in total). They managed to achieve a 99% new customer reach, 6% engagement rate, 343k engagements, and 1.2 impressions on Instagram alone. There was a huge increase in website traffic (2.4 times higher) and a great boost in sales too.

As you can see, these are only some of the examples of how IM can benefit a company that has created an effective and well-considered advertising campaign.

Is Influencer Marketing a Good Choice for My Brand?

All brands are different and the effectiveness of IM for companies working in different directions will be absolutely different too. Sometimes, it is almost useless to invest in powerful marketing strategies on social media platforms since not all brands can boost their awareness or increase sales in this way.

For example, each of us realizes that Instagram is based on visually appealing content, so it is not suitable for advertising companies that produce machinery or working in agriculture. It is almost impossible to find large groups of IG users interested in this sphere. In fact, social media platforms are meant for entertainment, so it is a good choice for companies that provide any benefit for users, first of all.

If you are a brand that is thinking of hiring influencers for promotion, the first thing you should do is to Dec is if this type of marketing is a suitable option for your business. It is possible to get an answer to this question without any professional help. You can do simple research and check the online presence of your competitors, first of all. If they are active on social media websites and use them for advertising, you can follow their steps too. However, if their online presence on social media is minimal, there is no sense to invest big money in IM campaigns since their efficiency is questionable.

Some Things that Marketers Need to Consider

It goes without saying that the success of other companies that used IM guarantees other brands the same benefits. Unfortunately, hundreds or even thousands of such campaigns fail and the main reasons for that are mistakes made by companies, marketers, and influencers. No matter how appealing it sounds to have a celebrity to advertise your brand, the effect of such a campaign can be absent at all. Therefore, marketers and brands should consider several things before they dive into the pool of IM advertising.

Make a careful choice of influencer

It is not a secret that big numbers are not a guarantee of a high engagement rate and high conversion rates. Moreover, macro-influencers usually cooperate with several companies simultaneously, so they can devote less time to your brand. It is better to look for micro or even nano-influencers as well as local influencers first of all if you want to get visible results. They feature a better level of authenticity and communicate with a circle of people who are interested in the same area of interest. It means that you get access to a target audience that might become your potential leads.

However, it is important to remember that some influencers buy followers or grow their numbers artificially. It means that you will never achieve the desired results in working with them. That is why experts advise checking influencers you plan to hire using such popular services as Trendhero.io. It will prevent you from a rough mistake of wrong investment.

Set clear goals

It is very important to understand what results you want to achieve thanks to this exclusive advertising campaign. Depending on the goals set your IM strategies will be different too. Some brands want to boost brand awareness only or inform others about a new trend in company development, while others do wish to increase sales. As a result, you may target at an audience of different ages, sex, location, so clear goals are a necessity.

Decide how long you are going to cooperate with an influencer

A company should have a clear understanding of how many posts or videos it needs to achieve the goal set. This information is important for an influencer, first of all, as well as impacts the budget.

Consider if the company direction is suitable for social media promotion

It was mentioned that not all brands can be promoted via social networks, so it is necessary to check the online presence of your competitors before you decide to hire influencers.

Build an effective strategy

There is no sense to pay money to influencers if you have not created a detailed plan of how this strategy will be implemented in reality. It is important to figure out all the stages of the process with a number of goals to complete during them. Moreover, you should understand how long you are going to work with an influencer, a budget for the whole campaign, the type of content to be developed or improved by an influencer, etc.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that influencer marketing will only gain pace in 2021, but only for those industries that are suitable for this type of advertising. Every brand or company that plans to use influencer services should understand that key to the success of such campaigns is thorough preparation. It is not only important to find an influencer that will represent your company from the beneficial side but also meet a number of other requirements if you want to achieve the goals set.